Transitioning Your SUNY Oswego Accounts After Graduation

As an alumnus, we ask that you review the data associated with your SUNY Oswego account and follow these best practices to ensure University information is properly protected and retained. 

Review and manage University data
It is a best practice to remove any data no longer needed within your account, especially any containing personally identifiable information (PII). This is for security reasons and to free up space within the Google domain. To help accomplish this: 

1. Review your data usage.

2. Make note if your storage complies with the SUNY Oswego Google Storage Policy.

3. Review files stored in your SUNY Oswego account (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Sites, etc.).

   1. See the Managing Your Google Storage Quota article for steps and tips.

4. Transfer University-related files to departmental shared drives or assign ownership to a current employee.

5. Do not download University data to personal devices or personal accounts.

If you were collaborating with a club or group on a project, transfer ownership/membership as needed for documents, folders, and Shared Drives, such as with Google Shared Drives and Microsoft Shared OneDrive files. Anyone who is still a member of that shared drive will retain their access to the files and folders within it, according to the permissions they were granted (e.g., Viewer, Commenter, Contributor, Content Manager, Manager). While others will likely still have access, your specific access will be revoked when you leave SUNY Oswego. You will no longer be able to view, edit, or otherwise interact with the files in those shared drives, including documents you created. See Google Support pages and Microsoft Support pages for how to manage shared content and drives.

See the instructions for Alumni Transfer of Google Data.

Note: CTS recommends that Google Photos be downloaded, not transferred. See the next step.

Important Next Steps

1. Delete SUNY Oswego Google storage, including trash folders
   1. After emptying the trash, it may take 24-48 hours for your total storage usage to indicate that you've reduced your storage. Come back after 24-48 hours to confirm that your storage usage has decreased and is below the quota threshold for Alumni accounts.
2. Verify Step 1 above.

Alternatively, you may use Google Takeout without transferring to another Gmail account. You can download the data to a separate file that can be uploaded to another application or account. Here are some items to consider first.

Before you start: 

• Consider organizing mail into labels if you only wish to download some emails. The takeout tool may default to saving certain mail labels, such as inboxes and drafts, but the settings can be customized by selecting "All Mail data included" from the takeout tool options.
• Furthermore, consider that the file size may not be uploaded to another Gmail account unless you have enough space. Check your storage space in the account you wish to upload to drive.google.com/settings/storage. If you wish to clean up the Gmail storage size before downloading, review our Managing Your Google Storage Quota article.

Google Data (Google Drive, Gmail, Google Sites, Gemini, NotebookLM, etc)

1. Organize your Gmail data into separate labels so that institutional data is not downloaded. Apply personal data to a label.

2. Navigate to Google Takeout on a computer browser.

3. Select the personal data to include in the export.

   • All Google services are automatically selected. 

   • To select individual services, click Deselect all, and check the boxes next to the Google services that you want to include in your download.

4. Verify file types by selecting the Multiple Formats option on each Google service with the available option.

5. Select Next Step

6. Select the transfer destination:

   • Download link via email (recommended)

   • Do not choose to add your archive to Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive as this will increase your storage quota.

7. Select Export Once for the frequency

8. Click Create export.

9. Wait for an email confirming the download is ready. It may take a few days to complete. To check on the download status, visit takeout.google.com/takeout/downloads. CTS cannot assist with the download process.

10. From the email, click each ZIP file link to download.

11. In your computer's download folder, right-click on each ZIP folder to Extract. 

12. Verify the files are working as expected. You may choose to upload those files to personal accounts.

13. Once you have verified the files are working as expected, you may choose to delete the ZIP files (optional).

Google Photos Download

CTS does not recommend using Google Takeout for Google Photos. Instead, follow the steps below to manually download your photos.

Using the Google Photos App (Mobile Devices)

• If you use the Google Photos app, start with Step 1.
• If you have not signed into your SUNY Oswego account on your mobile device before, skip to Downloading Photos Using a Computer Browser.
• If you are ready to delete your photos, skip to Deleting Google Photos.

1. Open the Google Photos app if your mobile device has a backup of your photos.

2. Select the profile icon in the upper-right corner and verify that the SUNY Oswego account is selected.

3. Select the profile icon again.

4. Scroll down and select Photos settings.

5. Ensure that Backup is turned off.

   • If you are using the Sharing feature, download any photos you wish to keep, as sharing will no longer function once account access is removed.

6. Select the back arrow in the upper-left corner to exit settings.

7. You may still see photos with a cloud icon and check mark. These photos are still stored in the Google Photos cloud storage.

8. Verify that any photos you want to keep are saved elsewhere, such as on your phone or computer.

Downloading Photos Using a Computer Browser (Recommended)

If you are unsure whether photos are stored locally, or if you need to download a large number of photos, use a computer browser.

1. Sign in to photos.google.com using your SUNY Oswego account.

2. Select the photos you want to download.

   • Select all (computer browser): Click the first photo, scroll to the last photo, hold the Shift key, and click the last photo.

3. Click Download to save the photos as a ZIP file.

4. Open the ZIP file in your Downloads folder and extract the contents.

5. Verify that all photos downloaded successfully.

Note for mobile devices:
To select multiple photos in the Google Photos app, press and hold the first photo, then scroll while holding. This method may result in duplicate selections.

Deleting Google Photos (After Downloading)

Important: Do not delete photos from the Google Photos mobile app. Deleting photos there may also remove them from your mobile devices.

1. On a computer browser, navigate to photos.google.com.

2. Select all photos.

   • Click the first photo, scroll to the last photo, hold the Shift key, and click the last photo.

3. Select the Trash option.

4. Open the Trash folder.

5. Select all photos in Trash using the same Shift-click method.

6. Select Delete permanently.

7. Allow up to 48 hours for Google storage usage to update.

Verify the Photo quota is 0 GB at drive.google.com/settings/storage.

Important Next Steps

1. Delete all remaining SUNY Oswego Google storage, including items in trash folders.

2. After emptying the trash, allow 24–48 hours for storage usage to update.

3. Return after 24–48 hours to confirm that your storage usage is below the quota threshold for Alumni accounts.

4. Verify that all steps above have been completed successfully.

1. Unlink OneDrive from your computer.
2. Uninstall the Microsoft 365 applications associated with your SUNY Oswego subscription from your Windows or macOS device. Install Microsoft Office using your new personal subscription or one-time purchase. Sign in with your personal Microsoft account to activate it or access the free web version on your web browser at office.com.
   1. Uninstall Office from a PC (microsoft.com)
   2. Uninstall Office for Mac (microsoft.com)
3. To stop Microsoft sites from auto-logging in as the SUNY Oswego account, clear your browser's cache and cookies for all time and delete the SUNY Oswego browser profiles.

Alumni and non-active students are advised to Move their Adobe assets and follow any additional steps. You can migrate to a personal account by going to graduation.adobe.com. Be sure to download any assets before graduating or leaving SUNY Oswego to prevent data loss.

See our instructions for How to Migrate a YouTube Channel on an Oswego (Google) Account to a Personal Channel Account. 

Alumni and non-active students are advised to move their Adobe assets and follow any additional steps. You can migrate to a personal account by going to graduation.adobe.com. Be sure to download any assets before leaving SUNY Oswego to prevent data loss.

Consider all the places that you might use your SUNY Oswego Gmail account. For example, do you use it to log into other accounts? If the answer is yes, follow the steps below to transition to another email account.

1. Find all website logins/accounts associated with your SUNY Oswego Gmail, such as:

   1. Banking

   2. Legal

   3. Bill pay

   4. Medical

   5. Shopping sites

   6. Subscriptions

   7. Social media

   8. Other email services(Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Outlook)

2. Sign in to those accounts to change the email address for account access and notifications.
3. To verify if you forgot any accounts, you may check through the SUNY Oswego account and password manager. 
   1. Log in to your SUNY Oswego Gmail at oswego.edu/mail or use the Gmail app on your smartphone.
   2. Click your profile icon and click Manage your Google Account
   3. On the left menu, choose Security
   4. To see all websites that use your email to log in, scroll down to Password Manager and select Manage Passwords. (Recommended: This will allow you to see the login information saved for that account from the last time it was updated. We recommend going through this list of logins for which you would like to switch to your personal account and going to those sites to update the contact/account information.)
   5. To see all apps and services linked to your Gmail account, scroll down to Your connections to Third-party apps & services and select See all Connections
   6. Delete or Remove Connections and Stop using Sign in with Google after switching these accounts to another email account.

1. Linked Accounts (Oswego email already connected to LinkedIn profile)

• If your Oswego.edu email is linked to an existing LinkedIn.com profile, your learning history is tied to your personal LinkedIn account.

• When your Oswego email is deactivated after graduation/retirement, your courses, certificates, and progress remain in your personal LinkedIn profile.

• Action needed: update your LinkedIn account’s primary email address to your personal one (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) so you don’t lose access to your profile and course records.
   

2. Unlinked Accounts (Oswego email used only for LinkedIn Learning, no LinkedIn.com profile)

• If you used LinkedIn Learning only through Oswego, without linking it to a personal LinkedIn.com account, your course progress and certificates are stored only under your Oswego email.

• Once the Oswego email is deactivated, direct access ends.

To download Zoom cloud recording files to your computer:

1. Go to oswego-edu.zoom.us/recording
2. Either click Export at the top right to download all recordings or click More (the ellipsis) next to the recording you wish to download, then click Download

Google Sites cannot be directly transferred outside the university's system. If you built a professional e-portfolio using Google Sites, you need to manually copy the site to your personal account to keep it.

• How to Transfer:

1) Share the site with your personal email (as an Editor/Owner).

2) Log into your personal account, open it and use the "Make a copy" option.

3) You must publish the copied site from your personal account to a new, non-university URL.

Post-Transfer Check: The copied site will have a new web address (URL). Be sure to re-embed any files (like Docs or images) that were stored in your university Google Drive.

Note: The original site published under your university account (e.g.,sites.google.com/university.edu/mysite) will become inaccessible to the public the moment your university disables your account.

Incorrect Password: You may change your known password at oswego.edu/account-tools. For those unable to sign into Account Tools, use the Forgot Your Password option. Contact the CTS Help Desk for further assistance.

NEW Multi-Factor Authentication Method: Use a trusted device to sign into oswego.edu/mail or the Gmail app to make the updated changes and add backup methods. When signing in, use the "Sign in Another Way" option to select from the methods you set up. See oswego.edu/cts/mfa for setup instructions. If you cannot sign in with any MFA method, contact the CTS Help Desk for further assistance.

Alumni Recovery: Ultimately, the CTS Help Desk will be able to review your account status for your next steps to gain access back to your account. See the Alumni Account FAQ article for more information.

Request Alumni Recovery

We make every effort to communicate when content is at risk of deletion. Sometimes content can be automatically deleted as part of the account lifecycle, where we deactivate and then delete accounts that were used by people no longer affiliated with the university. If an account holder repeatedly ignores our attempts to contact them to assist with lowering usage, and no active engagement or reduction has occurred, account deactivation and data removal will be processed. See our Alumni Account Renewal page with recent deadlines and the “Storage Quotas” section of our Alumni Account FAQs for more information.

Google announced a new model for Google Workspace for Education that will end unlimited storage for SUNY Oswego accounts. Google changed its offering to ensure fair distribution of the storage resources across institutions. Likewise, to maintain a storage level at an acceptable threshold and allow for future growth, the Alumni quota of 15 GB with Gmail only will be applied.

Due to Microsoft 365 Education licensing requirements, graduating students will lose access to web services and data. 

   Switch your CashNet email to a personal email if you need to continue making payments on your bill.

 Transcripts are ordered through Parchment. Review transcript order information from the Registrar's website: oswego.edu/registrar/transcripts. Your campus ID# and myOswego login are not required.