Saint Mary's College Alumnae and Google Workspace for Education

All Google Workspace accounts for alumnae who graduated before May 2025 have been transitioned to “Gmail Only Accounts” on May 5, 2025, as scheduled. This change was necessary to accommodate storage and licensing changes imposed by Google. We thank you for understanding that we cannot accommodate requests to retrieve data now that the transition deadline has passed.

We can confirm there are issues with the Gmail app for iOS accessing Saint Mary’s alumnae e-mail accounts, and we have reported the issue to Google. The issue is not occurring on the Android version of the Gmail app. You can still access your Saint Mary’s e-mail using the web interface at www.google.com or by adding your Saint Mary’s e-mail account to Apple’s Mail app on your iPhone/iPad.

Beginning Monday, April 21, changes will impact all Google Workspace for Education accounts used by the graduates of Saint Mary's College.

Saint Mary’s College began using Google Workspace for Education (previously known as Google Apps for Education) for e-mail accounts in January 2013. With the move to Google, alumnae were able to retain their saintmarys.edu e-mail accounts and use all of the other features of Google Workspace that Saint Mary’s offered.

In February 2021, Google announced that their Google Workspace for Education offering would no longer include unlimited storage space. They began imposing storage limits on educational institutions in July 2022. Saint Mary’s still had a significant amount of available storage at that time, so this was not an immediate concern.

In November 2024, Google announced that they would start limiting the number of Google Workspace for Education licenses available to educational institutions. With this policy change, Saint Mary’s must closely manage our available licenses to ensure our incoming students and new employees will have access to Google Workspace.

To accommodate the changes they made, Google is offering “Gmail Only User” licenses to educational institutions. These new licenses will not count against the full Google Workspace for Education licenses necessary for our current students, faculty, and staff. Saint Mary’s will move all alumnae accounts from full Google Workspace for Education accounts to Gmail Only User accounts.

Once the transition to Gmail Only User accounts is made, alumnae will only have access to their saintmarys.edu e-mail, calendar, contacts, and be able to join Google Meet sessions. Files saved on Google Drive and Google Photos cannot be recovered after this transition occurs.

All alumnae with student e-mail accounts ending in @saintmarys.edu in Google Workspace for Education will be affected. The timeline for the changes will vary based on the date of your graduation.

For details, please refer to the appropriate section below:

• Saint Mary's students graduating in May 2025 or later
• Saint Mary's graduates who graduated prior to May 2025
• Frequently Asked Questions

Extensions for having alumnae accounts transitioned from full Google Workspace accounts to limited accounts for saintmarys.edu e-mail access will not be granted.