Student accounts (including email accounts) are deleted one year after your last class at ODU, whether you graduate, transfer or decide not to register for additional classes. Before you lose any of your important files, you may want to migrate your data to a personal account or to another service:
Migrate Google Data
Before you do anything, verify the amount of data you have stored in your ODU Google account, and clean up any files that you no longer need in Google Drive before migrating or archiving.
Depending on when you were admitted, your Google data may include email in addition to any files you have in Google Drive. Students admitted before February 1, 2023, were issued student Gmail accounts.
Option 1: Migrate your Google data to a personal Google account (recommended)
Google allows you to migrate your email and Drive data from one Google account to another (from your ODU account to a personal Gmail account, for example). Most personal Google accounts only include 15 GB of total storage space, though, so be mindful of the amount of data you need to migrate and the amount of space available in the account you're migrating to. If you need more space, you might want to purchase additional storage from Google.
Shared files: Any files that have been shared from your ODU Google Drive will lose their permissions. After the file is transferred to your personal account, you'll need to re-establish sharing permissions from the new location.
Troubleshooting migration issues
If you run into any trouble using this method to migrate your data, try the following:
- Before you start the migration, make sure that you are not logged in to both accounts in the same browser at the same time. It's not enough to simply close one of the browser windows; you need to completely log out of your personal account by using the log out button. Confirm that your student account is the only one that you are logged into before you hit transfer, or the migration will fail.
- Make sure you have enough available storage in your personal Google account to hold the data from your student account. If you need more space than the standard 15 GB that comes with a free Google account, you'll need to purchase additional space or delete some things.
- You may get an error when transferring large amounts of data between Google accounts. If this happens, try again until the migration kicks off.
Option 2: Archive/download your ODU account with Google Takeout
Use Takeout to download your files to a hard drive or to another service like Microsoft OneDrive. Again, be mindful of your storage requirements when exporting/archiving your data for long-term retention.
Note: This method is not ideal for archiving email that you want to import and use in another system, as the resulting .mbox files can only be read in limited email clients. If you need to keep your messages "functional," migrate your email to another Gmail address using the recommended method above.
Migrate OneDrive Data
There are no tools that will automatically migrate your OneDrive files to a personal account, but you can either manually download files from OneDrive online or sync your files to a folder on your computer using the OneDrive client. Once your student account is deleted, you will lose access to OneDrive on the web, and the OneDrive client will stop syncing your files.
Option 1: Download your data from the web
You can download files and folders from Microsoft OneDrive to your computer with just a few clicks.
Option 2: Use OneDrive Client sync
Download OneDrive to your computer (Windows 11 comes with OneDrive pre-installed), sign in using your ODU (student) email address and MIDAS password, and sync your data to a folder on your computer. Once ODU removes your student accounts, the sync will break, but the files will remain on your hard drive.
- Microsoft: Sync files with OneDrive in Windows
- Microsoft: Sync files with OneDrive on macOS
- ODU: Using Microsoft OneDrive
Note: When using this option, make sure that your files are stored locally (on your computer's hard drive). Files On-Demand is a feature that saves disk space on your computer by keeping your files in the cloud and off your hard drive. However, when you're offline – or when your OneDrive account is deleted – you lose access to any files that have not been downloaded to your computer, unless you tell it to download all files.
Set Files On-Demand to download all files (Windows):
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Open OneDrive settings (select the OneDrive cloud icon in your notification area, select the gear icon, then Settings).
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Go to the Sync and back up tab and expand the Advanced settings.
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Under Files On-Demand, select Download all files.
In File Explorer, you can mark a file or folder for offline use or as online-only by right-clicking the item and select Always keep on this device (not Free up space).
Working offline with OneDrive (Windows)
Set Files On-Demand to download all files (Mac):
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Click the OneDrive cloud icon up in your Menu bar, click the three dots (•••) to open the menu, and select Preferences.
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Go to the Preferences tab.
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Under Files On-Demand, select Download all files now.
In Finder, you can mark a file or folder for offline use or as online-only by right-clicking the item and select Always keep on this device (not Free up space).
Working offline with OneDrive (Mac)
Forward Your Mail
After you migrate the data you want to keep and before your student email account is deleted (one year after the last class you took), consider forwarding email from your student account to a personal email address until your account is deleted. Once your account is deleted, forwarding will stop and you will no longer get mail at your student email address.
Gmail
For students admitted before February 1, 2023
Office365
For students admitted after February 1, 2023