Google Photos App Discontinued for Personal Use
To advance sustainable storage initiatives, the Google Photos App is being discontinued for personal use on University Google accounts. As of November 11, 2025, the Google Photos app is approved for University purposes only.
If You Use Google Photos for University Purposes
If you have access to the Google Photos App and use it to store and manage images for University business, you must complete an attestation form by October 14, 2025. This form asks you to affirm that you will use the app exclusively for University purposes and will transfer all personal content to a personal account or device.
Failure to complete the form. If you do not complete the form, your access to the Google Photos app will be removed on November 11, and its contents will become unavailable.
Reminder: You will receive one reminder email to submit the form on October 7.
If You Have Personal Photos on Your UMN Account
If you have access to the Google Photos App and have personal photos or other non-University video or image files stored in it, you must migrate, download, or delete them before November 11.
We're here to help. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to migrate your photos to a personal Google account on our support page: Google Workspace: Migrate Google Photos.
Failure to migrate. If you do not transfer your personal photos to a personal account before November 11, you will no longer have access to those photos.
Reminders: People with access to the Google Photos app who do not complete the attestation form will receive four reminder emails to ensure they have ample time to migrate their content. The last day that the photos stored in the Google Photos app will be November 10.
How to Move your Photos
See Google Workspace: Migrate Google Photos for detailed instructions on how to transfer your photos to a personal account.
If you have specific questions or need additional assistance, you can submit a Technology Help support request.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Why is this change happening?
Digital storage is no longer free and unlimited. By removing personal photos from University systems, we ensure appropriate use of University resources.
The Google Photos App is not a core Google Workspace service and was discontinued for new UMN account holders in August 2023. At that time, UMN accounts that had files stored in the app were granted continued access. Any University accounts that had 0 files stored in the app and new accounts do not have access to the Google Photos app.
We are further reducing storage impact by requiring that people who use the Photos app attest that they will use it for University purposes only.
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Does this change impact photos stored in other Google apps on my UMN account, like Drive or Gmail?
No. There will be no impact if you are storing photos in your Drive, Gmail, Sheets or other available apps. However, using your UMN account to store personal files of any kind is strongly discouraged.
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What happens if I don't do anything at all?
If you have access to the Google Photos App and do not submit the attestation form by October 14 and/or or do not transfer your files to a personal account by November 10, you will no longer be able to access the files stored in the app.
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What counts as "University purposes"?
Examples include University of Minnesota research images, communications and marketing assets, teaching and learning images, administrative or operational images. etc.
Personal photos are not considered University purposes.
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What happens after I fill out the form? Will my photos stay on my UMN account?
After you submit the attestation form, your photos will stay in the Google Photo app. However, you must remove personal images and should be aware that files stored in the Photos App will count to your total Google storage allocation.
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What if I accidentally forget to fill out the form by October 14?
If you do not submit the attestation form by Oct. 14, you will lose access to the Google Photos app and will not be able to access photos stored there. Move any files that you want to retain by November 10.
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What's the difference between "downloading" and "transferring" my photos?
Downloading photos will store them locally on your device. By transferring photos you can change ownership to a personal account in Google Photos or transfer them to another cloud service.
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What if I have thousands of photos? Will it take a long time to migrate them?
If you have a large number of photos it may take several days to complete the migration using Google Takeout. You should take action quickly to ensure you do not lose any of your photos.
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Will my photo albums, dates, and other metadata be preserved when I migrate?
Dates are preserved within the photo files themselves and will not be lost.
Depending on how you download or transfer the photos you may lose albums. Using Google takeout, the album structure is generally retained as a folder structure and comments are preserved as a separate json file but there is not an easy way to add these back to photos or albums.
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I don't have a personal Google account. Can I migrate my photos to another service?
Yes. You can download the files and upload them directly to another service.
If using Google Takeout you will have the option to transfer photos directly to another service. Keep in mind that you must transfer personal photos to personal service and not a service provided by the University.
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What should I do after I move my Photos to personal account?
Verify that your photos moved and are stored elsewhere, then delete the photos from the Google Photo App. This final step will ensure that the files do not count against your University data storage allocation.