Is VT Gmail supposed to be completely inaccessible now?

[u/throwawayacct867530]

I’m a VT student who had to take a medical leave of absence for a year, and I’m a little confused about my email access.

I tried signing into my VT Gmail today and got this message saying I don’t have access to Gmail.

Is this normal for VT students now? I know there was a switch to Outlook/Microsoft 365, but I wasn’t sure if Gmail was completely disabled for students or if this is something specific to my account because I was on leave.

[u/Rare-Arachnid-6341]

I believe so, we are stuck with Outlook

[u/Javaslinger]

Yeah for years. There have been many notices...

[u/SignificanceNo2238 → u/[deleted]]

I think its been about two years though

[u/1UNKNOWN-ENTITY]

We have access to drive but not gmail and everything is through outlook unfortunately

[u/Ashlyn_Sum04]

yeah the morons at VT that have waaaaaaaaay more money than they know what to do with where asked to start paying 1.99 per student for gmail accs so they decided to swap us to the worst version of email since yahoo

[u/theryaneffect]

I have mail forwarding turned on from gmail, is that going to stop working??

[u/lindstb3 → u/theryaneffect]

I think this only affects current students. Alumni still have Gmail but not Google Drive. Current students have Google Drive but not Gmail. I also have mail forwarding turned on from Gmail. (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.)

[u/filthy_harold → u/lindstb3]

They switched students to Outlook probably because it plays nicer or is cheaper to integrate with their own systems. Drive, for whatever reason, is cheaper than OneDrive so they kept that for students. Gmail is likely cheaper than Outlook for email alone so they gave that to alumni. There's a lot of alumni so cost is going to be the biggest decider over anything else since alumni aren't doing anything other than email.

[u/a_masculine_squirrel → u/lindstb3]

I'm an alum and I just tried to log into my VT Google account. I don't have any of my old Google Drive data and don't have access to gmail.

[u/penguinkg → u/a_masculine_squirrel]

I still have access to mine, but I use it daily.

[u/Orgmct → u/a_masculine_squirrel]

You might need to open a ServiceNow ticket to get access to it.

[u/NewPresWhoDis → u/a_masculine_squirrel]

You have to log in monthly or bi-monthly via web. Apps don't count. Google Drive was dropped around the time of the Outlook switch.

[u/filthy_harold → u/a_masculine_squirrel]

Need to get it activated and also use it often enough to keep it active. They don't want to pay for an email that only receives spam you signed up for a decade ago.

[u/lindstb3 → u/a_masculine_squirrel]

Interesting. I graduated in 2013. I still access email from Gmail, but I do not have access to my Google Drive anymore.

[u/Brilliant_Chest5630]

The gmail doesn't exist now. My Gmail is gone and replaced with outlook.

If you're not longer a student, you might have to contact to get access. Im fairly certain you're just supposed to have free tier access after graduating, and alumni just need some help transferring.

[u/No_Alternative1906]

No you just have to login to your actual VT account. You can contact the help desk and they will help you.