Changes to Google Groups, Drive and Sites

Last Updated: 10/14/2020

Google has some changes in motion and others on the way for their G Suite apps: Groups, Drive and Sites. We will be sharing more details in the coming weeks and months, particularly for the Drive and Sites changes.

New Groups interface

As of September 15, the New Groups interface is now the default experience. Until November 9, users of Groups can still switch back to the Classic Groups interface by clicking the Gear icon in the top right corner and selecting “Return to classic Google Groups.” Classic Groups will be turned off completely on November 9. Here’s more information about the new Groups.

Drive trash auto-deletion

Starting October 13, Google Drive changed the way trash behaves to be more consistent with the rest of their G Suite services. Meaning, any file that is put into Google Drive’s ‘My Drive’ trash will be automatically deleted after 30 days. Please note that starting October 13, any files already in a Drive user’s trash will remain there for 30 days. After the 30-day-period files that have been in the trash for longer than 30 days will begin to be automatically deleted. Here is more information about the new Drive trash policy.

Migration to new Sites

Google Sites is getting a facelift and all sites will be transitioned to the new Google Sites by the end of 2021. Here’s a detailed look at the expected timeline for the transition from classic Sites to new Sites: 

  • As of August 13, 2020 - New Sites is the default option for website creation. 
  • Starting November 1, 2020 - New website creation will no longer be available in classic Sites. This means that any new website created from this date forward will only be in new Sites. 
  • Starting September 1, 2021 - If you own active classic Sites, these sites will automatically:
  • Download as an archive
  • Save to your Google Drive
  • Convert to a draft in new Sites for you to review and publish

The good news is that Google has identified all CU Boulder sites and provided a Classic Sites Manager tool which will help manage the transition to new Sites. OIT will contact these site owners with information about migrating, but owners with Classic Sites can self migrate to the new Sites using these instructions starting now. 

If you have questions about any of these changes, or about your Google account in general, please contact the IT Service Center at oithelp@colorado.edu or call 303-735-4357.