Large Classes, Usage Limits and Google Workspaces

Nudge is a Google Apps Script that runs using the initiating user account (your Google account) on Google's infrastructure. The advantage of this approach is that the software is able to send e-mail as you, integrates deeply with Google Drive and is inexpensive for the developer to provide to the world (thus allowing it to be provided with no charge or advertising). The disadvantage to this approach is that the nudge software is subject to the usage limits that Google has imposed on your user account. These limits are generally only an issue in extremely large classes.

The Consumer E-Mail Limit

Google imposes a 100 e-mail a day sending limit on consumer accounts and a 1500 a day limit on their Workspace accounts. Consumer Google accounts are free accounts such as those that end in @gmail.com. Workspace accounts are Google accounts created and managed by a company, school or university. While a 1500 e-mail a day limit is likely not an issue, the consumer account 100 e-mail daily limit could be an issue if you have a class of more than 100 students or you send nudges to multiple classes on the same day. There are a few ways to mitigate this issue:

1. Check to see if your school or university has provided you a Workspace account

2. Purchase your own Workspace account ($84 a year as of 2025)

3. Split your class into smaller groups and send over multiple days

4. Save the nudge to a column in the gradebook and send the message through other means

If your institution already uses Workspaces accounts this is clearly the easiest mitigation approach. There are only two major players providing e-mail accounts to schools and universities in the United States: Microsoft and Google. Further, even when faculty accounts are on Microsoft, universities often complement these accounts with Workspaces accounts for students as they are cheaper. This usually means that Workspaces accounts also exist for faculty, but they are not set up as the primary e-mail provider. Even if you don't believe you have Workspace accounts at your institution, it is worth asking your IT department.

Assuming you can afford the yearly fee and you primarily use e-mail to deliver the nudge message, a Workspace account of your own is the next best option. A Workspace account is a Google account tied to a domain name you own. For instance, you might have a website at https://YourName.com. With Workspace, you can create an e-mail account such as [email protected] that you can use like any other Gmail account. If you don't already have a domain name, you can purchase one as part of the Workspace sign up process.

If a Workspace account is not a practical solution, you can split the class into batches and send the nudge messages over multiple days. In the nudge interface, there is a button labeled ‘show advanced settings.' Here you can select to send the nudge to a subset of students. For instance, entering 1 and 50 in the two boxes would send the nudge to the first through fiftieth student in the selected gradebook. Once the Google's e-mail sending limit has reset, you could nudge students fifty-one through one hundred by entering 51 and 100.

Finally, the nudge software has the ability to save the nudge message into a column in the gradebook. If you use Microsoft Outlook for e-mail, this will provide a (admittedly less elegant) way of delivering the nudge to a large class. After running the nudge software and saving the message to a column, copy the gradebook to a Microsoft Excel sheet on your computer and save the file somewhere you can find. Now, follow the bulk e-mail instructions provided by Microsoft to send the messages using Word and Outlook.

The Six Minute Execution Limit

The six minute execution limit means that no Apps Script can run for six consecutive minutes. (This does not include the time it takes the user to enter information into the interface, only the time where the script is processing). This limit is generally inconsequential when sending the nudge via e-mail without the assignment as e-mail is relatively fast. However, the creation of Google Drive documents is computationally slow. Therefore, when using either the ‘Share the Google Drive document with the student' or 'Send a PDF of the document in the E-Mail' delivery options, you might be susceptible to this limit. While it depends on the selected assignment file, in general this limit impacts classes with more than 75 students.

There are two solutions to this problem. First, you can send to a subset of the class using the limits under the advanced section of the nudge interface. For instance, you might enter 1 and 50 into the limit range section of the interface thereby sending the nudge to only the first fifty students in the class. However, unlike the e-mail limit, the execution limit is per run. That means you could immediately send the nudge to students 51 through 100 after the first run is complete. The second option is to send the nudge via e-mail without the assignment as it is less computationally costly.