Overview
This page summarizes what happens to your email and other online services after you are no longer enrolled at Stanford (e.g. a leave of absence, graduation). You may have found your way here because you received notification that your SUNet ID account will soon close. This page helps you determine what "your account is closing" means to you, and what you need to do.
Depending upon when and why you leave Stanford, your SUNet ID account services will change or end. You are given a grace period to help you during this transition. Access ends or changes when the grace period expires (see table, below).
Account expiration and grace period
Students
| Leave of Absence |
Students who are granted an official leave of absence by the Registrar's Office maintain their full service SUNet ID for the length of their leave of absence. |
|---|---|
| Other |
When you transfer or leave the university for other reasons (besides a leave of absence or graduation), your account enters a 120-day grace period. If at the end of this grace period your affiliation has not been reactivated, your SUNet ID account services, including email, will end. However, the Stanford Alumni Association provides free, permanent Alumni email accounts* to students who have spent three quarters or more in a degree-granting program. *GSB graduates only: if you are leaving the Stanford GSB after three or more quarters, please contact sbsaa@gsb.stanford.edu. |
Graduates
| Graduated in the last five years |
When you graduated, your account entered a 120-day grace period. This will allow you continued access to your @stanford.edu email, access to licensed electronic resources while on campus and on a Stanford network; however, off-campus access to electronic resources stops when you graduate, visit Stanford Libraries for details. Your Stanford directory listing (StanfordWho) will no longer appear. You will not be able to log into the Stanford view of StanfordWho. 120 days after you graduate, your account will change to a base level account. This base level account is good for five years, giving you access to your transcripts and other online information, but not to @stanford.edu email. Email access ends when the grace period ends, and any email left on the university mail servers will be deleted. However, you are eligible for a permanent Stanford Alumni email account* if you qualify under the Stanford Alumni Association definition of “alumni”, i.e., have completed 3 or more quarters in a Stanford degree-granting programs. If you are eligible for and create an alumni account, new email sent to your @stanford.edu address after it closes is sent automatically to your @alumni.stanford.edu address for two years. Set up autoreply for your @stanford.edu email address at any point during those two years to notify others of your new @alumni.stanford.edu address. *GSB graduates only: visit GSB Stay Connected for details about GSB alumni email options and information on managing your existing email, contacts, calendar, and docs before your account closes. If you create an account prior to the end of the 120 day grace period, new email sent to your @stanford.edu address, after it closes, will automatically forward to @alumni.gsb.stanford.edu for two years. |
|---|---|
| Graduated more than five years ago |
If you graduated more than five years ago, your SUNet ID account is inactive. You are eligible for a permanent Stanford Alumni email account if you qualify under the Stanford Alumni Association definition of “alumni”, i.e., have completed 3 or more quarters in a Stanford degree-granting programs. |
Postdoctoral Scholars
| When Appointment Ends |
You have continued access to your Stanford email account for a 120-day grace period after your appointment ends. Email access ends when the grace period ends, and any email left on the university mail servers will be deleted. Postdoctoral scholars in good standing may request that their Stanford email be forwarded to a personal account for 2 years after the end of their appointment. For further information, please visit Postdoc Email Forwarding FAQs. Note that email cannot be sent from your Stanford email address during this period, nor are there storage capabilities. Your Stanford directory listing (StanfordWho) will no longer appear after your appointment ends, nor will you be able to log into the Stanford view of StanfordWho. |
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What you need to do
Transfer or forward your email
- Forward your @stanford.edu email to another permanent email address, e.g., Gmail. Note that you do not need to set up forwarding for alumni email; it is forwarded automatically.
- Log into StanfordYou, and select Change settings for account....
- Select the Email tab and then click Forward email.
- Follow the instructions to enter and save the email address(es) to which you want your @stanford.edu mail forwarded.
- Set an autoreply message to inform senders of your new email address.
- Log into StanfordYou, and select Change settings for account....
- Select the Email tab and then click Manage autoreply.
- Follow the steps to turn autoreply on, and write a message that includes your new email address. You do not need to set an expiration date, as the autoreply will end when forwarding ends (see the table, above).
- Update your email address in the Stanford Directory.
- Log into StanfordYou, and select Maintain Directory And Alertsu Emergency Contact Info.
- Scroll down to the SU contact info section and select change.
- Enter a new, non-Stanford email address to be used in your directory listing. If you have an optional secondary email address set for AlertSU notifications, you may wish to remove it.
Note: Graduating students who join the Alumni Association have the option to have Stanford email forwarded to their sunetid@alumni.stanford.edu email address automatically. Automatic forwarding will last two years.
- Save your stored email.
- If you use a desktop email client (e.g., Apple Mail or Outlook), you need to create local folders, then copy all of your email and attachments into the local folders. To check this, set your email client to work offline and then make sure you can still get to all your email and attachments. If you can't see your messages and attachments offline, refer to your email program's documentation for how to change the caching setting.
- If you use Webmail, you will have to install a desktop client (e.g., Apple Mail or Outlook). Create local folders and then copy all of your email and attachments into the local folders.
- If you use Mutt or Alpine, your email is stored in the ~/Mail folder there. Use OpenAFS for Stanford to mount your AFS home folder, then either use a desktop email client (e.g., Apple Mail or Outlook) to import the email from the ~/Mail folder, or just copy the files to your local computer's hard drive. If you don't have OpenAFS installed, use an SFTP client such as SecureFX (Windows) or Fetch (Mac) to transfer the files.
If you have questions, please submit a Help ticket.
Move your files from your AFS space
Use OpenAFS for Stanford to mount your home folder, and copy the files from your home folder to your hard drive. If you don't have OpenAFS installed, use an SFTP client such as SecureFX (Windows) or Fetch (Mac) to transfer the files.
Close your AFS website
If you've put a personal website at your web.stanford.edu/~sunetid address, you may want to use the grace period to redirect people to another web site. You can do this just by placing a link to your new site on your Stanford site's home page, or by using this <head> tag:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;URL=www.mynewsite.com">
This will cause most browsers to automatically display the specified URL after a delay of 5 seconds (or any number of seconds you specify).
Your website files are stored in the /WWW folder of your AFS home folder. Use OpenAFS for Stanford to mount your home folder, and copy the files from your home folder to your hard drive. If you don't have OpenAFS installed, use an SFTP client such as SecureFX (Windows) or Fetch (Mac) to transfer the files.
Close your Stanford Sites website
To remove your personal website at people.stanford.edu/sunetid, submit a Help ticket. You have the option of requesting an offline archive of your website.
