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Service Information for Graduating Students

Overview

The page provides information for graduating students, including a brief breakdown of UIT services after graduation. It covers UIT services access immediately after graduation, the first 120 days after graduation (known as the 120-day grace period), and after the 120-day grace period, and details on forwarding and saving your @stanford.edu email. 

Services timeline

Upon Graduation

  • Your account enters a 120-day grace period.
  • You can continue using your @stanford.edu email.
  • Library e-resource access is discontinued immediately after graduation.

During the 120-day grace period

  • You can continue using your @stanford.edu email.
  • You still have access to Google Suite, VPN, and Zoom conferencing. Please note that your Zoom account will be downgraded to Basic, with a 40-minute time limit for meetings.
  • You have the opportunity to create your Stanford alumni email account. 

After the 120-day grace period

  • Your account will change to a base level account.
    • Base level accounts have different access privileges, for example, you will have access to VPN, your basic Zoom account, and Google Workspace (ID only), but not Google Suite.
    • View the SUNet IDs in Detail webpage for more information about service access for base level accounts after graduation.
  • Access to your @stanford.edu email and other services will expire.
  • Any remaining emails on the university's mail servers will be deleted.
  • If you qualify for an alumni account, any new emails sent to your @stanford.edu address after it closes will automatically be forwarded to your @alumni.stanford.edu address for two years.

Update your email

Set up a permanent email address

After the grace period, your account will transition to a base level account, which remains active for five years. This provides access to your transcripts and other online information, but does not include @stanford.edu email.

The Stanford Alumni Association offers free and permanent email accounts to all graduating seniors or students who have completed three quarters or more in a degree-granting program. Membership in the alumni association is not required to receive this account. During signup, you can choose your username (name@alumni.stanford.edu), giving you a professional, Stanford-branded email address for life.

If you set up your alumni account before the end of the 120-day grace period, new emails sent to your @stanford.edu address will forward to your @alumni.stanford.edu address for two years. We recommend using your alumni email with friends since it is a permanent address.

To learn more and sign up for an alumni email account, visit the Stanford Alumni Email Account webpage. For instructions on migrating your student @stanford.edu Gmail and data to your alumni account, see Migrate Your Student Email to Your Alumni Account and Back Up Your Student G Suite Data.

Email forwarding and auto-replies

About four months after you graduate, Stanford automatically forwards your @stanford.edu mail to your alumni email address. The university keeps this forwarding in place for two years. However, University IT (UIT) recommends initiating the forwarding process yourself to ensure received emails are successfully transferred.

Before you start migrating your mail, forward your @stanford.edu mail to your alumni email address so you only have to migrate your mail once.

  1. Go to Stanford Accounts.
  2. Select the Email Management tile and then click the Forward email tile.
  3. Follow the onscreen instructions.
    We recommend that you select Do NOT keep a copy stored in your @stanford.edu mailbox. 

Inform your senders of your new email address by setting up an autoreply message via Stanford Webmail. For instructions, visit the Setting Up Automatic Replies webpage. Autoreply ends after the grace period.

Note: To forward your @stanford.edu email to your Gmail account, please submit a Help request.

Set an autoreply message

You can inform senders of your new email address by setting up an autoreply message. 

  1. Go to Stanford Accounts.
  2. Select the Email Management tile.
  3. Click the Manage Autoreply tile. You will be redirected to your Stanford email (Microsoft 365 or Gmail) account to set up your autoreply message.

Save your stored email

To save your stored email, visit the Google Apps alumni email webpage.

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 web site at your www.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=https://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.

If you have questions, please submit a Help ticket.

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.

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