Alumni Email Service Change Project - FAQ

Maintaining alumni email accounts is no longer sustainable for the university due to significant security risks, declining usage, rising licensing costs, and evolving compliance requirements.

We hope that by providing a way for alumni to be contacted through a personal email address, that alumni can stay connected to university news, events and updates through an address that they use more regularly.

Here's where you can provide the university with your personal email address.

Yes. The university explored other options, including:

• Creating a new, separate alumni-only email service
• Allowing alumni to forward their colorado.edu account to a personal account
• Continuing the alumni email service as is

These options would not have addressed the growing cybersecurity risks and costs associated with continuing access in light of these risks for our alumni and campus community. Ultimately, the university chose an option that prioritizes the minimization of online security risks for our alumni and campus community. This option allows us to focus on the campus priority of student success and containing the cost of a degree to ensure an education at Colorado's flagship institution remains accessible and that campus computing resources remain available.

After the Aug. 31, 2026 deadline, alumni email accounts were deleted with no way to retrieve emails or attachments.

The university explored maintaining alumni forwarding to personal accounts. Over the past year, email forwarding reliability has declined as providers like Google, Apple, and Yahoo enforce stricter security to block spoofing. Forwarded messages can break authentication chains, making them more likely to be rejected by these services. Since CU can not guarantee deliverability of forwarded messages, forwarding was determined to be a non-viable solution.

Your IdentiKey username and password are still active and can be used for accessing your transcripts in Buff Portal.

Yes. Any educational discounts or perks tied to your CU Boulder email address will no longer be available to you once your alumni email account is deleted.

The email will fail to be delivered and the sender will receive a non-deliverable report.

No. Alumni who are faculty or staff at CU Boulder will keep their colorado.edu account as long as they are actively employed by CU Boulder.

No. Alumni who retired from CU Boulder kept their colorado.edu account as a retiree.

Yes. Former employees are not entitled to a CU Boulder email account; therefore, they lost access to their CU Boulder email account as an alum. Emeritus faculty were an exception; they kept their email account. Learn more about the information technology services that university provides based on your affiliation.

If you return to CU Boulder as a student, faculty or staff member after your alumni email account has been deactivated, you will receive a new colorado.edu email account. Your previous alumni email account, emails and attachments cannot be restored or recovered.

New graduates will get to keep their colorado.edu email account for one year following graduation. More information will be provided at the time of your graduation. You're welcome to provide a personal email address for the university to use after graduation at any time.

Yes, the previous version of the alumni email program was discontinued on Sept. 1, 2026. Following a settlement agreement, CU Boulder extended colorado.edu email account access to eligible alumni email account holders through at least Aug. 31, 2027, while we assess the long-term viability of the offering.

CU Boulder communicated the changes to affected account holders multiple times throughout 2026 and provided a process for eligible alumni to request continued access before the Aug. 31 deadline.

In order to continue using your colorado.edu email account, you must have agreed to a set of terms and conditions. By signing and submitting the agreement, you agreed to:

• Having been an active account user between Aug. 31, 2025, and Aug. 31, 2026
• Enroll in multi-factor authentication
• Adhere to a maximum storage capacity of 15GB
• Not use your colorado.edu email address to misrepresent your identity (e.g., submit a colorado.edu address to access "student discounts")
• Not to automatically forward emails from your colorado.edu address to any other email account
• That your account will be deactivated if the account experiences 90 days of inactivity

You must have signed and submitted this agreement to the university by Aug. 31, 2026, in order to maintain your account. Any violation of the agreement is subject to automatic account deactivation.

The extension of email service for eligible alumni comes as the university has entered into a settlement agreement in a lawsuit. We know that, for many, maintaining a colorado.edu email account has long been a point of pride and affinity for CU Boulder. At the same time, the university has a responsibility to maintain a safe and secure digital environment. By requiring alumni who wish to continue using their account to agree to terms that support the university's current cybersecurity efforts, we can provide a modified alumni email program while we conduct additional assessments to determine the long-term sustainability of the offering.

Access and active use is determined using Microsoft's Mailbox Last Activity Date, which is based on activity recorded by Microsoft 365. To qualify, your mailbox must have a recorded read or send event using a Microsoft Outlook email client (such as Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, Outlook on the Web, Outlook Mobile, or the New Outlook). See more information about accepted email clients in the "I use Apple Mail/Gmail/Thunderbird. Does that count?" question below.

Examples of qualifying activity include:

• Opening and reading email in Outlook on the web (outlook.office.com)
• Reading email using the Outlook desktop application
• Reading email using the Outlook mobile app
• Sending an email from an Outlook client

Examples that may not qualify include:

• Simply signing in to your Microsoft account without accessing email
• Accessing files in OneDrive, Teams, or other Microsoft 365 services without using Outlook email
• Accessing your colorado.edu mailbox through a third-party client via IMAP or EWS.
• Automatic background synchronization by third-party email applications
• Forwarding rules or automated messages that occur without user interaction

Because eligibility is determined using Microsoft 365 activity records, we will not accept screenshots, login records, or other forms of documentation as a substitute for verifying access and active use of your colorado.edu email account.

Not necessarily. Eligibility is based on qualifying mailbox activity recorded by Microsoft 365. We recommend accessing and reading email using one of the following Microsoft email clients to be sure your active use is captured by Microsoft 365:

• Outlook on the web
• Outlook for Windows or Mac
• Outlook Mobile
• New Outlook

CU Boulder has the ability to deactivate accounts that have not been actively used for 90 days or more.

If you go over the 15GB limit, your account will become read-only and could be subject to suspension or deactivation.

To reduce your mailbox size, delete unneeded messages and attachments, empty the Deleted Items folder, and remove large files from your mailbox.

Note: The 15GB limit applies to the total storage used by your mailbox, including email messages, attachments and folders. Participants are responsible for managing their mailbox size to remain within the storage limits.

You can view your current mailbox usage by signing in to Outlook on the web and viewing your mailbox storage settings. Learn more about mailbox storage limits in Outlook.

No. Alumni email accounts are limited to 15GB as of Aug. 31, 2026. Additional mailbox storage is not available through this program.

MFA significantly reduces the risk of account compromise and is required for all colorado.edu email accounts. Learn more about this requirement.

Contact the IT Service Center for assistance at oithelp@colorado.edu or 303-735-4357.

No. Once a colorado.edu email account has been deactivated, it cannot be restored. If you later become affiliated with CU Boulder as a student, faculty or staff member, you'll receive a new colorado.edu email account with an empty mailbox. Your previous emails and attachments cannot be recovered.