This page outlines how Information Technology Services (ITS) can help you transition from your Colby e-mail to a non-Colby e-mail address.
To find out more about when your account may close, please refer to the Online Account Policy found on the Policies and Guidelines page of the Colby website.
ITS will close your access to file services on the Courses and Departments file shares, personal and individual webpages associated with the account and authoring access to Word Press effective June 1 for those of you who have graduated. If these files are important to you, then you should save them elsewhere before this date. Please consult with the ITS Support Center (207-859-4222) if you need help with saving webpages or other files.
If you do nothing, what will happen?
When you leave Colby, if you do not set a redirect you will become "user unknown" in the world of e-mail once your account is deleted. Any e-mail sent to your @colby.edu e-mail address will bounce back to the sender with a request "user unknown" message.
You can prevent the trauma of "user unknown" by simply setting an e-mail redirect at Colby before your account closes. An e-mail redirect returns a nice message back to the sender, informing them that your Colby e-mail account is no longer in service but that you can be reached at another e-mail address (which you provide). Here are the steps needed to set up an e-mail redirect:
- Obtain an e-mail account elsewhere. You may already have one at Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. If you have a new e-mail account at your workplace or graduate school, make sure this account works before proceeding. If you don’t know how to do this, please consult with the ITS Support Center (207-859-4222).
- Transfer your Colby e-mail and Drive documents to another Gmail account.
- Request an e-mail redirect:
- Graduates use the Email Redirect form to set a redirect before you leave. You may have to authenticate with your Colby password. Check the “redirect” button and enter your new e-mail address (i.e. Jane.Doe@gmail.com). The redirect will take effect the day we close your Colby account and will stay in place for approximately six months
- Non-graduates can request a redirect by contacting the ITS Support Center by emailing support@colby.edu or calling 207-859-4222. You will receive a confirmation e-mail from the e-mail administrator indicating that your request was received.
- Test the redirect following your chosen start date by sending an e-mail to your Colby address from an external e-mail address.
- Change any social media accounts, banking, job searches, etc that are linked to this e-mail address. Did you use your Colby e-mail as the recovery account for lost passwords?
- If you’ve created Google Drive documents and shared them with faculty members or others you will need to change ownership.
- Download your documents, YouTube Videos, etc. Google Takeout lets you download all of your documents in one pass.
What will happen after the redirect on your Colby e-mail server starts?
A redirect is not an E-mail forward. E-mail sent to your Colby address will be 'returned' to the sender. The body of the returned message will say “User has moved; please try [jadoe@gmail.com]”, where the address in brackets is what you entered in step 2. The sender will have to note your new e-mail address and resend the message. While the bounced message may be a pain for the sender, they will learn that you have moved and what your new e-mail address is.
Why does Colby use redirects versus forwarding your mail?
Forwarding all email messages of a person's E-mail may result in unintended exposure of personal or College data. It also creates an increasing problem for the senders trying to reach the person who is no longer affiliated with the College, because they have no way of knowing it or that the messages were passed along to a different address. This is why we suggest advertising a new email address for people to send to in the form of a redirect as outlined above. An email redirect will continue to advertise your new address for a specified period of time following the closure of the Colby account.
What about your Google Drive documents?
Once your email account is deleted, so are the Google Drive documents within the 'Home' directory of the account. If you’ve created documents for staff or faculty members on Google Drive and shared them you will need to change ownership or ensure they are moved to a Google shared drive. If you want to keep your Google Drive documents (take them with you) use Google Takeout to download all of your documents.