emails floating in front of sunset

Email & Email Forwarding Transition

UC Davis has phased out email and email forwarding services for former students, staff, and other former affiliates.

Due to increasing security risks and costs, The University of California, Davis retired email and email forwarding services for former students, staff, and other former affiliates. Former students were given the option of transitioning to a Former Students email account for 1-3 years based on their prior university affiliation.

Active students, faculty, staff, former and retired faculty, and UC Davis Health are not impacted by this change.

What has changed?

UC Davis used to provide students and some former affiliates with a DavisMail (@ucdavis.edu) Google email address and Google Workspace account after they left the university. Former affiliates also had the option of having their messages automatically forwarded to a personal email account.

  • UC Davis began phasing out email and email forwarding in 2024 for former students, staff, and other former affiliates.
  • Departing and former undergraduate and graduate students were given the opportunity to have their @ucdavis.edu email accounts transferred to a @formerstudents.ucdavis.edu if they enrolled in Duo multifactor authentication, and if applicable, adjusted storage to below 20GB. Accounts will remain active for 1-3 years depending on their affiliation with the university.

Key dates & a breakdown of changes

February 15, 2024
Email and email forwarding services ended for the majority of former UCD affiliates.
February 26, 2024
Email and email forwarding services ended for the majority of former and retired staff members.
March 15, 2024
Deadline for former graduate and undergraduate students to sign up for Duo and, if applicable, get account storage below 20GB limit in order to qualify for @formerstudents.ucdavis.edu email account.
April 15, 2024
@ucdavis.edu email addresses for qualified former graduate and undergraduate students transitioned to @formerstudents.ucdavis.edu accounts.
April 25, 2024
Email forwarding services ended for former graduate and undergraduate students. Accounts closed for former students who did not qualify for former students email service.

Why did this change?

  1. Providing email and email forwarding services to former affiliates in perpetuity is not sustainable for UC Davis for several reasons.
  2. Operating an email service for users no longer affiliated with UC Davis poses serious security and privacy risks. Like many other higher education institutions, UC Davis is responding to an increasing number of cyber threats, often targeted via email.
  3. The cost to maintain these accounts is rising. Google changed its license and storage model to eliminate  free, unlimited storage for Google Workspace for Education. Read more about this Google storage change here.