emails floating in front of sunset

UC Davis to phase out Email for Life and Email Forwarding for Life services for former students, staff, and other former affiliates.

Due to increasing security risks and costs, The University of California, Davis is retiring its Email for Life and Email Forwarding for Life services for former students, staff, and other former affiliates. 

  • Active students, faculty, staff, and former and retired faculty are not impacted by this change.
  • Undergraduate students will have a grace period to access their DavisMail Google email and Google Workspace after they graduate or separate from UC Davis. Exceptions apply based on school/college requirements. 
  • These changes do not apply to UC Davis Health.

What is Changing?

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

  • In 2023, UC Davis will begin phasing out email and email forwarding for former students, staff, and other former affiliates.
  • UC Davis alumni can establish an @alumni.ucdavis.edu email address with a paid lifetime membership to the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA) For questions, please contact CAAA via email at alumni@ucdavis.edu.

Email services for current students, faculty, and staff as well as retired faculty are not impacted by this change. 

Why is it Changing?

  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 recently introduced a new license and storage model that eliminates free, unlimited storage for Google Workspace for Education. Read more about this Google storage change here.

How to Prepare

To minimize the inconvenience of this email service change, UC Davis is providing advanced notice to all impacted groups.  

If you are not currently using your @ucdavis.edu account and don’t need to save any of your account data, you do not need to take any action. 

If you use your UC Davis email for incidental personal use (e.g., to log into a non-UC Davis service), we encourage you to switch to a personal non-UC Davis email address to avoid losing access to those sites or services. 

If you are a former student or staff member and if you want to save data from your account, you will need to take the following actions:

Step 1: Switch to an alternative email account

If you use DavisMail (@ucdavis.edu email) as your primary email account, open a new account or switch to another email. 

Step 2: Transfer your email and files

Back up your account and move important emails from your DavisMail account to your new email account.

Step 3: Update your contact information

We want to stay in touch! 

Alumni: We encourage you to update your contact information and primary email with the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA). This will keep you informed about UC Davis events and CAAA programs. Visit alumni.ucdavis.edu for more information. For your academic records, you can keep your personal information current with the Office of the Registrar.

Former Staff: 

  • If you have a personal email on file with the university, you should be able to register for UCPath online access as a former employee and update your contact information. Learn more about UCPath for former employees here. 
  • If you do not have a personal email on file with the university, contact UCPath Center at (855) 982-7284. 

Everyone: Be sure to also update your email address, login ID, and contact information for all accounts and websites where you have used your UC Davis email address.