Before You Graduate

Here are some things you may want to consider before you graduate, such as setting up access to your Stanford alumni email and saving any files you wish to retain.

Understanding the grace period

After graduation, your SUNet ID account will enter a 120-day grace period. During this time, you can continue to access your email, Google Drive and other services that require full level access. After your grace period ends, your account will remain active for five years, but at base level. Get more information about SUNet ID levels and the services they include.

Once the grace period expires, email sent to your @stanford.edu account will be automatically forwarded to your Stanford alumni email account for two years. Important: You must set up your alumni email account for automatic forwarding to take place. Try to do this before the grace period expires.

After you’ve completed three academic quarters at Stanford, you are eligible for a Stanford Alumni email account. This is a free, permanent account that ends in @alumni.stanford.edu. Get started with set-up at Access Your Alumni Email.

Note: Graduate School of Business students can set up a GSB alumni email account – @alumni.gsb.stanford.edu – through the GSB Alumni Network.

Once you have your alumni email account, we recommend setting up an autoreply message on your SUNet ID (@stanford.edu) account during your grace period to inform senders of your most current email address.

Migrate your existing email files and contacts

Assisted email migration with Alumni IT (recommended)

Stanford recommends that departing students use VaultMe to simply and quickly migrate your student account to your alumni account, which is hosted on Google Workspace and offers 15GB of data storage for Stanford alumni. This is a paid service that takes only a few minutes of your time.

VaultMe is easy to use and an inexpensive online service. It will:

Safely copy your Stanford Outlook email, OneDrive files, Outlook Contacts, and Outlook Calendars from your Stanford Microsoft 365 student account to your Stanford Google Workspace alumni account.
Safely copy your Stanford Gmail email, Drive files, Google Contacts, and Google Calendars from your Stanford Google Workspace student account to your Stanford Google Workspace alumni account.

Alumni Email Migration Detailed Steps

Self email migration (no cost)

To ensure youraccess to existing emails and contacts after graduation, you’ll need to migrate them to another email account. Here are instructions for Google Mail and Microsoft 365 email.

How to Migrate Your Student Google Mail to Your Alumni Account

How to Migrate Your Student Microsoft 365 Email to Your Alumni Account

Save your other data

If you completed the Alumni IT assisted migration above using VaultMe, you do not need to complete the self migration steps below.

Self data migration

For files in Google Workspace: Back up Your Student Google Workspace Data.

If you have files in AFS, go to How to Close Your SUNet ID Account: Students > Move your files from your AFS space.

If you’d like an archive of your personal Stanford website at people.stanford.edu/YOURSUNETID, submit a Help request to the Stanford Sites team.

For files in other locations, contact the administrator of that location.

Unlink third-party accounts

If you have linked your Stanford email (@stanford.edu) to any third-party accounts, such as YouTube, Github, etc., please update the email address to a personal email address.

Postdoctoral scholars

You have continued access to your Stanford email account for a 120-day grace period after your appointment ends. Email access ends when the grace period ends, and any email left on the university mail servers will be deleted.

Questions?

Current Stanford students can contact Student Technical Support, and let them know you’re about to graduate, and they’ll do their best to help.

Stanford alums can contact Alumni IT.

For more information

Postdoctoral scholars in good standing may request that their Stanford email be forwarded to a personal account for two years after the end of their appointment. For further information, please visit Postdoc Email Forwarding FAQs.

Need more help? Talk to a support team member.

Chat with someone Submit a help request Call Student Technical Support