EmailMigration

UMIACS will be winding down its mailbox Email services by June 30th 2020 to comply with the UMD Institutional Email standard. This includes both our Exchange and IMAP Email service offerings.

FAQ

• How do I login to the UMD Gmail system?

You can access your email through a browser by visiting https://mail.google.com/a/umd.edu/. You should be able to log into this immediately with your username@umd.edu email address to confirm that you have access. No email will show up in this interface until your migration has been performed.

If you already have a personal Gmail/Google account logged in, you may need to add a new Google account for your @umd.edu account. You can find out how to do this by reading Google documentation on this topic. The article also provides information on how to switch accounts.

• What is the time line for these migrations?

We will be notifying users starting May 1st 2020 on this timeline and let them know how to login to the new UMD Gmail interface. You will need to notify staff by May 15th if you want the Division of IT to migrate your existing email mailboxes to the UMD Gmail system as part of the email migration.

Migrations will happen between May 26th-29th and June 1st-5th. You will be notified which day your specific migration will occur.

• What happens during my migration?
  • The day your migration is scheduled we will be modifying your email forward in UMIACS to your @g.umd.edu address at 9am. This will ensure that there is no mail loop (instead of @umd.edu which still may forward to your @umiacs.umd.edu address) and will immediately divert any new email to the UMD Gmail system. We will then notify you at your @umiacs.umd.edu address (which should show up in your @g.umd.edu mailbox) that the forward is in place. You will be receiving and may now start sending and replying to new email in the UMD Gmail system once you receive this notification.
  • If you have chosen to migrate your mailboxes we will immediately make a mail archive of your mailboxes (depending on the size of your mailboxes this could take some time).
  • Next we will then notify the DivIT that your forward is now in place. DivIT will then update your @umd.edu forward to your @g.umd.edu forward and start the import of your mailboxes if provided. This process of import of your existing email may again take some time and DivIT will notify you when it is complete.

During this process you will still be able to log into your existing UMIACS email system and interact with your existing emails.

• Should I migrate my existing email mailboxes to the UMD Gmail?

You will be given a choice as part of the migration to have your existing mailbox migrated to the UMD Gmail platform or not. There are a few things to consider when making this decision. First, UMD Gmail can not hold export controlled data. Since export control regulations have changed several times since emails have been stored on UMIACS servers, we cannot provide a blanket guarantee that moving all emails into Google will be compliant with federal regulations, and we ask that you make this determination separately before requesting the transfer of your emails. Second, you may have a very hierarchical folder arrangement for your messages. Gmail only supports labels; if you have a deep hierarchical arrangement of folders, this may not translate well into Gmail's web interface.

• Can I use my current desktop client to read email with UMD Gmail?

The Division of IT only explicitly supports the web based offering.

• What will happen to my email stored at UMIACS after June 30th 2020?

We will be archiving all user mailboxes into our long term archives for a minimum of 10 years. You may request a copy of your email as part of the migration progress and we will provide it in an archive format that you may import into a local mail client for offline use.

• What if I forward my email to another service? Will I be impacted?

Users with accounts in UMIACS that can be identified as having an appointment at the University of Maryland will be required to have their UMIACS Email forward point to their @umd.edu email address by June 30th 2020. Users without an appointment at the University of Maryland will be required to forward their email to an address of their choosing.