Keep your Exchange account email messages and calendar appointments when leaving IU

• Overview
• Transfer your messages and calendar appointments to another email account
• Save your messages on your computer
• Redirect or forward your messages

Overview

In most cases, Exchange accounts are disabled after you leave Indiana University; see UITS computing account termination. If you want to retain access to your email messages, you have several options, all described here. In addition, you can save calendar appointments using the first method, Transfer your messages and calendar appointments to another email account.

Transfer your messages and calendar appointments to another email account

When transferring messages between email accounts, UITS strongly recommends using Outlook, because you can add multiple email accounts to one profile, and then easily transfer messages from one mailbox to another; other mail clients sometimes encounter transfer issues.

These instructions are for transferring from Exchange to another email account, but also work well for transferring from another email account to Exchange by dragging and dropping messages as noted:

1. Configure an email client to access Exchange account: Follow the appropriate instructions for adding your Exchange mailbox:
   • Microsoft Outlook: Configure Exchange Online with Outlook or Windows Mail
   • Microsoft Outlook for Mac: Configure Exchange Online with Outlook for macOS or Mac Mail
2. Add the destination email account to Outlook: To add a non-IU email account (for example, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo) to Outlook, follow the configuration instructions supplied by your email provider.
3. Transfer messages: After adding both email accounts to Outlook, you can transfer messages by dragging them from your Exchange account and dropping them into the destination email account.

   When transferring messages, keep the following in mind:

   • UITS recommends using a wired connection to the internet instead of a wireless connection. Wired connections are more stable and have less data loss.
   • You might occasionally see the Windows hourglass or the Mac spinning beach ball signifying that your computer's memory is being taxed, or a variety of failure and "not responding" messages. These messages will usually disappear if you allow the process to continue to run.
   • Check all folders and subfolders, including your Sent folder, for messages you want to keep.
   • UITS highly recommends right-click dragging and dropping the messages, and selecting Copy (not Move), so that if there are any issues with the transfer, the messages will not be removed from Exchange, and the transfer can be reattempted.
4. Transfer calendar appointments (optional): If your additional email account supports calendaring, you can also move meeting and appointments between the accounts as follows:
   1. In Outlook, select the Calendar tab.
   2. In the View menu, select Change View, and then select List.
   3. This allows you to select appointments and reminders much as you did your mail. You can then drag and drop them to the destination calendar folder.

Save your messages on your computer

You may choose to configure your mail account within Outlook so that it archives email into personal folders stored locally on your computer's hard drive. In this case, your mail will be saved as a single file on your computer yet will still be displayed in Outlook properly. Alternative mail clients and configuration methods are available depending on your operating system and email account; however, mail clients besides Outlook have more limited support for archiving.

For instructions using Outlook, see Export emails, contacts, and calendar items to Outlook using a .pst file.

If you use IU Exchange and want to configure Outlook to read your mail, follow either of the instructions below:

• Microsoft Outlook: Configure Exchange Online with Outlook or Windows Mail
• Microsoft Outlook for Mac: Configure Exchange Online with Outlook for macOS or Mac Mail

Redirect or forward your messages

Depending on your situation, redirecting or forwarding your email may help you preserve messages after you leave IU, but there are some limitations:

• Preparing for a transition: If you know in advance that you will have a lengthy overlap between two email addresses, you can configure a rule in Outlook on the web that will redirect all new email messages you receive to another address. This will allow you to keep the original sender and recipients intact, but will not apply to messages already in your account.

  To set up such a rule:

  1. Open Outlook on the web and log into your account.
  2. In the top right corner, choose the gear icon.
  3. Choose Forwarding, and toggle the Enable Forwarding option.
  4. Where the form says "Forward my email to:", provide a valid email address. You can choose to keep a copy of forwarded messages or not.
  5. Save the changes, and close the settings window.
• Forwarding existing messages: If you simply forward individual messages you've already received to a new email address, they will appear to originate from your IU account rather than from the original sender, which may not be the ideal solution. However, one advantage is that you can forward multiple messages at once, although they will be forwarded as a single email message with multiple attachments.