Overview
This article provides a brief overview about UAH student email accounts, when student email accounts expire, and what to do if your student email account will expire soon.
This article contains excerpts from UAH policies. To view these policies in full, visit www.uah.edu/policies.
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When do student accounts expire?
Please refer to the below excerpt from the interim UAH policy 06.01.05 regarding student account expiration:
Students – Students who leave the university may keep their email account for three terms from the last term in which they were registered. All other account privileges will be revoked at the time of separation from the university.
Prospective students who have been given email privileges – Students who have been admitted to the university, but fail to register for classes in the term of their admission, will have their account privileges terminated immediately after census date for that first term has passed.
Note "three consecutive terms" include the spring, summer, and fall terms. If a student was last registered for courses in the Fall 2024 term, for example, they will retain access to their account through the Spring 2025, Summer 2025, and Fall 2025 terms.
Will I be warned before my account expires?
Once the add/drop period for a term ends, OIT will begin sending notifications via email to students who have not been enrolled for three consecutive semesters to alert them of their account's upcoming expiration.
These notifications are sent weekly beginning three weeks before the date of expiration, the final notification being sent two days before expiration. The subject of this email message is similar to "UAH email account expiration for {me} on {date}."
If you receive one of these notifications, take action immediately:
- Download or transfer your data
- As soon as possible, begin the process of downloading or transferring your historical account data. Several options are available, including downloading an export of your data or transferring your data directly to a personal Google account.
- Learn more about how you can download or transfer your Google account data.
- We recommend beginning this process as soon as possible. Data exports and transfers may take up to a week to complete.
- Update your contacts
- Provide your contacts with alternate contact information.
- Set up an automatic responder
- Leading up to your account expiration, set an automatic response for your email to automatically provide alternate contact information to those trying to reach you.
- Learn how to set an automatic reply in Gmail.
- Please note that once the account expires, automatic responses will no longer function.
- Enable automatic forwarding:
- Check your personal services
- If you've used your UAH email address to sign up for any services, ensure the address attached to the service is switched to a personal email address.
- Do or did you use Charger Path as a student? If you wish to maintain access to your Charger Path account as an alumni, contact Career Services and provide your A-number, UAH email address, and personal email address.
What happens when the account expires?
After your UAH Google account expires, you will no longer be able to use it to log in to any Google services. These include Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Sites, Forms, and all other Google products. Additionally, you will no longer be able to use the account to log into any third-party services using Sign in with Google.
Email messages addressed to the expired account's email address or alias will bounce, so no new emails will be delivered or forwarded. We recommend alerting your contacts about your change of email address before the account expires. We also recommend setting an automatic response on the account in the weeks leading up to its expiration so that those who email you often may update their records.
Are there any exceptions?
According to UAH policy, there are no exceptions to student account expiration. OIT makes an effort to notify students of their upcoming account expiration by sending several email notifications in advance of the expiration date.
A student account may be reactivated or recreated in some cases. Consider the following situations:
Student plans to return as a UAH student in a future semester
Even if a student plans to return to UAH in a future semester, UAH policy 06.01.05 still applies. Once three terms have passed since the student was last enrolled, their email account will be disabled.
If/when the student is accepted as a readmit for a current or future semester, their account will be reactivated. Learn more about applying to UAH as a readmit.
Student plans to return as a UAH student as an employee
Even if a student plans to return to UAH as an employee in the future, UAH policy 06.01.05 still applies. If they are not a current employee of UAH, their email account will be disabled once three terms have passed since the student was last enrolled.
Please note that current employees who are no longer enrolling as students will not lose access to their UAH email based on their last term of enrollment. Employees are subject to different email account expiration timelines. Learn more about employee email account expiration.
Still Need Help?
If you have additional questions about this topic, please contact the OIT Help Desk.