Published: March 13, 2013

The next step toward migration of student, alumni and retiree accounts from CULink to Gmail is coming on Wednesday, March 13 when Gmail mailboxes will be created for all CU-Boulder affiliates. These mailboxes will be the future home of your CU-Boulder Gmail account (see details by affiliation below). The creation of Gmail mailboxes will not impact campus e-mail systems or e-mail delivery and the mailboxes will not initially be enabled for receiving e-mail messages; that will happen when your account migrates to Gmail. With the creation of these mailboxes, Gmail will show up in the Google toolbars of all CU-Boulder affiliates.

For Students: Making Gmail the new home of your CU-Boulder e-mail account will be facilitated by an opt-in migration tool which is expected to be ready the week of March 18. The migration tool will allow students to initiate the migration of messages and folders from CULink to Gmail, at the same time switching the routing of e-mail to your Gmail mailbox. Just like with CULink, your Gmail address will be "first.lastname@colorado.edu." We encourage you to initiate your own migration between now and the end of May,  but if you're unable to do so you will be notified when your account is scheduled for migration to Gmail.

For Faculty and Staff: Making Gmail functional for faculty and staff is a long-term goal; however, there are remaining technical and legal issues to be addressed before that can happen. If you still have an account on CULink, you will receive a message in the coming days about migrating to the campus Microsoft Exchange service. If you are forwarding your e-mail from CULink to a campus-approved domain, you will be notified about how your forward will be accommodated outside of CULink.

For Alumni and Retirees on CULink: Gmail will also be the new e-mail and calendaring home for all retirees and alumni with accounts on CULink. E-mail migrations for alumni and retirees will be scheduled and communicated at least one week prior to your account’s migration. If you are forwarding your e-mail from CULink, you will be notified about how your forward will be accommodated outside of CULink. Just like with CULink, your Gmail address will be  "first.lastname@colorado.edu."

Gmail comes with a generous 25 GB e-mail storage capacity--120+ times the quota size on CULink--video hangouts, free phone calls anywhere in North America, customizable themes, easy-to-manage conversation threads, industry-leading spam filters, and Google’s powerful search tools to find the right messages, fast. Learn more about the many benefits to Google Apps and Gmail on the CU-Boulder Google Apps page at http://www.colorado.edu/oit/google.

OIT wants to ensure your migration, whether it’s to Gmail or Microsoft Exchange, is as painless and free of concern as possible. If you have questions about your migration or about e-mail and calendaring in general, please contact the IT Service Center at 303-735-4357 (5-HELP from a campus phone) or e-mail help@colorado.edu. Phone help is available:  Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.