If you are leaving the University and will no longer be eligible to receive the standard computing services, and you aren't signing up to continue your services with U-M Online, here is information to help you close out your computing account.
Your @umich.edu e-mail address will continue to work if you set things up to forward mail delivered there on to your new address. To learn about forwarding your U-M e-mail to a new address, see the mail forwarding tool (you'll be prompted to log in first).
If there are messages in your IMAP mailbox (the one you receive as part of the standard computing services) that you want to keep, you can transfer them to your new mail account or get copies of them onto your computer. There are several ways to do this:
If there are only a few messages, you can forward them to yourself at your new address.
If you have a lot of messages to move to your new account, use Pine on the Login Service to bounce the messages to your new account.
You can download entire folders of messages to your computer and then import them into another program. How you import the messages to your new program or account depends on the e-mail program you use. We provide instructions for downloading the mail using web mail, but we cannot provide instructions for importing into all programs that people might use; also, the ITS consultants can only help with your U-M account and not with your non-University account. Check your program's instructions for importing messages and do a test before you leave the University to make sure you can import the messages you want to keep. Check with the provider of your non-University account for assistance with importing messages.
Some e-mail programs that are configured for IMAP allow you to create a local folder/mailbox on your computer. You can then move your messages into this folder. Some programs that let you do this are Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Apple's Mail Application, and Entourage. Check the documentation or Help for the program you use for instructions. (See also our e-mail configuration instructions and how to tell if you are already using IMAP)
You can use a mail program configured for POP (this causes the program to download all the mail in your INBOX to your computer). Be aware that you will need to use that same program to then access those messages on your computer. For more about POP, see How to Tell If You Are Using IMAP or POP for Your E-Mail (S4322).
If you need to know how much space your current messages take up, so you know if your new account has enough space to hold them, look at your IMAP E-Mail Status page.
If you have files in your IFS space that you want to keep, please download copies to your computer. There are several ways to download your files.
You can download your files from IFS using MFile over the web.
If you have a lot of files and folders to download, you may find it easier to use the file transfer software available from our Blue Disc website: SSH SFTP for Windows and Fugu for Macintosh.
Another option is to use a computer at a Campus Computing Site. These computers are set up such that they display your IFS home directory as an icon on the desktop. You can put a blank CD into the sites computer, then drag the icon of your home directory to the icon for the CD to burn your files to the CD. If you have a lot of files, you may need more than one CD.
If you have a website. If you have a personal website for which the pages are stored in IFS, please be aware that your website will no longer be published when your IFS directory is removed from the system. If you want to keep your site, you will need to arrange for a new web host and transfer your files. (If you sign up for U-M Online, you can keep your website as is.)
If you own mail groups in the U-M Online Directory that are no longer needed, please delete them before you leave. If you don't, the unfortunate members of those groups are likely to continue to receive spam through them.
If a group you own is still needed by people at U-M, please make someone who is still at the University an owner of that group. Do this by making changes to your group so as to add the new owner(s) and remove yourself as owner.
Directory groups must be renewed on a yearly basis or they will expire. Be sure to renew groups that you expect to keep using after you leave the University.
If you maintain a website for a student organization, a University program, or anything else associated with the University that must continue after you leave U-M, please assign the appropriate IFS permissions for the new people who will maintain the website.
Instructions are provided in this documentation:
For help with your standard computing services, contact the ITS consultants (764-HELP, option 2, or online.consulting@umich.edu).
General Computing | Contact Us | Computing on Campus | Wolverine Access | University of Michigan
October 16, 2009