After You Leave Duke

An employee's NetID expires and associated accounts are deleted after the last day of employment.

Duke graduates can use their NetID for one year after graduation; however, they will not be able to download software or access certain resources as they could when they were students. Email and AFS/Webfile access will continue until their NetIDs expire.

When your NetID has expired, all associated accounts including e-mail addresses, mailboxes, e-mail forwarding, and AFS space will be deleted. Follow the steps below to ease the transition.

Copy your AFS documents to a local computer

Before your Duke NetID expires, you can copy your documents from your personal AFS space to a local computer using Webfiles or an FTP client.

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Copy your Duke e-mail to a local computer

Many e-mail clients allow you to copy IMAP folders from the Duke mail server to your local computer. If you have an e-mail client configured for your DukeMail, first try copying your IMAP folders to your local computer by dragging the messages from the folders of your IMAP account to folders in your local account. If your email client will not allow you to do this, you can setup a POP account.

Most email clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) allow you to set up a POP account that downloads your email from the DukeMail servers onto your local computer. To set up the POP account, visit this page and locate the setup instructions for your e-mail client. You must change the instructions as shown below:

  • Mozilla Thunderbird – on step 6 choose POP instead of IMAP
  • Outlook 2002/XP – on step 4 choose POP3 instead of IMAP
  • Outlook 2003 – on step 4 choose POP3 instead of IMAP
  • Outlook 2007 – on step 9 choose POP3 instead of IMAP
  • Outlook Express – on step 7 choose POP instead of IMAP

If your mail client setup is not listed, please contact the OIT Service Desk at (919) 684-2200.

Note: Lotus Notes users should contact their Notes Administrator.

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Apply for an alumni forwarding address

The Duke University Alumni Association offers a free lifetime forwarding email address to all Duke alumni. The address (yourname@alumni.duke.edu) can be given to family, friends and associates. This is not an actual account, so you will not check an alumni.duke.edu inbox. It only forwards email to an account you have set up elsewhere (Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.).

Please visit the following website to register for your alumni forwarding address: http://lifetime.dukealumni.com/.

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Forward incoming e-mail to another address

Prior to your Duke account being closed, you may want to forward all e-mail addressed to your Duke account to another account you have set up elsewhere. Forwarding will last only as long as your Duke account remains active, but it will limit the amount of e-mail coming to your Duke inbox that will need to be moved before the account closes. (Forwarding does not apply to email already in your Duke account inbox.)

To forward your Duke account email to another address, visit the OIT account self-service tool.

Users with Exchange accounts should visit this document for instructions on how to do this in Exchange.

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Create an auto-reply (vacation) message

Prior to your Duke account being closed, you may want to create an auto-reply (vacation) message notifying people who send you e-mail that you have a new address. This will last only as long as your Duke account remains active, but it helps make people aware of your new e-mail address.

To create an auto-reply (vacation) message, visit the OIT account self-service tool.

Users with Exchange accounts should visit this document for instructions on how to do this in Exchange.

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I don't need to keep my account. Please close it

We will automatically close your Duke account two weeks after we notify you, by e-mail, that your account is about to be closed. You don't have to do anything.

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