Alumni Email Service
Unlock your exclusive @ucsd.edu email! As a UC San Diego alumnus, take advantage of this special benefit with a professional email address tied to your alma mater.
About the Service
The UC San Diego Alumni Email Service provides a free email account that is tied to your university affiliation. With this account, you'll enjoy some of the same features and functionality as a standard Gmail account, including:
- Send and receive capabilities
- 5GB of storage for your emails and attachments
- A professional email address with the @ucsd.edu domain
This service will be available to alumni soon. Update your contact information to stay up to date with new perks and programs.
Contact
Contact the Alumni office at alumni@ucsd.edu for additional information.
Who qualifies for an account?
Recent graduates with discontinued email accounts
Alumni who graduated in 2023 or after will be able to use the email address assigned when they were students. They will receive an invitation to join the Alumni Email Service, which will convert their student account over to the new system. Any Google account data they wish to retain must be removed prior to the student email account being decommissioned. Data will no longer exist once that process is completed.
Graduates whose student email accounts are inactive and closed
Alumni whose student email accounts are already decommissioned may request an account by emailing alumni@ucsd.edu. IT Services will assign an email address that is as close to the user’s first initial, last name as they are able.
Graduates who have not held an email address
Alumni who have not previously had a campus student email account may request an account by emailing alumni@ucsd.edu. IT Services will assign an email address that is as close to the user’s first initial, last name as they are able.
A graduate with any other active campus affiliation (e.g., Postdoc, employee, department guest) does not qualify for the Alumni Email Service until their other affiliation ends.
What is Alumni Email Service?
The Alumni Email Service offers users a Gmail-hosted mailbox with an @ucsd.edu domain email address, send/receive capabilities and 5GB of storage. It is offered to UC San Diego alumni at no charge.
The service is currently in its pilot phase, which will continue through 2025 before rolling out more widely.
What if I had a previous email forwarding service?
Alumni who are using the previous email forwarding service may request to participate in the new Alumni Email Service by emailing their request to: alumni@ucsd.edu
What other features does this service include?
While the Gmail mailbox includes 5GB of storage and basic send/receive capabilities, it does not include additional Google Workspace features, nor is it guaranteed to be available indefinitely.
What else should I know about this service?
As with all other UC San Diego email accounts, those participating in the Alumni Email Service program are bound by University of California and UC San Diego electronic communications and acceptable use policies. Failure to comply may result in discontinuation of the user’s account without prior notice.
- Users are only permitted to access the IT Resources that they have been explicitly authorized to access and only for the purposes for which access authorization was granted.
- Users granted access to an IT Resource must use it responsibly and comply with applicable laws and policies; access may not be shared.
- Incidental personal use must not burden the University with noticeable incremental costs, nor expose the University to appreciable risks.
- Evidence of illegal activities or policy violations will be turned over to the appropriate authorities.
- Violation of law or policy may result in revocation of access, suspension of accounts, disciplinary actions and prosecution.
What if I graduated this year?
New graduates should not request the Alumni Email Service. Rather, they will receive an invitation.
What if I have an active @ucsd.edu account due to another campus affiliation?
A graduate who has another active campus affiliation (e.g., graduate student, Postdoc, employee, department sponsored guest) does not qualify for the Alumni Email Service until that other affiliation ends.
I had an email address when I was a student but I graduated before 2017. Why can’t I have the same student email address now?
Due to the practice of reassigning email addresses prior to 2017, alumni from that year and before are not assured to receive their prior student email address. IT will assign an email address that is as close to first initial, last name as they are able and in keeping with the existing campus naming convention.
Alumni Email Service History
The Alumni “Email for Life” program began approximately 15 years ago as a service that provided alumni with an @alumni.ucsd.edu email address that forwarded to an external email account. Having gone through multiple iterations, its first and most major change started with the graduating class of 2017. It was at this time that it became a Chancellor initiative prompting the revamp of the program to an email forwarding service.
Recent email security policy changes by Google and Microsoft concerning anti-spoofing protocols have impacted the functionality of email forwarding services like “Email for Life.” These changes impact not only UC San Diego but also numerous other organizations, signaling a widespread reevaluation of alumni email services across the higher education sector. As of December of 2023, the program as it stands is inactive but available to all those who opted in prior to this date.