Your KU Email

How long do I keep my KU email after leaving the university?

Students and faculty lose access to their KU email 210 days after leaving the university. Unclassified Professional Staff (UPS) and University Support Staff (USS) lose access immediately after leaving the university.

For this reason, we recommend using a more permanent personal email account for non-KU related purposes. We encourage you to review the Electronic Mail Policy to help guide your use of KU email.

Can I change my KU email address?

When you set up your KU Online ID, your default email address is automatically created and looks something like "a123b456@ku.edu." If you prefer a custom email address that is easier to remember (we call it an "alias"), you can change your email address at MyIdentity Services.

Checking Your KU Email

There are three ways to check your KU email: web browser, desktop mail client or mobile device:

Web Browser

Access your email and calendar online from anywhere in the world on any internet-enabled device by logging into Outlook Office 365. Just enter your KU email address and you will be taken to the standard KU log in page where you will enter your KU Online ID and password.

Desktop Client

Microsoft Outlook is the recommended and supported desktop/laptop computer email client for KU email services for both Windows and Mac. Outlook is already installed on faculty and staff workstations.

Students, faculty and staff can install Outlook on personal devices for free through Microsoft Office 365. Instructions for configuring Outlook are available in our Knowledge Base.

Mobile Device

You can access your KU email account on a mobile device either by using a browser and logging into Outlook Office 365, or setting up your email account directly on your device (see below).

Forwarding Your KU Email

We strongly recommend that you do not auto-forward your KU email to an external personal email account. By doing so, you may miss important emails, and unintentionally compromise the security of both your personal device and confidential KU information or data. Read more about email forwarding.

Set Up Email on Devices

KU IT recommends Microsoft Outlook for setting up KU email on your desktop computer, laptop or mobile device and the Outlook app for connecting email to your mobile device. Visit Configure Email on Your Devices for more information and instructions.

Email Security

KU IT has implemented robust security measures to protect you and the KU community, including Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection, encryption and digital signatures.

Advanced Threat Protection

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) not only helps protects you from malicious emails, it also helps reduce annoying spam. It can prevent unwanted or harmful emails from ever reaching your inbox. In addition, ATP protects in other ways:

• Link spoof detection ― When you click a URL in an email, ATP will scan that URL and cross reference it with Microsoft’s known-threat databases.
• Attachment scanning and quarantine — All email attachments from non-KU email addresses will be scanned, and suspicious or malicious attachments will be quarantined and/or deleted.

Email Encryption and Digital Signatures

Encryption is a way to send an encoded message that can only be decoded by someone with the proper key. A digital signature is a mathematical algorithm that helps validate that a message is from the stated sender, and that the content of the message has not changed since it was sent.

To get your digital certificates for email encryption and digital signing, and to learn more about email security at KU visit our email security page.

Departmental Email Accounts

Departmental email accounts are available to departments and campus organizations, and are associated with a task or function. Examples of departmental accounts include purchasing@ku.edu, musicnews@ku.edu and design@ku.edu. A departmental email account allows multiple people in the department or organization to check and respond to emails to the account.

Visit our Departmental Email service page for more information, including how to request a departmental email account.