Migrating from Your Reed User Account
Moving on From Reed — Electronically
When your Reed account is closed, your email and all files will be deleted. Read on to learn how to save your data before your account is closed.
You may be wondering what happens to your Reed computing accounts after you leave Reed. Periodically, CUS will close email and AFS accounts of individuals no longer affiliated with the college. We will send a notification of account closure at least two weeks prior to the accounts shutting down, reminding you to retrieve any important data you may have. After the closure date, your AFS space will no longer be accessible, and mail sent to your closed @reed.edu address will bounce back to the sender. Here's what you need to do:
- Notify Contacts in Your Address Book
- Setup Email Forwarding
- Backup Your Reed Email Account
- Backup Your Home Server Files
Notifying Your Contacts Automatically
You should inform anyone who e-mails you that your account will be closing, and that they should direct future communications elsewhere.
Webmail provides the ability to set up a vacation filter which can be used to inform your contacts of your account closure and how they may e-mail you in the future. To set up your Vacation Filter, log into webmail and click the Settings link in the upper-right corner, and then click the Filters & Vacation tab (see circles 1 and 2 in the screenshot below):
Disabled filters are displayed in gray text. In the screenshot above, the "Spam" filter is enabled and the "Vacation" filter is disabled.Set Up Email Forwarding
Webmail forwarding
Before closure, you can set up e-mail forwarding to an alternative account in order to maintain important contacts. Webmail has a Forwarding filter you can set up to do this.
Please follow the instructions below if you want your Reed email forwarded to another address:
- Log into IRIS: https://iris.reed.edu/email_prefs/update/delivery.
- Enter the desired address in the white box below where it says Deliver my email to another account.
- Click the Update delivery preference button.
@alumni.reed.edu forwarding address
Reed also offers graduated seniors an @alumni.reed.edu address which forwards messages to an e-mail address of your choosing. The @alumni.reed.edu is not an email account, it just forwards messages to wherever you choose.
Graduated seniors are able to set up an alumni.reed.edu account by logging into IRIS. A link called Senior Email Forwarding or Alumni Email Forwarding will appear and allow you to set your @alumni.reed.edu address, as well as the address to which your e-mail will be forwarded. Submissions will be approved manually by alumni office staff, therefore, please allow some time for changes to be processed.
Back up your Reed Email Account
Backing Up Email Using Thunderbird
An e-mail client such as Thunderbird can be used to save all your e-mail to your own computer. To do this, set up Thunderbird to retrieve e-mail from your Reed account using the instructions in the link above. Create a new folder under Local Folders.
You will then be able to drag and drop single e-mails, entire folders, and even your entire Inbox from your Reed webmail account, into your new folder, thus moving each message, complete with attachments, to your computer.
Note: The messages are moved, not copied. Because they are now on your personal machine, Reed will no longer back them up for you. We recommend that you back them up on your own.
If you want to back up your Thunderbird mail, it lives in the two directories called ImapMail and Mail. On OS X, these can be found in %7e/Library/Thunderbird. On Windows, you can find them by typing %appdata%/Thunderbird/Profiles/ into the Run dialog. Then navigate to the ********.default folder. By backing up these folders in a secure location, you ensure that you can restore your saved e-mail even on a completely different computer.
Backing Up Email Using Apple Mail
To back up your email messages in Apple Mail, go to the Mailbox menu and choose New Mailbox. For each folder, select all messages (Edit > Select All) within the folder, right (control)-click them, and move them to folder you just made. Make sure the new folder is in the "On My Mac" portion of folders.
Note: Because these messages are now on your personal machine, Reed will no longer back them up for you. We recommend that you back them up on your own.
To back up your mail, go to the Finder, use the Go menu > Go to folder, and type %7e/Library/. Copy (drag) the Mail and MailDownloads folders to an external hard drive or burn them to a CD.
Backing Up Email Using Gmail
Follow these steps to import all emails from your Reed email account to your Gmail account.
- Log in to your Gmail account.
- On the top right of your Gmail window, click on Settings.
- In the Settings area, select the Accounts tab. Under the section "import mail and contacts", click on the link Add a mail account you own
- In the pop-up window, type your Reed email address (eg smithj@reed.edu), then click on Next Step.
- You might be asked by Gmail to verify that you own the Reed email address, which you can do by clicking on the link sent to your Reed inbox by Gmail.
- On the next page, provide your Reed username (eg smithj) and Reed email password. For the POP Server, enter imap.reed.edu and for Port 995.
- Check the option Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.
- Check the option Always use a secure connection (SSL) if the option is availible. Check the option Label incoming messages, then in the pull-down menu select New label and type a unique label for your Reed emails (eg Reedmailz).
- If you check the option Archive incoming messages, your Reed emails will be visible only when you click on All Mail on the Gmail sidebar, several lines below Inbox, with the unique label that you just assigned. If you do not check this option, your Reed emails might flood your Gmail inbox as new messages.
- Click on Add Account.
- On the next page, select the radio button to No, then click on Finish.
Gmail will begin importing all your Reed emails immediately. While it may take some time to complete the process, you may sign out or close the window without affecting the import.
Backing Up Your Reed Google Apps
Backing Up /Exporting Google Docs
To export a document from Google Docs:
- In an open Google Doc, click the File menu; scroll down and highlight Download As.
- You'll see options to save common formats such as Word or Excel, PDF, or even OpenOffice. Once you've made your desired format, your browser will prompt you to save the file to your computer.
To save all your documents at once:
- View all your documents (the default view).
- Select the top one.
- Hold down the shift key and click the bottom file to select them all.
- Choose Download... from the Actions menu (on the right-hand pane).
- You'll see options to save common formats such as Word or Excel, PDF, or even OpenOffice. Your browser will prompt you to save the files to your computer.
Exporting Google Calendar Events
Here's how to export (or save for backup) any calendars. You can also sync iCal with Google Calendar, which keeps a copy of your calendar on your computer's hard drive.
Exporting Your Reed Address Book
Address books maintained through the webmail interface can be easily exported. To do so, log into webmail and click on the Address Book tab near the top of the page. Then, click on the Import/Export button. You may export the entries in your book by choosing the desired export format from the dropdown menu near the bottom and then clicking Export. Your contacts can then be imported into a mail client such as Thunderbird via its Address Book interface.
Back Up Files from your AFS Space
You can copy all files and folders on your AFS Space to your computer's hard drive or any other storage device, like a USB flash drive, a CD/DVD, an external hard drive. The easiest method to bulk transfer your files is by using the AFS native client or via an SFTP program. You can find out more at How to access AFS.
Alumni Access to Reed Services
As a Reed Alumnus, you will retain access to IRIS (and the Alumni Directory), will still be able to login to IRC and Library computers, will have an @alumni.reed.edu email address that forwards to the email account of your choice, and will be able to register on the Reed network as an Alumnus. All of these services will be accessible by way of your Kerberos username and password. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call CUS at (503) 777-7525.
