Closing your SUNet ID Account

Overview

You may have reached this page because you received an email notification indicating that your SUNet ID account would soon be closed. This can mean different things depending on your current affiliation with the University and your current or expected future eligibility. This page will help you determine what "your account is closing" means to you, and what you need to do about it.

End of service and grace period

In general terms, your SUNet ID services end when your affiliation with Stanford ends. For non-sponsored SUNet IDs, there may be a grace period during which you still have access to your SUNet services. For students, continuing base-level service provides access to transcripts for 5 years after graduation.

Student Your affiliation status changes to "inactive" at the end of each academic year, and is reactivated when you re-enroll in the fall. However, your SUNet ID has a 120-day grace period to carry your services through this inactive period, so that you can continue to receive email and use other network services.

At the end of the grace period, if no other eligibility condition has taken effect (i.e. you have not re-enrolled, become staff or faculty, or been sponsored), your SUNet services will end, but your SUNet ID and password will remain active as your login ID for 5 more years. This will allow you to access your transcripts, and other secure information you've been given authority to view.

You'll also continue to have a listing in the Stanford directory (StanfordWho).
Faculty When your affiation with Stanford ends, your SUNet account enters a 120-day grace period (i.e., the length of time between the end of one academic year and the beginning of the next). If, at the end of this grace period, your affiliation has not been reactivated, your SUNet services will end.
Staff When your employment at Stanford ends, your SUNet services end. You may be given a 3-day grace period in order to transition your email and personal files. However, your authority to access the Stanford business systems for which your SUNet ID served as login ID (such as Oracle Financials or PeopleSoft Student Administration) will have ended.
Sponsored If your SUNet account is sponsored, it means someone has agreed to pay for you to use SUNet services for a fixed period of time. When that sponsorship ends, the sponsored services end. You will receive email reminders 30 and 7 days before the expiration date of your sponsorship; use that time to either get your sponsorship renewed, or close your account.

Continuing eligibility

Even though you've received notice of a status change affecting your SUNet services, you may have continuing eligibility for full or base services. If your status will be:

  • emeritus faculty or staff: You will continue to be eligible for full SUNet services. No action is required.
  • temporary/casual faculty or staff: You will continue to be eligible for base SUNet services. You can be sponsored for full services.
  • Hospital staff: You will continue to be eligible for base SUNet services. You can be sponsored for full services.
  • SLAC staff: You will continue to be eligible for full SUNet services. No action is required.
  • sponsored: A University faculty or staff member may sponsor you for full or base services after your current sponsorship ends.

For more information about sponsorship, see the Sponsorship page.

For more information about base SUNet services, see the SUNet IDs and services page.

Close your email account

  • Forward your @stanford.edu email to another permanent email address (e.g. a Stanford Alumni, Yahoo!, or Hotmail account).
    1. Log into StanfordYou, and select Change settings for account.
    2. In the Forward email to another address section, click the Change link.
    3. Enter the email address(es) to which you want your @stanford.edu mail forwarded. Forwarding will end at the same time your email service ends.
  • Set an autoreply message to inform senders of your new email address.
    1. Log into StanfordYou, and select Change settings for account.
    2. In the Vacation autoreply section, click the Change link.
    3. Set the autoreply status to ON, and write a message that includes your new email address. You do not need to set an expiration date, as the autoreply will end at the same time your email service ends.
  • Save your stored email
    • If you use POP, your email is already saved on your computer - no further action is required.
    • If you use IMAP, be sure that your emails and attachments are cached on your machine. To check this, set your email client to work offline and then make sure you can still get to all your email and attachments. If you can't see your messages and attachments offline, refer to your email program's documentation for how to change the caching setting.
    • If you use POP to your AFS space (pine, elm, mutt on the Leland Systems), your email is stored in the /Mail folder there. Use Stanford Desktop Tools to Mount Home Folder, then either use a desktop email client (e.g. Eudora or Outlook) to import the email from the /Mail folder, or just copy the files to your local computer's hard drive.
    • If you use Webmail, you will have to install a desktop client (e.g. Eudora or Outlook) and use POP to download all your email to your local computer's hard drive.

Move your files from your AFS space

Use Stanford Desktop Tools to Mount Home Folder, and copy the files from your home folder to your hard drive. If you don't have Stanford Desktop Tools installed, use SFTP to transfer the files.

Close your web site

If you've put a personal web site at your www.stanford.edu/~sunetid address, you may want to use the grace period (if you have one) to redirect people to another web site. You can do this just by placing a link to your new site on your Stanford site's home page, or by using this <head> tag:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;URL=www.mynewsite.com">

This will cause most browsers to automatically display the specified URL after a delay of 5 seconds (or any number of seconds you specify).

Your web site files are stored in the /WWW folder of your AFS home folder. Use Stanford Desktop Tools to Mount Home Folder, and copy the files from your home folder to your hard drive. If you don't have Stanford Desktop Tools installed, use SFTP to transfer the files.

 

Still have questions? Submit a HelpSU help request.