Alumni Email Access

Due to cybersecurity compliance requirements and changes to license structure, SAU is no longer able to provide email accounts to former students. We would encourage anyone that is still using their SAU email account to begin migrating to a free email service like Gmail, Outlook, or one of the competitors to those services. Effective immediately, former student accounts that aren’t in active use have been disabled if a login to the account hasn’t happened in the last 100 days. We will continue to disable alumni accounts that haven’t been accessed in the last 100 days over the next 6 months. This short timeline was required to meet a compliance requirement. The Alumni office is aware of this change, and they have had a hard time staying in touch with Alumni that rarely check their old SAU email account. They are excited to get an active email address for you to make sure you are connected and in the loop on campus events! Information on that is below.

We understand that there are a few alumni in our systems that actively use and prefer their SAU account and some that have used this email account for a long time. We are aware that this will cause some inconvenience to switch over, and we apologize for the hassle and hope that you understand that this was not a decision we took lightly. This decision was primarily made because of cybersecurity rules that we are required to comply with, but there are now significant costs associated with providing accounts like this as well. You can save important emails using the directions in the link below.

In December of 2024 all Alumni and former student email accounts will be disabled, and access cannot be extended past that point in time.

Important notes:

1. If your SAU email is the only place you get updates from the Alumni office, you can update your contact info at this link: https://www.arbor.edu/alumni/update/.
2. If you use your SAU email as an email address for personal websites or social media make sure you migrate that account to a new personal email account that you will access to.
3. Any account that is deleted has a 30 day grace period where the data associated with the account is held. Once that grace period is passed all emails and other data are purged from Microsoft’s systems and no longer accessible.
4. If you are in the process of applying to return as a student and you received this email, your advisor or admissions rep will need to submit a ticket so that your account is not inactivated in December. Once you complete that program you will lose your email account one month after you earn your degree.
5. If you have any follow up questions, please submit a ticket by emailing helpdesk@arbor.edu.

How to export your important emails

There are two ways to export emails for you to retain for future use. The easiest way is to go through your emails and forward whatever you might need to your personal email account. You can only forward one email at a time and steps for that are below:

• In your message list, choose the message that you want to forward.

• At the top right corner of the message pane, select , or select and then select Forward.

• Type your message and then select Send.

Keep in mind that if you have any "automatic forward" rules on your email they will stop working when your account is disabled in December.

The "harder way" to save your emails is to export them to a PST file. You must have the full desktop version of Microsoft Outlook to accomplish this and you cannot do this from the web version of Outlook online or through your browser. This will let you export all of your emails at once.

1. Select File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
2. Select Export to a file, and then select Next.
3. Select Outlook Data File (.pst), and select Next.
4. Select the mail folder you want to back up and select Next.
5. Choose a location and name for your backup file, and then select Finish.