Storage and Email Transformation Project

Digital storage and email have changed immensely and on an ongoing basis since Ohio State first introduced these services more than 25 years ago. We have made changes and updates to the services over the years to ensure things run smoothly and keep pace with changes in technology and with how people use email and storage. We are currently modifying email and storage services in response to changes in Microsoft's pricing model. As this project progresses, we will continually update this page so you can access the information as you need it.

Why Services are Changing

Over 2024 and 2025, we will make changes to email based both on changes to how email is used and on our duty to ensure responsible fiscal stewardship as cost changes impacts our services. Reasons for these changes include:

Vendor changes to the cost structure of email and storage
New security by third-party email providers (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) blocking emails
Changes in how users manage emails; many users do not want multiple accounts
General security concerns, which continue to change and grow

OTDI is committed to providing all users with the best possible service. We understand these changes may feel disruptive, but they are necessary due to third-party email security updates and Microsoft's pricing changes for storage services. In summary, key dates for most users are as follows:

December 31, 2024 - email account forwarding ends
June 1, 2025 - new storage limits go into effect

New Email and Storage Limits

Current Students

100GB BuckeyeMail/Outlook email storage
100GB OneDrive storage

Beginning on June 1, 2025.

Current University Employees – Faculty and Staff

100GB Outlook email storage
100GB Online email archive storage
500GB OneDrive storage

Beginning on June 1, 2025.

How Email Accounts and Forwarding Will Change

In the past we have offered various forms of ongoing email services for graduates, but alumni populations may be impacted differently depending on how they engage with our services. The Office of Alumni Affairs will publish a website with information specific to alumni populations and will partner with us in corresponding with alumni in the coming months. In addition, we are working with The Office of Human Resources to sunset services for retirees with email for life.

Accounts Issued by Role

At Ohio State, email addresses are issued based on your role at the university. Going forward, this process will be streamlined as users have expressed interest in having fewer accounts to manage.

Students will be issued lastname.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu accounts. We are planning to discontinue the lastname.#@osu.edu address that students are currently issued; evaluation of timing for that change is underway.
Employees will be issued lastname.#@osu.edu accounts.
Wexner Medical Center employees will be issued lastname.#@osu.edu account, and some will also have firstname.lastname@osumc.edu accounts.

Any user with multiple roles will receive an email for each role. For example, a faculty member with a dual appointment in the university and the medical center will receive @osu.edu and @osumc.edu accounts.

Information included on this page regarding email account forwarding and storage apply to emeritus employees in the same way as these changes apply to all other employees.

Email Forwarding

The ability to forward an Ohio State-issued email to a third-party email service (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) will end for all users on Dec. 31, 2024.

Going forward, when students and university employees leave the Ohio State, their access to their email account will vary based on their role.

Students will retain access to their BuckeyeMail account for two years after the date of graduation or withdrawal.
Employees who leave the university will lose access when the roll-off process is complete.

If you plan to leave the university, be sure you have a personal email account set up, inform your contacts, and ensure all social media and accounts are updated with your personal email.

If you are a faculty or staff member in a department that regularly emails students, you should be aware that we are evaluting timing for eliminating student’s lastname.#@osu.edu address. Once we have determined a timeline, we will notify you of the date when you will no longer be able to email students using lastname.#@osu.edu address. At that time, you will need to use lastname.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu addresses to reach students.

Likewise, if you email alumni regultarly, you will eventually need a personal email (non-Ohio State) to reach these contacts. To prevent numerous areas of the university from contacting the same alumni on multiple occasions, the Alumni Association will take the lead on collecting this data to ensure colleges and departments can continue communicating with alumni who want to stay engaged with the university.

Email for Students, Former Students and Alumni

Current students will have access to their BuckeyeMail for two years after graduating from the university. Because forwarding ends at the conclusion of the 2024 calendar year, you will need to log in to BuckeyeMail to access your email account.
Graduated students who retain BuckeyeMail will also lose the ability to forward on December 31, 2024. From that date forward, you will need to log in to BuckeyeMail to access your email account.
Students who have withdrawn or do not graduate will lose access to their Ohio State email accounts after two years. Those who have already withdrawn as a student and currently have accounts will lose access on December 31, 2024.
Eventually all students will ONLY have a lastname.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu account. Once we have determined a date when students will no longer have a lastname.#@osu.edu, we will post it here.

Online Resources to Help Manage Storage

The following resources can help ensure your data is safely stored and the volume is below the established limits:

To see how much mailbox storage you've used, log on to Outlook for the Web, click on the Settings menu (the gear icon) at the top of the page, and select Settings > General > Storage.
Check OneDrive numbers online.
University Libraries has published extensive information about managing files and emails.
OTDI has published articles about email clean-up, using online archives and applying retention tags:

Frequently Asked Questions

Email Changes

My Ohio State account is my only email account, what should I do?

Many providers offer free email services. Below are links that can instruct you on setting up an account with any of the top 10 providers. This list is for information purposes only; The Ohio State University does not recommend or endorse any specific email service.

I will lose access to my Ohio State email account. What should I do?

We recommend taking these steps:

Backup: Save important emails – forward to your new address or save elsewhere
Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new email - include both personal contacts and accounts (shopping, finance, subscriptions, etc.)
Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list
Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions
Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Ohio State email including contacts for purchasing OSU sports tickets
Update Profiles: If you use your Ohio State address for social media and online profiles, update them
Check Payments: Update email for subscriptions that use your Ohio State address.

I graduated before May 2024. How does this affect me? 

Graduated students who retain BuckeyeMail will also lose the ability to forward on December 31, 2024. From that date forward, you will need to log in to BuckeyeMail to access your email account. Because alumni populations will be impacted differently depending on how they receive our services, the Office of Alumni Affairs will publish a website with information specific to alumni populations. We will also be partnering with them to correspond with alumni in the coming months.

Before your email service ends, we recommend switching to a personal email address. We recommend taking these steps:

Backup: Save important emails – forward to your new address or save elsewhere
Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new email - include both personal contacts and accounts (shopping, finance, subscriptions, etc.)
Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list
Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions
Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Ohio State email including contacts for purchasing OSU sports tickets.
Update Profiles: If you use your Ohio State address for social media and online profiles, update them
Check Payments: Update email for subscriptions that use your Ohio State address.

I graduated in May 2024, or I will graduate after May 2024. How does this affect me? 

You will have 2 years of access to your Microsoft 365 account. At the end of the 2 years the account will be deleted, including email and data.  Because email forwarding will be discontinued on December 31, 2024, you will need to log in to BuckeyeMail to access your email.

Before your email service ends, we recommend switching to a personal email address. We recommend taking these steps:

Backup: Save important emails – forward to your new address or save elsewhere
Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new email - include both personal contacts and accounts (shopping, finance, subscriptions, etc.)
Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list
Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions.
Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Ohio State email including contacts for purchasing OSU sports tickets.
Update Profiles: If you use your Ohio State address for social media, online profiles, update them.
Check Payments: Update email for subscriptions that use your Ohio State address.

I am a current student. How does this affect me? 

For current students, storage limits effective on June 1, 2025, will be:

100GB Outlook email storage
100GB OneDrive storage

Email account forwarding to outside email services will be discontinued. Log in to BuckeyeMail to send and retrieve emails from your Ohio State account. If your course instructors use Carmen, check Announcements and Carmen Messaging to ensure you do not miss messages from your instructors. While Ohio State’s policies around email remains unchanged, we recommend that students transition all accounts and contacts not related to the university to a personal email address instead of an Ohio State address.

Like other Microsoft 365 applications, for current students email services will continue for 2-years after graduation or date of withdrawal (if you do not graduate). At the end of the 2 years your account will be deleted, including email and data. Before that time, we recommend taking these steps:

Backup: Save important emails – forward to your new address or save elsewhere
Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new email - include both personal contacts and accounts (shopping, finance, subscriptions, etc.)
Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list
Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions.
Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Ohio State email including contacts for purchasing OSU, sports tickets.
Update Profiles: If you use your Ohio State address for social media and online profiles update them
Check Payments: Update email for subscriptions that use your Ohio State address.

I was an Ohio State student, but I did not graduate. I still have a BuckeyeMail email account. How does this affect me? 

Email service to past students who withdrew from Ohio State will be ending December 31, 2024. Before that time, we recommend taking these steps:

Backup: Save important emails – forward to your personal, non-OSU address or save messages elsewhere
Update Contacts: Inform contacts of your new personal email address - include both personal contacts and accounts (shopping, finance, subscriptions, etc.)
Download Contacts: Microsoft offers instructions on downloading your contacts list
Transfer Subscriptions: Update email addresses for subscriptions
Notify Services: Update accounts tied to your Ohio State email including contacts for purchasing OSU sports tickets.
Update Profiles: If you use your Ohio State address for online profiles, update them

I am an emeritus faculty member. How am I affected?

Like most faculty and staff, former faculty with emeritus status will have storage limits of 100GB for Outlook, 100GB for email archives, and 500GB for OneDrive beginning in June 2025. If an emeritus faculty member is forwarding an email account to an outside service, that forwarding will end on Dec. 31, 2024.

Not all retired faculty have emeritus status -- to be considered emeritus, you must have requested and been approved for emeritus status before leaving the university. This special status is available to full-time tenure-track, teaching, or associated faculty who retired or resigned at the age of sixty or older with ten or more years of service or at any age with twenty-five or more years of service.

How will forwarding to @osumc.edu be affected?

Forwarding will be unchanged for staff who work at the medical center and forward their lastname.#@osu.edu address to a firstname.lastname@osumc.edu address.

My department, workgroup or team often uses Ohio State email addresses to communicate with former students and alumni. What do we need to do?

To ensure intended recipients recieve your messages, you will need to change your source for communications lists to use proper email addresses:

Email to Use
If you are emailing...	Use...
Current students	@buckeyemail.osu.edu (@osu.edu addresses discontinuation TBD)
Employees (faculty and staff)	@osu.edu
Wexner Medical Center Employees	@osumc.edu
Alumni and Former Students	Non-OSU email address

In addition:

Eventually all students will ONLY have a lastname.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu account. Once we have determined a date when students will no longer have a lastname.#@osu.edu, we will post it here.
Email services, such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, are being expanded to include student email information.
Likewise, if you email alumni regularly, you will eventually need a personal email (non-Ohio State) to reach these contacts. To prevent numerous areas of the university from contacting the same alumni on multiple occasions, the Alumni Association will take the lead on collecting this data to ensure colleges and departments can continue communicating with alumni who want to stay engaged with the university.
We recommend that you allow recipients to specify the best email address to contact them.

My department, workgroup or team often use lastname.#@osu.edu to send all of our communications to students. How does this affect us? 

Eventually all students will ONLY have a lastname.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu account. Once we have determined a date when students will no longer have a lastname.#@osu.edu, we will post it on this site.

You can continue to use lastname.#@osu.edu for current, active university employees and guests.

Change your source for communications lists to use proper email addresses:

Email to Use
If you are emailing...	Use...
Current students	@buckeyemail.osu.edu (@osu.edu addresses discontinuation TBD)
Employees (faculty and staff)	@osu.edu
Wexner Medical Center Employees	@osumc.edu
Alumni and Former Students	Non-OSU email address

Email services, such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, are being expanded to include student email information.

Storage Changes

How can I find out how much storage I am using?

To see how much mailbox storage you've used in Outlook:

Log on to Outlook for the Web
Click on the Settings menu (the gear icon) at the top of the page
Select Settings > General > Storage.

Microsoft has online instructions for checking your OneDrive storage numbers online.

I am an employee or sponsored guest, and my accounts are not currently over the limit – why should I archive emails and set retention tags? 

Archiving emails and setting retention tags will not only ensure you are a good steward of university resources, but also prevent you from having to do so later if you do exceed limits at some point during your time at Ohio State. Developing good habits now, will save you time in the future. Here are three great reasons to observe retention schedules;

Ensure you keep what you should keep: A records retention schedule is a legally mandated tool that classifies records created, sent or received by the university, and provides instruction for records retention and disposition. Retention schedules cover records on any media format, including paper and electronic.
Ensure you discard what you no longer need: Because not all records are equal in value or retention period, the retention period for each message is based upon the content and informational value of the message.  The key to effectively managing emails and electronic messages is to be proactive. University Libraries has extensive information about managing emails. Information about retention requirements that is presented here was drawn from University Libraries’ existing documentation.  
Manage Storage Responsibly: Using retention tags will enable you to follow Ohio State’s retention policies and will remove records that you no longer are required to save, reducing the overall number of messages you have stored. By doing so, you will increase storage space in your account to make room for messages that are helpful related to work on current projects.

How do I archive emails and set retention tags appropriately?

University Libraries maintain both a General Retention Schedule and a Unique Retention Schedules that contains record series that are unique to a particular unit’s operations. 

Microsoft Outlook enables you to use Default Retention Tags, Retention Policy Tags, and Personal tags to adhere to university retention recommendations for email records. Based on Ohio State’s retention policies, the university has set up several recommended tags in Outlook for you to use: 1 month, 1 week, 1 year, 10 years, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, 6 months, and 6 years.

We have posted how-to articles in the Administrative Resource Center so you can learn to use retention tags in the Outlook Web App, in Outlook for Windows and in Outlook for Mac. These articles also provide instructions for using your online archive in any of these apps.  

Read instructions for Outlook for Windows  or this video.
Read instructions for Outlook for Mac  or watch this video.
Read instructions for Outlook Web App (OWA).  or this video.

While retention tags can be applied to individual emails, they work most efficiently when applied at the folder level using a functional filing structure. By doing this, retention tags can be applied to a high-level parent folder and is then inherited by the child folders. You should also know that the retention period for the tag runs based on the date of the email. Tags work best with retention periods beginning with a specific Creation Date (CR) or records that are transient. For retention periods that begin with ACT, which stands for “active,” it might be necessary to increase retention time by a year or two on the retention label to ensure you wait long enough for the active period and the retention period to expire. 

As an employee or sponsored guest, what can I do to manage email in addition to setting retention tags?

In addition to setting retention tags, here are some things you can do to manage storage:

Set retention on sent items in your online archive.
Archive regularly to establish good habits, even if you are not close to or above storage limits,
Empty the Conflicts, Sync Issues, and other folders.
Ensure the Deleted Items folder is emptied.
Send links to files stored in OneDrive instead of the file itself to save space.