Problems that might result from forwarding your email

Technology Services does not recommend forwarding your University Exchange email to another account. If you choose to forward your email, please be aware that you may encounter the following problems:

• You may not receive all forwarded mail at the desired account. Due to how the University’s Spam Control and email relay routing systems work, messages redirected out of Exchange may incorrectly be blocked as spam. Users who decide to forward their email should check their University Exchange account frequently to avoid missing messages.
• You risk violating FERPA and other regulations. These laws protect student information or other confidential information from being disclosed to a third-party, which includes companies that provide email services.
• Your other account might be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. University business records stored in a private email account may render the entire account subject to FOIA requests for searches for relevant documents.
• You may not receive voice mail. The campus Unified Communications system relies on functionality within your Exchange account to deliver voice mail.
• Technology Services cannot support problems that ensue from forwarding your email. Due to how email traffic flows into and out of the campus Exchange system, redirecting your email will result in your email being delivered to two separate locations. Official University correspondence and email from any other Exchange user will be delivered to your official University email account (Exchange) regardless of your forward setting. You are solely responsible for any consequences resulting from this change.

Exception: Graduates and retirees

All graduates after Dec 2012 are eligible for lifetime forwarding from their Illinois email account. For more information on your email account and leaving the university, see Identity Management, Leaving Campus for Graduating Students.

Retirees from the University will maintain use of their Exchange mailbox, but will need to access it via the Outlook website or on a mobile device. For more information on retirement, see Identity Management, Leaving Campus for Faculty and Staff.

How to forward or redirect Exchange email to a different email account

Forwarding/Redirecting your email is a 2-stage process. It is very important that you follow both steps so that all mail goes where intended.

Step 1: You must set a rule within your Exchange Account

Instructions for Classic Outlook (Windows) can be found here.
Instructions for New Outlook (Windows) can be found here.
Instructions for Outlook on the Web can be found here. 

Instructions for New Outlook (MacOS):

1. Open Outlook
2. Click Message on the menu bar
3. Then Rules
4. Then Edit Rules
5. Add New Rule
6. Name your Rule
7. Select a Condition > Apply to All Messages
8. Select an Action > Forward to or Redirect to
9. Click Save
10. Then make sure its the top rule on the interface by clicking the Up arrows on the newly created rule until its at the Top. 

To figure out why emails aren't showing up where you expect them to, or where they are ending up instead, start by checking these settings.

EDE Mail Delivery

The first step in tracking down a missing email is to ensure that email routing is set up correctly for your account. Log in to the Electronic Directory Editor (EDE) and look for the mail field. It should be one of the following:

• <yourNetID>@mx.uillinois.edu
  • emails will be delivered to your Microsoft account (Outlook)
• <yourNetID>@g.illinois.edu
  • emails will be delivered to your Google Apps @ Illinois account (Gmail).
• A non-Illinois personal email address

Caveats

If external email is redirected away from the University's mail server (by setting this to anything besides @mx.uillinois.edu), Technology Services will not be able to track what happens to a message afterwards.

Current staff members are not able to edit this setting, and by default must use their @illinois.edu email address for conducting university business, rather than directing mail elsewhere.

Google Apps @ Illinois is only provided as a service to current students, faculty, and staff; others should not use the @g.illinois.edu setting.

Changes to the EDE mail field may take up to 4 hours to sync with the mail server, and will not take effect immediately.

Inbox Rules

If messages are staying on the University mail server (EDE mail field is @mx.uillinois.edu or @g.illinois.edu) but you are not finding them where you expect, next check if you have any inbox rules or filtering set up. These can be used to redirect or file away some messages, and may be catching mail you don't expect them to.

For Microsoft accounts, Outlook's rules can be found here: https://outlook.office.com/mail/options/mail/rules

For Google accounts, Gmail's filters can be found here: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/filters

Email software (such as the installed version of Outlook, Apple Mail, or smartphone applications) can also perform sorting, filtering, or redirection on its own, or its connection to the mail server may fall out of sync. Check the Outlook web app for missing messages or different contents to see if this is the case. If messages appear in the website but not in your email software, try removing the account from the software and adding it back.

Other potential causes

Spam

Missing emails may have inadvertently been flagged as spam.

• If you are missing mail from a specific person or vice versa, make sure you add them to your safe senders list. See: Email, Spam Control, Managing Safe and Block Lists.
• If you have attachments on your message, ensure they are not being blocked. See: Email, Spam Control, Email or attachment disappears.

Messages that are marked as spam often end up in your Proofpoint Spam Digest. Also be sure to check Deleted, Spam, Junk, etc. folders.

Preferred Address

If you are a student and you are having issues receiving course emails (from your instructors), please check that your preferred email address in UI Self Service (under the Personal Information > Email Addresses tab at https://apps.uillinois.edu/selfservice) is correct. If it is not listed correctly, please see Enterprise, University Assigned, Preferred Email Address.

Still missing email?

If you're able to provide the Technology Services Help Desk with a specific example of an email that's gone missing, we may be able to track down whether or not the mail server saw it and what may have happened to it. Contact the Help Desk by email at consult@illinois.edu or by phone at 217-244-7000 and provide the following details:

• timestamp the message was sent (or a date and a range of hours, if the exact time is not known)
• sending address the message originated from
• recipient address the message was sent to
• subject of the message, if known

Email delivered directly to an Exchange account instead of a forwarding address 

University accounts can be configured to redirect incoming emails to Microsoft Exchange, Google Apps, or a personal email address. This setting is found in the Electronic Directory Editor:

1. Go to the Electronic Directory Editor (EDE) and log in with your email address and password.
2. EDE will display several pieces of information about your University account. Find the mail field; if email redirection is configured for your account, this will have your personal email address.
3. Replace the personal email address with an internal University email address. This should be either YourNetID@mx.uillinois.edu or, if your account has Google Apps configured and you normally send and receive University emails from the Gmail interface, YourNetID@g.illinois.edu (with YourNetID replaced with your NetID in both cases).
4. Click the Apply button at the top or bottom of the EDE webpage, then log out.

Please note that changes made in EDE can take up to 4 hours to propagate to the email relays.

More information about email forwarding and redirection using EDE can be found here: Email, How to set up email forwarding

Also check for forwarding or redirecting rules set up in mail clients such as Outlook.

Staff members are not allowed to redirect email, and will be unable to edit the mail field in EDE. If you are a staff member and need to modify this to disable mail forwarding, please contact the Technology Services Help Desk at consult@illinois.edu or 217-244-7000. See this article for more information: Privacy & Cybersecurity, Faculty and Staff Email Auto-forwarding Retirement FAQ