If your Microsoft 365 account is closing because of graduation, retirement or leaving the university, there are steps you can do to take your email with you.

1. Moving Email From Your Microsoft 365 Account to Another Email Account - This page explains how to move your email from Microsoft 365 to your personal email account.   Important: You need to do these steps before your mailbox closes and while you still have access to a Microsoft Office license. If you are using Outlook to move the email, this is usually 2 years after your last enrollment and before the semester changes (for example, the Saturday between the end of fall and winter sessions). You will lose your license (which means you can't use Outlook, Excel, Word, etc.) before your mailbox actually closes, but you can still access your email through the Outlook on the web (OWA) during that time.
    
2. Importing/Exporting Contacts in Microsoft 365 - this page has instructions for exporting your contacts so you can import them into your personal email account
    
3. Update any accounts, subscriptions or email lists that are using, or are in any way connected, to your @uiowa.edu address before your account closes. For example; any accounts that are using your UI address to login or as a recovery or billing account. This includes an Apple ID, Windows or Android login account,  Facebook, Instagram, other social media, banks, credit cards, Amazon, other shopping sites or stores, newsletters, even Gmail accounts using your UI address as their recovery account, etc.
    
4. Opt-Out of Mass Mails.  Be sure to update your Mass Mail settings to opt-out of any categories you no longer wish to receive. 
    
5. If you are the owner of any Listserv lists, you should transfer ownership to the new owner. You should also unsubscribe from any Listserv lists that are no longer needed. 
    
6. If you own any shared departmental accounts, resources or student organization accounts, contact your IT support or the ITS Help Desk to change the owner of those accounts and have your HawkID removed from the security groups.
    
7. If you have created any recurring meetings, you should have someone else schedule new meetings for the same time and then delete the meetings and send update to attendees.  Otherwise, the meetings can't be edited or deleted when your account closes.
    
8. OneDrive -- copy all needed files from OneDrive to an external source.  The support article has information on when OneDrive will close depending on your university status
    
9. Optional - Update your email routing to your personal account if you want to have future first-last@uiowa.edu addressed emails forwarded to you. This should be done last and only when you have copied all of the needed email and files.  Once this step is done, your Microsoft 365 account closes immediately.  If you aren't able to change this yourself, you will need to contact the ITS Help Desk.  NOTE: delivery is not guaranteed to other email providers (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) as it is dependent on the policies and processes of those email systems.

NOTE:  When your Microsoft 365 account closes, you also lose access to Microsoft Office licensing so any installed Office app (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) will quit working and you will lose access to those apps in Outlook on the web.

For information on other IT services when you leave the university, see Leaving the University of Iowa