Manage My UNI

Manage My UNI

Your key to accessing computer services and electronic resources at Columbia

bolt icon
Activate My UNI or LionMail Account

For new Columbia users, or existing users who need a LionMail account

certificate icon
Change My Password

If you know your password and want to change it.

question-circle icon
Forgot My Password

Self-reset your password, or use this after Service Desk assistance (*now with Duo MFA*)

angle-double-right icon
UNI Mail Forwarding

Forward your Columbia email to another Columbia email address
Caution: Read warnings before implementing forwarding

child icon
Email Alias

Choose, change or remove a personalized email alias

edit icon
Change My Published Email Address

Change your email address in Columbia's online directory and the address for your outbound email

key icon
Update My Security Questions

Change your security questions and answers

graduation-cap icon
UNI Help for Alumni

Assistance with your UNI after you graduate

wrench icon
Manage My Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

Enroll in Duo, retrieve passcodes, or reset your Duo account

external-link icon
Add or Update My Account Recovery Email

Provide or update an external email address to verify your identity if you're unable to access your Columbia account

FAQ

The Registrar provides the data which grants students eligibility for UNIs and email IDs. You will not be able to activate your UNI and email ID until data about your status as a student is in place. Once it is, you'll be able to activate your ID online.

If you try to activate your ID before your data is in place, you will receive an error suggesting that you don't exist. Please wait at least a day before trying again. Most incoming students will be able to activate their IDs sometime during the summer before arriving on campus, but the precise timing is not always predictable.

Human Resources provides the data which grants employees eligibility for UNIs and email IDs. Since there can sometimes be a delay before that data is in place, you should contact your departmental administrator (DA) to get interim eligibility via a departmental data feed called Delegated Identity Administration (DIA). After your DA has entered your information, you will be able to activate your UNI and email account online.

"Missing" emails like this are an unfortunate result of security measures that many companies use to prevent scammers from spoofing email from their addresses. This practice was begun by financial institutions, but is now used widely, including by some general email services like Yahoo and Gmail. These measures ask that email be rejected unless it comes directly from the company’s authorized servers. Many email providers including Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL, honor the request as email comes in for their users. In these cases, when columbia.edu tries to re-send email based on your UNI Mail Forwarding setup in Manage My UNI, it fails. This security feature cannot be overridden by Columbia.

As a result, Columbia will be changing the way you can forward your [email protected] to external email systems. On October 22, 2019, the option to create new forwarding to email systems outside the University was removed. Existing external forwarding will continue to function until it is removed. The date for removal has been postponed from March 17, all impacted users will be notified of the new date after it is confirmed. After that point, UNI mail-forwarding to Columbia systems (Ex. [email protected] to [email protected] or [email protected]) will continue to be available. If you want to continue to forward your Columbia email to a personal email system, you can set up manual forwarding.

If you currently use UNI Mail Forwarding -- or are unsure if your forwarding setup is allowed -- please refer to the Columbia Email Forwarding page.

Change the email address on file with the sender. Provide the sender with the email address where you read your email, that is not forwarded elsewhere.

Deliver to your Lionmail account. Remove the UNI Mail Forwarding in Manage My UNI and consistently monitor your LionMail account.

Deliver to your Exchange account. Some administrative staff are on this system, which they access using Outlook. Use UNI Mail Forwarding in Manage My UNI to forward your [email protected] to your @adcu.columbia.edu (or @ei or @ais) address. This internal forward has been confirmed to work in all cases.

Set up manual forwarding in your Columbia account settings. Remove the UNI Mail Forwarding in Manage My UNI and manually update the settings in your Columbia email system to forward to your personal account and to keep a copy of all forwarded emails, so you can check for messages that are missing.

FAQ

Columbia alumni can reset their password from https://tools.alumni.columbia.edu/uni/.

Current students, faculty, and staff at Columbia should visit https://uniapp.cc.columbia.edu/acctmanage/resetpasswd to reset their password.

If you activated your UNI in the past, then you will just need to ensure that you remember your password. If you have forgotten your password, visit http://uni.columbia.edu and click on "Forgot Password?" You may also need to activate your LionMail account if you are not a student. Visit http://uni.columbia.edu and click on "Activate UNI or Email" to activate LionMail.

If you are not returning to Columbia next semester, you will need download or forward the important contents of your LionMail inbox to your personal email account because your UNI access will expire after about 10 months. For those that have stored files on the CUNIX directory, you will need to download your files and save them in a personal account.

If there is anything you will need help with, such as downloading files or forwarding emails, you should take care of this before you leave campus so that you can take advantage of the technicians in the CUIT Walk-in Center.

Your UNI will go through several status changes after you leave Columbia. Over the ten months following your departure, your UNI will transition as follows:

  • Active
    • This period will last until the end of final semester for which you registered.
  • Nine-month grace period
    • At the end of the grace period, you will receive an email (in your Columbia email inbox) warning you that your UNI access is set to expire in approximately one month.
  • One-month warning period
    • You will receive weekly warnings that your UNI access is about to expire.
  • Expired

For example, if you depart mid-spring semester, your UNI will be in its grace period until February of the following year. If you register again at Columbia before the grace period is over, your UNI will return to active status automatically.

After you leave Columbia, you will no longer have access to:

  • CUIT computer labs
  • CUIT printers in CUID-restricted areas (labs, etc)

You will maintain access to online Columbia Libraries resources for about six months.

If you are the owner of any club or organization websites or mailing lists, you should also make arrangements to transfer the ownership to someone else. You can begin this process by submitting a ticket to CUIT.

Affiliate School Departures

Please visit your local computing support site to learn about their policies on grace periods:

Your account has been set to expire because you no longer appear in the database of current employees provided to CUIT by Human Resources. If this is an error, please ask your departmental administrator to help you update your status with HR.

Related Resources

Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

Columbia requires Duo MFA for access to most online resources.

Access Your Email

LionMail and Exchange access links and guides

Using Strong Passwords

Tips on how to keep your account secure

Enterprise Active Directory (EAD)

Info and FAQ about the ADCU domain