Email Forwarding
CUIT allows you to forward your Columbia email to another address, with some limitations for security and reliability. Remember: Your email alias delivers mail to the same place as [email protected]. You should never forward your email to your email alias!
Forwarding from [email protected] is permitted for email addresses in the following domains. However, CUIT recommends that you have emails sent directly to these email addresses rather than forwarding to maximize the reliability of email delivery. For example, have your emails sent directly to [email protected] rather forwarding from [email protected].
- adcu.columbia.edu
- alumni.gsb.columbia.edu
- barnard.edu
- berkeley.columbia.edu
- caa.columbia.edu
- c2b2.columbia.edu
- ciesin.columbia.edu
- columbia-imc.org
- columbia.london.edu
- columbiauniversitypress.com
- cumc.columbia.edu
- facil.columbia.edu
- facilities.onmicrosoft.com
- gsb.columbia.edu
- hku.columbia.london.edu
- icg.cpmc.columbia.edu
- iri.columbia.edu
- ldeo.columbia.edu
- london.columbia.edu
- math.columbia.edu
- nevis.columbia.edu
- nyp.org
- nyspi.columbia.edu
- psych.columbia.edu
- sipa.columbia.edu
- stat.columbia.edu
- tc.columbia.edu
- theschool.columbia.edu
- uts.columbia.edu
- utsnyc.edu
Manual forwarding from within Settings in LionMail and other Columbia-affiliated Gmail systems
This includes CAA, Barnard, Teachers College, Libraries, and others; systems using Office 365 have similar settings. This type of forwarding will continue to be allowed after forwarding in Manage My UNI is turned off.
NOTE: Be aware that some forwarding will fail for the same reason that it is being disabled on Manage My UNI: external email systems refuse to accept forwarded email because of restrictions placed by the sender's domain. Please check your Columbia-affiliated account regularly, or whenever you suspect something may be missing from your forwarded account.
Within your Gmail mailbox, select the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and then select Settings.
Under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, select Add a forwarding address, and fill in the email address that you wish to forward to.
Select Proceed, followed by OK to save the forwarding setting.
Finally, since email forwarding is not always reliable, select Forward a copy of incoming mail to [email protected] and keep LionMail Mail’s copy in the inbox (or whatever Columbia-affiliated Gmail system you use). Select Save Changes to confirm.
This way, if you are missing something in your forwarded mailbox that you expected to receive, you can log into your Columbia-affiliated Gmail account and check if it is there.
Log into Manage My UNI to remove any external forwarding you have for [email protected] forwarding (e.g. to a personal Gmail, Yahoo or AOL email address).
Be sure to keep your internal forwarding to Columbia's email system domains (e.g. caa.columbia.edu, tc.columbia.edu) if you are not on LionMail.
This will ensure your external account doesn't receive duplicate copies of emails. All Manage My UNI external email forwarding will be removed in the future; impacted users will be emailed when the date has been confirmed.
FAQ
If you are a Barnard alum
- Barnard alumnae have access to Columbia Alumni Association benefits and services, including a CAA email address. To receive these benefits please complete this application form.
- Forward your UNI to your CAA account (this is allowed because you are forwarding to an internal Columbia-affiliated email system).
- Log in to your alumnae account and follow the steps to set up manual forwarding to your personal email account. (Manual forwarding is allowed with the expectation that you will check your CAA account periodically to confirm that all your email is being properly forwarded to your personal account. If it is not, it's best to update your settings with that sender to send directly to your personal account.)
If you are a Teachers College alum
- If you don't have a TC Gmail address, follow the steps to activate your TC Gmail account or contact Teachers College Alumni Relations at 212-678-3215 to set yours up.
- Forward your UNI to your @tc.columbia.edu account (this is allowed because you are forwarding to an internal Columbia email-affiliated system).
- Log in to your TC account and follow the steps to set up manual forwarding to your personal email account. (Manual forwarding is allowed with the expectation that you will check your TC Gmail account periodically to confirm that all your email is being properly forwarded to your personal account. If it is not, it's best to update your settings with that sender to send directly to your personal account.)
All other alums
- If you don't have a CAA alumni email address, visit https://alumni.columbia.edu/content/alumni-email.
- Select Create or manage an account.
- Create an email account, which will provide you with an @caa.columbia.edu email account.
- Forward your UNI to your @caa.columbia.edu account (this is allowed because you are forwarding to an internal Columbia email system).
- Log in to your CAA account and follow the steps to set up manual forwarding to your personal email account. (Manual forwarding is allowed with the expectation that you will check your CAA account periodically to confirm that all your email is being properly forwarded to your personal account. If it is not, it's best to update your settings with that sender to send directly to your personal account.)
"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 AOL. 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 is disallowing the ability to forward your [email protected] to external email systems. The option to create new forwarding to email systems outside the University was removed. Existing forwarding will continue to function for the foreseeable future until an expiration date is set. UNI mail-forwarding to Columbia systems (Ex. [email protected] to jane.[email protected] or [email protected]) will continue to be available.
If you currently use UNI Mail Forwarding -- or are unsure if your forwarding setup is allowed -- please refer to the table above or contact the CUIT Service Desk at (212) 854-1919.
As an alternative, you may set up forwarding from within your Columbia-affiliated Gmail email system (e.g. LionMail, CAA) or Microsoft 365 (CBS, Facilities). This is still subject to the same reliability limitations, but ensures delivery to at least one location that you can always check for missing emails.
Yes. Manually forwarding individual emails outside of Columbia email systems will not be impeded (CUIMC users should contact your email admins for details).
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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.
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Deliver to your LionMail or Columbia-affiliated Gmail account. Remove the UNI Mail Forwarding in Manage My UNI and consistently monitor your LionMail or G-Suite account.
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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.