University Staff / Student Desktop ICT Support Policy
Moving files from OneDrive (student / visitor account) to another OneDrive (staff account)
This article gives students instructions about their university IT account whether they are leaving the university or becoming staff.
Students needing something specific not listed within the article can contact their Faculty Student Offices.
If you are not expecting your IT account to close as you are still studying, please contact your School Office in the first instance.
Whilst this information is correct at the time of writing, we are still in consultation regarding ongoing access to email accounts when you become alumni, so this information is subject to change.
Alumni email accounts are no longer being offered to newly qualified students from October 2025. Student accounts will remain active for 152 days after qualification, providing sufficient time for students to download their documents and complete tasks such as registering for graduation.
Due to data management and cyber security reasons, alumni will no longer have access to any university email address (for example, username@soton.ac.uk or username@southamptonalumni.ac.uk) starting from 01/10/2025.
Alumni will no longer be able to:
Please note:
If you would like any further information about this change, please visit the page "Decommissioning of Alumni Email Service – Frequently Asked Questions".
You typically get 4 months before your account changes to give you a chance to transfer any data you want to keep.
You will receive a warning email 28 days before your account is due to expire.
You will lose access to your files when your account expires, and these files will be permanently deleted shortly after this.
You will lose access to the following university systems and the files stored there:
Students cannot request extensions to their computing account. However, if you feel you have a strong case for an extension, please raise a request to ServiceLine.
---
If you are leaving the University in the Summer of 2025 or after this date, you will no longer be offered an alumni email address. Once you receive your final results, the Student Office marks you as "Qualified". You will continue to get 152 days of access to your email account - ending in xxx@soton.ac.uk before receiving a warning email 28 days before your current account is due to expire (so approximately 5 months, following qualification). This will give you time to remove (offboard) the contents of your accounts if there are files and data that you want to keep.
Please be reassured that you will still have access to all the other benefits open to alumni – from career support, library access to discounts on courses. Visit the page "Benefits and offers for alumni" find out more about these benefits.
Before your account expires and your Alumni account is created, make sure you do the following:
---
The following procedure is for students enrolled after 2016. Students enrolled before 2016 need to contact ServiceLine if necessary.
Once the Student Office marks you as "Withdrawn", you will receive a warning email saying that your account is due to expire in 28 days. This happens to give you time to re-organise the content of your account and to transfer any data you want to keep.
28 days after the warning email, your university account will become an Alumni email account.
---
Staff and student account will always be separate.
As soon as iSolutions activates your staff account, you can request to:
You can request to move the data listed above the day after you have subscribed to your staff account. What you need to do:
You can also create an automatic email forwarding by creating a rule in Outlook. If you need guidance, please read the Microsoft article "Use inbox rules in Outlook.com".
Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs) that had previously access to a Research or Resource filestore can request access to the same filestore using one of the following forms:
---
There is further consultation ongoing during the summer of 2025 as to current PGRs alumni email status.
If you have been an undergraduate or postgraduate taught student at the University previously and taken a break between studies; any previous alumni accounts that you may have (ending xxx@southamptonalumni.ac.uk) will be discontinued from 01/10/2025.
If you would like any further information about this change, please visit the page "Decommissioning of Alumni Email Service – Frequently Asked Questions".
Staff and student accounts will always be separate.
As soon as iSolutions activates your staff account, you can request to:
If you have been an undergraduate or postgraduate taught student at the University previously and taken a break between studies; any previous alumni accounts that you may have (ending xxx@southamptonalumni.ac.uk) will be discontinued from 01/10/2025.
If you would like any further information about this change, please visit the page "Decommissioning of Alumni Email Service – Frequently Asked Questions".
If you have studied here in any capacity without a break, you will not have any alumni accounts as your various accounts will have been transferred over.
---
If you need help, please contact ServiceLine or visit one of our Tech Hubs.
---
Was this article helpful?
If you have any further comments, please put them below.
Please note that feedback is anonymous - if you require a reply or assistance, please raise a ticket via ServiceLine.
Thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated.