FAQs about the UVa Email Address Management System
Understanding UVa Email Addresses & Aliases
- What's my “primary address?”
- What's an email alias?
- How many aliases may I have?
- Do I get to keep my UVa email address(es) for life?
- I do not seem to be able to use plus addressing. Why not?
- What's an email “domain?”
- What's the difference between an email address in the virginia.edu domain, and the email.virginia.edu domain?
- What's a “deliverable address?”
- What's a “UVa-contracted vendor?”
- Where do I go to access my UVa email account?
Who Can Use The System
Using the Email Address Management System
- How do I use the System to set or change where I read my UVa email?
- How do I use the System to create, change, or delete an alias?
- How do I use the System to create or change my primary address?
- I used the System to make a change to my email alias but it did not seem to work. Why?
Quarantines & Lockouts
Answers to Frequently-Asked Questions
Understanding UVa Email Addresses & Aliases
- What's my “primary address?”
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Your primary address is your UVa computing ID @virginia.edu (e.g., mst3k@virginia.edu) and is used by the University to send official email notifications.
For new students, primary addresses are created within a few days of the University receiving your deposit. For faculty and staff, primary addresses are sometimes created when a new employee is hired, but if not, may be created via the Email Address Management System.
- What's an email alias?
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An email alias is an an easy-to-remember email address (e.g., mike@email.virginia.edu) which can be used by others to send email messages to you. It is in addition to your primary address of computing ID@virginia.edu.
- How many aliases may I have?
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See About Email Aliases for this information.
- Do I get to keep my UVa email address(es) for life?
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See About Email Aliases for this information.
- I do not seem to be able to use plus addressing. Why not?
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The email system at the University of Virginia is not designed to support plus addressing.
- What's an email “domain?”
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An email domain refers to the part of your email address after the @ symbol. Examples of domains:
Example UVa Email Domains:
- email.virginia.edu
domain for student and alumni email accounts with UVa-contracted vendors - cms.mail.virginia.edu
domain for the UVa Central Mail Service - eservices.virginia.edu
domain for the UVa Exchange Service - hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's Health System - darden.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's business school - ad.nursing.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's School of Nursing - mail.astro.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's Department of Astronomy - comm.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's School of Commerce - uvawise.edu
domain for The University of Virginia College at Wise - vprserver.clas.virginia.edu
domain for UVa's Vice President for Research
Example non-UVa Email Domains:
- yahoo.com
- aol.com
- hotmail.com
- gmail.com
- alumni.vt.edu
- earthlink.net
- ntelos.net
- virginia.gov
The Email Address Management System will display all of the known email domains for you. Students, faculty and staff are assigned by default to the virginia.edu domain. Other domains, for example, the UVa-contracted vendor domain of email.virginia.edu for students and alumni, or departmental domains for departments, may also be available. Whatever domain(s) are currently available to you will display automatically.
- email.virginia.edu
- What's the difference between an email address in the virginia.edu domain, and the email.virginia.edu domain?
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Email addresses in the virginia.edu domain are associated with primary addresses at UVa (i.e., computing ID@virginia.edu, such as mst3k@virginia.edu). All UVa students, alumni, faculty, and staff members may have a primary address in the virginia.edu domain. In addition, faculty and staff members may also have email aliases in the virginia.edu domain (e.g., mike@virginia.edu).
Email addresses in the email.virginia.edu domain are associated only with accounts on email systems with UVa-contracted vendors. Anyone who has an email account in the email.virginia.edu domain may have email aliases there, too (e.g., mst3k@email.virginia.edu and mike@email.virginia.edu).
For more information, see About Email Aliases.
- What's a “deliverable address?”
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A deliverable address is a working email account you have on a mail server.
You can use the Email Address Management System to specify your deliverable address(es)—i.e., what email account(s) you'd like to use to read email messages addressed to you—at both your primary address (i.e., computing ID@virginia.edu) or your email alias(es).
- What's a “UVa-contracted vendor?”
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Student and alumni email accounts are managed by private, third-party service providers with whom UVa has contracted. These companies offer robust, cutting-edge email services that are better suited to the needs of UVa students and alumni.
Student and alumni email accounts with these vendors are in the email.virginia.edu domain, while retaining their primary address in the virginia.edu domain.
- Where do I go to access my UVa email account?
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Go to www.mail.virginia.edu. If you have just one account, you'll be taken straight to it. If you have more than one, you'll be presented with a switchboard so you can choose which account to log into.
Who Can Use the System
- Will UVa faculty and staff be allowed email accounts with UVa-contracted student email vendors?
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Email accounts provided by third-party UVa-contracted email vendors will be offered primarily to students and alumni. However, accounts are also available to faculty and staff who provide technical support to students.
- I am a UVa alum with an email account provided by UVa-contracted vendor. Can I use the System?
- Alums are welcome to use the System to manage their email aliases, but they cannot use the System to manage deliverable addresses. (Providing antispam and antivirus licenses for all email accounts alumni could become prohibitively expensive, so management of deliverable addresses for alumni is not supported. The UVa-contracted vendor email services have antivirus and antispam capabilities supplied by the vendors, however, and these accounts are available to alumni for life.) Again, alumni may manage their email aliases with the System.
Using the Email Address Management System
- How do I use the Email Address Management System to set or change where I read my UVa email?
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You can decide where you would like to read your University email. If you like, you may specify one email account to read messages sent to your primary address (i.e., your computing ID@virginia.edu), and another email account to read messages sent to an alias (e.g., mike@email.virginia.edu). Here's how to set where you read your UVa email:
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- Add one or more email accounts where you'd like to read your mail as deliverable address(es). For more detail on how to do this, see Manage Your Deliverable Addresses.
- Associate your primary address (computing ID@virginia.edu) or an email alias with a deliverable address you just added. For more detail on how to do this, see Manage Your Aliases & Primary Address.
- How do I use the Email Address Management System create, change, or delete an alias?
- How do I use the Email Address Management System to create or change my primary address?
- See Create or Change Your Primary Address.
- I used the System to make a change to my email alias but it did not seem to work. Why?
- Changes to existing aliases is not immediate. It often takes about 15 minutes to become active, so wait a bit and then try to use the address you changed again. If you continue to have problems after 15-20 minutes, please report the problem to postmaster@virginia.edu.
Quarantines & Lockouts
- What is a “quarantine?” How long does one last?
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A quarantine is the time period after which an email alias has been deleted when it is unavailable to anyone. Quarantines are necessary to allow time for people to update their address books, thereby reducing the risk of inadvertently delivering email to the new alias owner when intended for the previous owner.
How long the alias remains in quarantine will vary depending on the domain to which the alias is assigned. Currently, email aliases assigned to the virginia.edu domain and the email.virginia.edu domain are held in quarantine for 2 years before they are available for reassignment.
- Why am I “locked out?”
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Lockouts prevent people from repeatedly creating and deleting email aliases, each of which would have to be quarantined, quickly depleting the pool of available aliases for everyone.
If you delete too many aliases, you will be “locked out” from creating new aliases until your lockout score falls below the threshold. During a lockout, you cannot request new aliases, but you can delete aliases (which increases your lockout score) and change the deliverable address with which an existing alias is associated (for which there is no lockout score increase).
- How long does it take for a lockout to end? Can I speed it up?
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How long a lockout lasts depends on the domain and the timing of your alias deletions. For more specifics on how lockouts work, see Alias System Lockouts.
If you are over the lockout threshold but need to make a special request for an alias in the virginia.edu domain or the email.virginia.edu domain, email postmaster@virginia.edu and explain your situation. To expedite consideration of your request, please provide as much information as possible, including:
- Your UVa computing ID (e.g., mst3k),
- The domain in which the problem exists (e.g., virginia.edu, email.virginia.edu, etc.),
- Your requested alias and why you need it, and
- A description of why you are presently locked out of the system.
The domain administrator will assess your situation during normal business hours and will make a decision about what, if any, assistance can be provided.