Email Forwarding

Attention all School of Medicine students, faculty, and staff

School of Medicine students, faculty, and staff are prohibited from forwarding their Wustl provided email addresses to an email address external to the university (non @wustl.edu) with the exception of @bjc.org and @va.gov email domains.

Note: Washington University Faculty and Staff are strongly encouraged NOT to forward messages to external email services.  Those that direct delivery of University email mail to an outside service do so at their own risk.

Note: The Washington University Information Security and HIPAA Privacy Office E-Mail Security Policy specifically states that “Auto-forwarding WashU email accounts containing protected information to any external mail service (Google, Yahoo, etc.) is not permitted.”

Note: It is no longer recommended or advised to forward (or redirect) all email from your wustl.edu email account to an external account like gmail or yahoo. (This guidance does not pertain to forwarding individual emails from Outlook to another recipient). 

Why? 
Internet providers like gmail and yahoo expect emails to come from their original source. By forwarding (or redirecting) email through WashU, email providers may treat the emails as malicious or spam. Email providers are also increasing security which increases the chance that forwarded email will be rejected. 

For reference: 
https://blog.google/products/gmail/gmail-security-authentication-spam-protection/ 
https://blog.postmaster.yahooinc.com/ 

What should I do? 
To improve delivery of email, do one of the following: 
If you prefer using an email provider other than WashU like gmail or yahoo, you should provide your gmail or yahoo address to email senders. The senders can address their emails directly to your gmail or yahoo account. 

If you prefer using your WashU email address, discontinue forwarding or redirecting your email to other providers. Use a WashU email account for managing email. If you have a WashU email address of @wustl.edu, WashU will provide a working email account. Contact it@wustl.edu or call 314-933-3333 if you need an account set up. 

What if I don’t want to stop forwarding? 
WashU will continue to provide ‘forward all’ or ‘redirection’ of email to your preferred email address. However, WashU cannot guarantee delivery. The third-party service provider (gmail or yahoo) may still reject delivery. 

To forward all email from your Office 365 account to another email service:

  1. Login to your Office 365 email account via the web at email.wustl.edu/mail
  2. In the top right corner of your screen, locate the Settings menu represented by a gear icon.
  3. When the Settings pane appears, Select View all Outlook setting.
  4. In the Mail section, select Forwarding.
  5. Check Enable forwarding and then type in the email address to which your mail should be forwarded.
    • Check the box to indicate whether you want to keep a copy of forwarded messages in your Office 365 account. If you keep a copy and do not periodically check your Office 365 account, then the inbox will run out of space and you will stop receiving forwarded messages.
  6. Select Save.

Back to Email & Calendars page.