Christopher Newport University is removing Google accounts for alumni on Tuesday, December 1st, 2026. After this time, alumni will no longer be able to access their cnu.edu e-mail addresses, CNU Google Drive, and other associated Google services (photos, docs, forms, etc.).

For years, Christopher Newport University has proudly provided alumni email accounts to foster a lifelong connection with our graduates. However, due to recent changes in Google Workspace's storage models, alumni accounts now collectively exceed the university’s entire baseline data allocation. The vast majority of this usage is tied to personal cloud storage rather than University communication. Because of these infrastructure constraints, the alumni email program is no longer sustainable. We deeply appreciate your understanding as we reallocate our resources to protect the security and operational needs of the university.

You will need to obtain another e-mail account. It’s easiest to transfer your e-mails to a personal Gmail account, but you can use any provider. You can sign up for mail and storage through:

• Google (G-mail and Google Drive)

• Microsoft (Outlook and OneDrive)

• Any other provider of your choice

Once your CNU e-mail account is removed, you will not have access to e-mails sent to that account. As such, you’ll need to update your e-mail address with all of your contacts, as well as any website where you used your cnu.edu e-mail address to sign up. Make sure to update your address at all websites, including:

• Banking sites

• Streaming services

• Social media

• Chat services

• Shopping

• Utilities/Billing sites

• Medical insurance and patient portals

If you’d like to keep any of your e-mails, or cloud stored items, you’ll need to transfer them to your new account. This is easiest with a Google account, but should be possible with any provider.

If you need assistance with the export or Google account transfer process, you can submit a ticket for IT Services to assist you. ITS is unable to assist with any issues with your personal account.

To transfer your content to another Google account, go to https://takeout.google.com/transfer.

On the screen that pops up, enter your Gmail (or other Google-provided e-mail) address, then click Send Code.

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Check your personal Gmail, and you should see an e-mail with a button to get the code. Click the button.

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Copy the code that appears and return to the Takeout page. Then, paste in the code and click Verify.

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You’ll be able to select whether to transfer your e-mail, files and photos. Select what you want to transfer and click Start Transfer.

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You materials will appear in your Gmail and Google Drive accounts.

To move your materials to a non-Google account, you’ll need to use Google Takeout to export them and then upload them to the e-mail or cloud storage service of your choice.

To export your content, visit Google Takeout. You’ll see a list of all of the services from which you can export data. Select only the ones you want, as including services that you don’t need will increase the time it takes to generate the archive and its size.

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Scroll all the way to the bottom and click “Next step.”

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Select where you’d like the export to go. Generally, it’s best to use an e-mailed export, as it doesn’t rely on continued access to your Google services or other cloud services. You can also select the largest size that each file in the archive can be. If your materials take up more space than you select, it will be broken up into multiple files.

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Click on create export at the bottom of your screen. It may take hours or days, depending on how much content is in your export. Once you get the export e-mail, you can download the files.

You can then follow the instructions from your new provider to upload the e-mail, documents, and any other materials to that provider.

Your account will expire 90 days after you graduate from CNU.

Your account will not expire until after you leave CNU.

Your account does not expire.

The data will be destroyed as per Google’s terms of service.

Please try to reset your password at http://help.cnu.edu and if that does not work please use the option for an IT help ticket.