Central Consulting

AcS Account Expiration

The Office of Information Technology offers accounts on the Academic Computing System (ACS) to students, faculty, and staff of Boston University. Your account will remain active for as long as you are registered at or employed by the University.

ACS accounts expire on a schedule determined by the type of University affiliation (see details, below). Approximately two weeks before your account is due to expire, you will receive an expiration notice each time you log on. If you want to forward your e-mail to a new e-mail address or preserve copies of important files, you must do so before your account expires.

Account expiration timeline

Degree program students
Students in both undergraduate and graduate degree programs may retain their ACS accounts for one semester after graduation. Accounts will expire in:

  • August for May graduates
  • January for September graduates
  • May for January graduates.

Part time or non-degree program students
Part time or non-degree program students are eligible for ACS accounts only while registered for courses. When the Registrar's records indicate that you are no longer affiliated with Boston University, your ACS account will be expired following a two-week notification period.

Faculty and staff
Faculty and staff are eligible for accounts only while employed by the University. Accounts may be expired immediately upon termination. Former employees engaged in studies at the University can usually retain their accounts as long as they remain registered for classes.

Guest accounts
Guest accounts are set up for a maximum of one year. Expiration for these accounts occurs four times a year -- in April, July, October, and January.

When you are on a leave of absence

You may be eligible to retain your ACS account while you are on an official leave of absence. Contact acct-mgr@bu.edu for more information.

How to forward your Boston University e-mail

You can arrange to have e-mail sent to you@bu.edu (and any sent specifically to you@acs.bu.edu) forwarded to a new e-mail address after you leave the University. Forwarding of mail sent to you@bu.edu will continue for approximately one year; forwarding of mail sent specifically to you@acs.bu.edu lasts only a short time. For this reason, and for overall simplicity, it's generally good practice to always give out your e-mail address as simply you@bu.edu.

Note that notification is not made when e-mail forwarding expires.

To forward your e-mail, you will need to:

  1. Have access to e-mail at another location, such as an employer, Internet Service Provider, or Web-based mail service.
  2. Set up forwarding to that e-mail address by following the steps at www.bu.edu/computing/email/forwarding/ (BU login name and Kerberos password required).

To move existing messages from ACS to a new account:

Using a desktop mail client configured for IMAP to acs-imap.bu.edu , you can move messages from ACS to your local computer, or to another IMAP-configured account, simply by dragging them. If you use Gmail or a similar service, you could still be able to use IMAP to move messages to that account, as described at www.bu.edu/pcsc/email/configure/forwarding/#IMAP.

Using Horde, you can save messages to your local computer with the "Save to disk" feature.

You might also find some helpful information on moving messages from one account to another on the somewhat-related page at www.bu.edu/pcsc/email/manage/newprogram.html.

EFL - E-mail Forwarding for Life (Alumni only)

All alums are eligible to apply for an alumni email forwarding address, which is a mail forwarding alias you will hold for life. Register for a forwarding address at www.bu.edu/alumni.

How to get more information

If you have additional questions about when your ACS account will expire, contact acct-mgr@bu.edu.