Overview
Answers to questions about accessing email, software, and other IT resources after graduation or leaving Purdue.
Details
As graduation nears, graduating seniors and graduate students should begin preparing for the eventual disabling of their Purdue accounts, including the loss of access to materials stored via their Purdue-Microsoft One Drive and Box accounts and access to Purdue email.
Following is a list of resources commonly used by students, what happens to access after graduation, and, in some cases, what can be done to ensure access after leaving Purdue.
Microsoft products (other than email):
Access to software like Excel, Word, Power Point, and other tools available through Purdue’s Office 365 account are disabled within a month of graduation. Students are switched to an “email only” license (see email section below) that allows them to retain access to email, calendar, and contacts. But students lose access to all other Microsoft tools.
Microsoft One Drive access through your Purdue account is revoked within a month of graduation. Those wishing to keep files may setup a free personal One Drive account with a 5 Gb data limit, sign-in along with your Purdue OneDrive account, and then copy files from one account to another using the OneDrive mobile app for iOS or Android (instructions depict iOS):
1. On your personal machine, download and install the OneDrive app if it has not been installed already. Login to your Purdue OneDrive account. Note that due to restrictions, this will need to be done on a personally-owned machine.
2. Find the OneDrive icon in the system tray (bottom right), and click it.
3. Select the gear icon at the top, and then choose “Settings”
4. Choose “Add an account” to add your free personal Microsoft account:
- If you do not have a free Microsoft OneDrive account, you may obtain one here: How to create a free Microsoft account
5. You will see two OneDrive icons in the system tray (one for personal and one for business).
6. Now that you have both accounts, you can simply copy / paste (or drag and drop) content between Personal OneDrive and Work / School (Purdue) accounts.
Other options include moving data to a personal computer or hard drive or employing another cloud-storage service. If you are a Graduate Student and have research data in OneDrive, immediately place the research data in a shared OneDrive folder that is owned by your PI. Failure to do so could jeopardize future papers and collaboration - and violate data retention requirements placed by the funding agency.
Email
Your Purdue/Office 365 email account, along with calendar and contacts, will remain valid for three semesters after graduation. To extend access to a Purdue email account beyond this limit you can migrate your email from your student @purdue.edu mailbox to a new email. Follow the export email instructions available from Microsoft to move email content, calendars, and contacts to personal email account.
Brightspace
Access to specific courses in D2L Brightspace ends at the conclusion of each semester.
Adobe Products
Adobe Products will be unavailable to you immediately. This includes Acrobat, the Creative Cloud Suite and Adobe cloud. Any files on your Adobe Cloud should be backed up to personal storage prior to graduation as the files cannot be retrieved.
Software from Community Hub
All software downloaded from Community Hub should be removed from all personally owned computers after graduation.
Zoom
Zoom access through Purdue’s account ends shortly after graduation, but everyone is eligible to create a free Zoom account (with limited meeting time and storage space) at zoom.us. Before access is turned off, users can save transfer recorded meeting video by the methods described here. Have questions about other services or tools? Send an email to it@purdue.edu.
Still need help? Click the 'Purdue IT Request' button to start a ticket.