Question
Who is able to forward their Spartan Mail to an outside email service (like Gmail)?
Answer
MSU Students and Retirees are able to forward their Spartan Mail to outside email services. Retirees must first request access to forward their Spartan Mail, as that access is not added automatically at retirement.
MSU employee email cannot be forwarded to non-MSU email systems like Gmail or Yahoo. This is required for legal reasons to protect MSU institutional data and to protect employees from email phishing, viruses, and spam. Special exceptions may be granted where required for Governmental contracts if governmental agencies require usage of governmental email systems.
MSU faculty and staff can have their '@msu.edu' emails forwarded to another university mail account (Engineering, FRIB, etc.) but a ticket must be submitted for approval.
Additional Info
To check if your account is able to forward, see this article (link) for instructions.
Due to changes imposed by major email providers (e.g., Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft) that may cause unreliable mail delivery because of their configuration, we recommend users do not enable email forwarding even if they are allowed to do so.