Expiration of user accounts

The students' user accounts are valid for one term or one semester at a time, depending on enrolment.

• until Sep 30th for those enrolled for a term or for the spring semester
• until Jan 31st for those enrolled for the autumn semester

Graduating in the middle of the semester does not end the validity of access rights. For example, if you graduate in October, your access rights will remain valid until 31 January.

After the user account has expired, logging in to the university's network services (e.g. workstations in computer facilities, e-mail, Sisu) will no longer be possible.

Messages sent to the e-mail address of an expired user account will be returned to sender along with an error message in English, stating that the e-mail address in question does not exist. Redirecting e-mail to an address outside the University will not work after the account has expired.

Information pertaining to the user account, files in the home folders and e-mail will be kept for one year after the user account has expired. After this period, the user account, e-mails and files in the home folder will be deleted.

The simplest way to copy the files in your home folder is to put them on a flash drive or disk at a computer facility workstation. 

You can also access the files in the home folder by using a HY-VPN connection and linking your home folder to your own computer.

• Instructions for forming a VPN connection

Files can be transferred from a Unix system's home folder by using an SFTP transfer connection.

You should announce your new e-mail address to those who need it well in advance before the university e-mail address expires. After this, you can direct messages arriving to the university address to the new address for the last few weeks, track who is still using the university address and notify them of the new address separately. Personnel should also take notice of the rules concerning official e-mail (Flamma) when forwarding their messages.

You should save the messages that have accumulated during your time at the University before the user account expires, as there is no way to read the mail after expiry.

A: Transferring e-mail messages to another address

If you want to transfer your university e mail messages to another e-mail account so that they can be read as normally, create an account in an e-mail software (such as Outlook) for both the University's mail and the other e-mail address (such as Gmail). When both accounts have been created, copy the messages on the University e-mail server to a folder on the other e-mail account.

• Creating an account in Outlook

B: Transferring e-mail messages to your own computer

If you have a personal computer available, install an e-mail software (such as Thunderbird, Outlook) on the computer and create an account for the University's mail. After this, copy the messages into the program's local folders. This way, the messages will be safe on the computer's hard drive and can be easily browsed using the e-mail software.

When you graduate from the University of Helsinki or stop working there, you also lose your right to use the helsinki.fi e-mail address.

You can replace it with an alumni e-mail address in format firstname.lastname@alumni.helsinki.fi. Please note that the alumni e-mail address is just a forwarding address. It does not contain an e-mailbox, and your old e-mails are not moved to it automatically.

• Get an alumni e-mail address here