Finishing IT use at Oxford

Your entitlement to the full range of IT facilities ends on the expiry date we hold for your University card.

The expiry date may be earlier than printed on your physical card if:

• Your card is renewed with a non-qualifying status.
• Your card is cancelled by your college or department, for example if you resign or discontinue your course.
• Your card shows Congregation status but you are no longer on the Register of Congregation, following a move to a new department or college.

Your SSO account will expire a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 23 months*
• Students finishing after 01/07/2026 with card type UG, GR or GT, after 11 months*
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

^{*To access the Student Self Service, Graduate Supervision System, and graduation ceremony booking in eVision.}

Short SSO extensions can be requested through the SSO Account Access Extension service request.

Students continuing to a course in the next academic year are notified if the account is extended to the new start date. See Returning to Oxford.

If you use a physical hardware token / security key to access your SSO account and need to return it before the expiry of your SSO account, you must first reset this or remove its authentication method from your account. 

Your Remote Access account is removed with the expiry of your University card. 

Your VPN (Virtual Private Network) account is removed with the expiry of your University card.

Export your email

Before access to your mailbox is stopped you can export your email from your Nexus365 account.

Mailbox access and removal

Access to your mailbox will stop a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 3 months
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

The mailbox will be removed after access has stopped. If the removal does not happen immediately, mail may be received until the mailbox is removed, and may be responded to with an automatic reply. A mailbox is permanently deleted 30 days after it is removed.

Automatic replies

You can set an automatic reply (out of office) yourself, but this must be applied before access to your mailbox stops.

If an automatic reply is set for you, the following will be applied to your mailbox: 

This account is scheduled for deletion. It is unlikely that your message will be read.

Automatic replies stop when your mailbox is removed.

Oxford Innovation (innovation.ox.ac.uk) and Saïd Business School (sbs.ox.ac.uk) use their own email system and not Nexus365 email.

For information on these mailboxes, please contact your local IT Support Staff.

Departments that are currently migrating to Nexus365 email from their own email system:

• cs.ox.ac.uk
• maths.ox.ac.uk
• ndph.ox.ac.uk
• stats.ox.ac.uk

Secondary email accounts that you are the owner of start to wind down 1 day after the expiry of your University card. They are removed 2 months later.

To identify secondary accounts that you own, check your IT Registration user information and look for accounts that do not use your SSO as the username.

You should transfer required accounts to another member of your team by completing the Generic Account Ownership Change service request.

You will be removed as an owner of any mailing lists shortly after the expiry of your University card. Mailing lists without an eligible privileged owner will be deleted if a replacement cannot be not found.

You can access the mailing list manager and check the left-hand side for any list memberships that have an admin button next to them. If you are a privileged owner you can then add a new owner to the mailing list.

You should identify any teams or private channels that you are the owner of, ensuring that there is at least 1 other owner, but preferably 2 or more.

Access to Teams will stop a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 3 months
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

Any OneDrive content including documents, team meeting recordings and other files that are required by you, or your unit must be moved to an alternative storage location before you leave.

Access to your OneDrive documents are removed (including any shared with others) a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 3 months
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

Students continuing to a course in the next academic year are notified if the account is extended to the new start date.

OneDrive data is permanently deleted 30 days after access is removed.

Access to OneNote will stop a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 3 months
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

Documents within Nexus365 that you or others require should be moved to an alternative storage location. OneNote documents may be able to be copied to a different account or exported in the following ways:

• Export notes from OneNote as a PDF (OneNote 2013, 2016 and 2021)
• Print an entire OneNote Notebook (OneNote Windows app)

If you use OneNote for Web, open your notebook, select Open in Desktop App, then follow the instructions above.

OneNote data is permanently deleted 30 days after access is stopped.

Your HFS backups will be disabled and subsequently deleted after you leave.

To transfer your HFS Spectrum Protect backups to a new owner, please contact [email protected] when the new owner has been arranged. This is not possible for CrashPlan backups.

Your Linux account will not be accessible after the expiry of your University card.

Before your card expires:

• You can transfer any files you would like to keep using a secure FTP client (use server: linux.ox.ac.uk, port: 22).

After your card expires:

• Your account will no longer be accessible.
• Your account can be restored if your University card is renewed and Linux access requested again before your Linux account's deletion.

After 2 months of your account not being accessible:

• Your account is deleted.

Your personal webspace will not be accessible after the expiry of your University card.

Before your card expires:

• You can transfer any files you would like to keep using a secure FTP client (use server: linux.ox.ac.uk, port: 22).
• You should update anywhere you advertise or have registered your http://users.ox.ac.uk/~username address.
• You can set your site to redirect to a different website.

After your card expires:

• Your pages will display 'The requested URL was not found on this server'.
• Your files will no longer be accessible.
• Your files can be restored if your University card is renewed and Linux access requested again before your Linux account's deletion.

After 2 months of your account not being accessible:

• Your account is deleted.
• Sites will no longer redirect to a different website.

Office 365 applications licenced using your University credentials will require a new licence when you leave the University.

Access to Office 365 applications will stop a set time after the expiry of your University card:

• Staff, after 1 day
• Students that discontinue their course, after 1 day
• Students with card type UG, GR or GT, after 3 months
• Students in all other cases, after 1 day

Licences for other software provided by the University will end with the expiry of your University card, so this software should be removed from your devices.

Access to your University-provided generative AI tool accounts will end on the last day of your contract or studies. This may differ from the expiry date on your University card.

You are advised to review and summarise any chats or customisations you would wish to keep before this date. Full information can be found on the GenAI Staff FAQs or GenAI Student FAQs.

Research Data Oxford has comprehensive information on Post-project data preservation.

While you can download your notebook to Offline HTML or PDF, it is generally recommended that you transfer ownership of your notebook to another user at Oxford.

For more information on taking data research with you, please contact [email protected].

LabArchives will maintain a copy of all data even once the user has left the university. If there are any data that need to be permanently deleted, then please contact [email protected].

Data should be removed prior to the end date of the project, as your access will be revoked on that date. Any data remaining after that date is liable to be deleted by the RFS team. Please plan well ahead of time and talk to [email protected] if necessary. 

To transfer the ownership of an account on RFS please use the service request. Project owners control access to projects, and should review this access periodically, including when researchers move on from the project.

If you are moving department or leaving the university, please inform your DigiSafe unit administrator. Unit administrators should discuss transferring administrator access of a unit to another member of your Department/Division/College best suited to administrate the unit (then please contact [email protected] for help).

If you are a user leaving the University, you will lose access when your SSO expires. However, if you are moving to another department your access will need to be revoked manually by your current unit administrator.

Services provided by colleges and departments, that are controlled by your SSO account, will usually end at the same time as the expiry of your University card.

If you have any further queries please check with the local IT team.

If you use any of the following systems, please advise the support centre contact that you will be leaving:

Any external account or service that uses your University email address should be updated with an appropriate personal or unit address.

Heidi Plus users must also follow the process to remove access.

If you are in receipt of a University pension, you may be able to retain access to your email and some IT facilities if you apply for the relevant Retiree’s Card (note: not all types of retiree's card entitles you to an email account).

For benefits available to University alumni please visit the Oxford Alumni website.