UBC Student Email FAQs

If you have forgotten your CWL password, you can reset it if you know the answers to the Password Recovery Questions that you answered when you created your account.

To reset your password:

• Go to https://www.myaccount.ubc.ca/myAccount/

• Click on Forgot Your Password? link below the login box

• Type in your CWL username and click Continue.

• Enter in the answers to the three questions listed.

• Note: If your secret question is not displayed, it is because your account was created before the password reset procedure was revised. Please contact the UBC IT Service Centre to go over the question(s) or seek assistance.

If you have forgotten your CWL username, please contact the UBC IT Service Centre for assistance.

You can log into to webmail at https://webmail.student.ubc.ca. For your "User Name", you can use either CWLid.stu or your cwl@student.ubc.ca email address. Your webmail password is your CWL password.

If your mailbox has been converted to a cwl@alum.ubc.ca mailbox, you can use either CWLid.stu or your cwl@alum.ubc.ca email address to log in.

Only current students are eligible to sign up for this service. Students must be registered in a course and be in good standing.

If a current student graduates from or leaves the university, he/she retains the mailbox. However the email address will change from cwl@student.ubc.ca to cwl@alum.ubc.ca after a 2 year grace period. Email sent to cwl@student.ubc.ca after this change will still be received.

UBC Student hosted mailboxes are subject to FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) legislation. Data at rest never leaves Canadian soil and nobody can gain access to your email unless the law allows for it.

However while in transit, email is often unencrypted and could be intercepted. Recipients may not have secure storage, or show proper discretion in forwarding email. You should always assume email is not private. This is true for all email services.

When you sign up for a new Student Email account as an active student, your email address will change to cwl@student.ubc.ca. However email sent to your name@alumni.ubc.ca will continue to be delivered.

Students and alumni who already have a name@alumni.ubc.ca email forwarding address do not have to do anything. Email will continue to be delivered to the destination specified by you prior to August 17, 2020.

The Student Email service on its own is currently an optional service. However this service does enable access to other services such as Microsoft Teams and OneDrive. If there is a requirement to use these services by your department or instructor, registration for the UBC Student Email service may be required. If there are any concerns about the privacy of your CWL ID and associated UBC email address, you can opt to rename your CWL ID (and associated email address) to mask your identity.

As an Alumni, you are able to retain access to your mailbox but you will lose access to other services such as MS Teams and OneDrive. Your access will remain as is for a two year grace period. After this grace period, the email address associated with the mailbox will change from cwl@student.ubc.ca to cwl@alum.ubc.ca but it will continue to accept email sent to cwl@student.ubc.ca. Multiple notifications will be sent to your mailbox starting 30 days prior to this change. Although email will continue to function, it is important that you retrieve any files located in MS OneDrive, Teams or other Microsoft 365 apps prior to this change as you will lose access to these services.

You get to keep your @alum.ubc.ca email address and mailbox even if you don't graduate. We encourage you to share your affiliation with UBC with pride.

@ubc.ca is an email address that indicates someone is speaking with the authority of a UBC employee. It is a temporary address that exists only while employed at the university. Mail sent to @ubc.ca can be managed to different retention and destruction levels than personal email.

@student.ubc.ca and @alum.ubc.ca addresses indicate a personal email. As a subdomain of ".ubc.ca" it demonstrates a clear affiliation with the university without speaking on behalf of the university. It is an email address and mailbox that students can retain after graduation.

You can modify the CWL portion of the cwl@student.ubc.ca and cwl@alum.ubc.ca address but you are restricted in the number of times you can change this. Also note that you will need to socialize your new email address as your old email address will no longer be able to receive email. Please plan this change carefully as it's not possible to revert back.

No. Students are limited to one @student.ubc.ca email address at a time. If you are also a UBC employee, you will be eligible for a separate FASmail (Faculty & Staff Email) account.

Theoretically, yes. When you are an active student, your sending email address will be cwl@student.ubc.ca but you will still be able to receive email at cwl@alum.ubc.ca.

However, when you are no longer an active student, the sending email address will switch to cwl@alum.ubc.ca, but you can still receive email at cwl@student.ubc.ca.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to choose your sending address. Is it based on your affiliation with the University.

As mentioned above, both cwl@student.ubc.ca and cwl@alum.ubc.ca will work. If there needs to be a distinction of your affiliation to the university after you graduate, then it would be better to use cwl@alum.ubc.ca.

Your UBC Student Email Mailbox includes 1.5GB of space.

No, IMAP/POP and SMTP access is not available for the Student Email Service. You can access your mailbox via the UBC Student and Alumni Email Webmail site or by using ActiveSync for mobile devices. For instructions on accessing your UBC Student Email mailbox, please visit the Support section.

To forward emails from your Student Email to a personal email, please follow these instructions on how to create a email forwarding rule: https://ubc.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0016974.