In September of 2016, the University announced a new email policy which goes into effect on January 18th, 2017 for staff and March 15th, 2017 for faculty. At 12:01am on these dates, messages over sixteen months old will be automatically and permanently deleted from your mailbox if they are in a default folder. A default folder is defined as one that you did not create, such as your Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, Clutter, Junk, and Drafts folders. Messages deleted by this policy cannot be recovered or fetched out of a deleted items/trash/recycle bin folder.

In order to retain older emails, you must manually move them to a personal folder or set of personal folders you create. ITS has provided a set of videos and written tutorials which explain this process in step-by-step detail. Provost IT can also help users move their messages before this policy goes into effect. If you need assistance, please call (213) 821-0009 or email helpdesk@provost.usc.edu.

Here are three other points to note about this new policy:

• Items underneath a default folder (shown above) are still also subject to deletion. For example, if you create a folder underneath “Inbox” called “Archive” and place emails there that are older than sixteen months, they will be deleted.
• This policy also applies to organizational accounts and affiliate/iVIP accounts. This means that any other mailboxes you check, even if they are not tied to a specific person, will also be affected.
• There are no limits on the number of personal folders you may create to organize your messages.

Thank you,

Provost IT