Here are some common questions that we receive about Duke email …

• Can I get a copy of my email file from last June?
• Who has access to my email?
• I hit Reply All accidentally when I just wanted to hit Reply – can I recall an email?
• I’m leaving Duke.  Can I keep my Duke email active and forward it to my new job for the next month?
• As a manager, can I get a copy of a former staff member’s email file for business purposes?

We’ll explore these questions below.

But first, here’s our Tech Tip of the Week –

Ever wanted to write an email, then schedule it to be delivered later?  You can do this with Outlook – here’s how:

Write your email as you normally would

Before pressing Send

• Click Options
• Select Delay Delivery
• Under Delivery Options, you’ll find a checkbox next to Do not deliver before
• Check this box
• Enter a date/time that the message can’t be delivered before
• Close this box

Now, press Send.  Your email will be delivered at the date/time you specified.

Duke email - the basics …

Your Duke email platform is Microsoft Office 365.  It’s located in the cloud and provides unified email and calendaring.  Your Duke mailbox size is 50GB.  Duke values your privacy – no one has access to your email except you.  Your email is not stored long-term at Duke or on the cloud unless you decide to create your own archive.  Although you can always get a recent backup of your email file if it becomes corrupt, this is generally only available for at most 30 days.

Your email when you leave Duke …

Students

Duke graduates can use their NetIDs and Duke email for one year after graduation. After that year, the account will expire and all associated accounts, including e-mail addresses, mailboxes, e-mail forwarding and personal file storage space will be deleted.  If you are a former Duke employee, your DHE/NETID account will expire after graduation. 

Faculty & Staff

When you leave Duke, your email file is deleted.  There is no option for keeping your email file open and/or forwarding your mail to your new position outside of Duke.   If you and your supervisor agree, there is a process by which your supervisor can obtain a copy of your email file for business purposes. This requires a strong business case, plus approval from DUSON executive leadership, the Duke Health Information Security Office and Duke Health executive leadership.

What is message recall?

With message recall, a message that you sent is retrieved from the mailboxes of the recipients who haven’t yet opened it.  This is helpful if you selected Reply All instead of Reply.  Or, you may want to substitute a replacement message – for example, if you forgot to include an attachment or left out important details from your original email. 

Mac Users

Mac users of Outlook do not have an option for recalling a message.

Windows Users

Go to your Sent folder and open the email that you would like to recall

In the Move tab, press Actions

Select Recall this message from the Actions menu

You have three options when recalling a message:

• Delete unread copies of this message
• Delete unread copies and replace with a new message
• Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient

What happens when you recall a message?

Both the original email and the recall message are received in the recipient’s inbox.

If the recipient opens the recall message first –

• The original email is deleted
• The recipient is informed that you (the sender) have deleted the message from their inbox

If the recipient opens the original message first –

• The recall fails
• The recipient has both messages now (the original and the recall message)

Going deeper…

Have any other questions about your email?  Ask us – we’ll help you find the answers. 

Have any questions about this or other tech used at DUSON?

As always, if you have any technical questions or problems, please contact your IT Service Desk at 919-684-9200, or email tocitdl@mc.duke.edu.