Don't miss out on important university information.
As a first-year student, you will need to do the following
- Activate your UW Email - Instructions
- Often, faculty and staff will only respond to your emails coming from your "@uw.edu" address.
- Set up DUO Two-factor authentication (2FA) - Instructions
UW offers two cloud-based email services. Follow the instructions to activate your UW Email and review the UW IT Student Guide for helpful information as you transition to the UW.
Please note: the option to activate your UW Exchange Online or UW G-Suite will not be available until after you make an Advising & Orientation reservation.
Forward Email to UW Exchange Online (part of UW Office 365)
You also have the option to choose UW Exchange Online, a part of UW Office 365 to manage your email. UW Exchange Online offers email and calendaring and cloud-based productivity and collaboration tool suites.
Activate UW G-Suite and UW Google Email
Your UW Google Email allows ad-free email with 25 GB of storage and continued use of your @uw.edu email address. Follow the steps below to start using UW Google Email. Go to the Manage UW Google Apps page to activate the service and set your UW Google Apps password. You can access your UW Google email and all other UW Google Apps services by going directly to mail.google.com and logging in with your_NetID@uw.edu as your username. You may also configure UW Google Apps Email on just about any desktop email program or mobile device using instructions provided by Google.
Can I forward my email to my personal account?
Please do not forward your UW email to your personal email account. When you activate your UW Exchange Online or UW G-Suite, you will have the opportunity to change your email forwarding to UW. Faculty and staff are instructed to reply to UW emails. If you forward it to a personal account, you will receive the email, but it will come from your personal account when you reply. You can check your UW email forwarding anytime.
Where do I go to check my email?
Once you activate your email, you can access your UW email through MyUW or go directly to mail.google.com or outlook.office365.com and enter your_NetID@uw.edu email address.
Logging into Multiple Google Accounts
One of the issues most people struggle with switching between their UW Google account apps and their personal Google account apps. There is an easy solution for this problem that allows you to access all of your Google accounts in one browser. For example, you can have your UW Gmail and your personal Gmail open in separate windows in the same browser. There are really important reasons related to FERPA (discussed on the UW Gmail page) that you might want to keep these two email accounts separate from one another. However, if you follow the instructions below, you can keep them separate AND access them both conveniently without having to log out and re-login.
Google has a tutorial available for logging into multiple Google accounts.
