Changes Planned by Email Providers May Affect Email Account Forwarding 

Beth Varcho | January 30, 2024

As OTDI announced in December, anyone forwarding an Ohio State or BuckeyeMail account to another email can expect forwarded messages to possibly be blocked by new security measures designed to block spam. Specifically, changes announced by Google beginning in February 2024 may impact delivery to Gmail. Google has published resources to help you learn more about the changes to Gmail. 

Because Gmail is an industry leader, whenever Gmail puts new security measures in place their competitors usually add comparable security. Since our original announcement at the end of last year, Yahoo! has already announced plans to enact similar security. While Ohio State’s policies around email remains unchanged, because these changes are being made by outside businesses there is no action that Ohio State can take to prevent delivery interruptions.

This new security means:

  • Anyone who is forwarding an Ohio State email address to an external email service like Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com, may not receive some or all incoming messages because messages will be blocked by the new security.  
  • Anyone who sends a message to a recipient who is forwarding their Ohio State email address to an external email service like Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com, cannot be assured that the recipient will receive the message.  
     

When 

The changes will roll out during February. Because Google has a huge user base, the changes will likely be rolled out in waves and will not impact every account holder at the same time. When Google rolled out new security features last year, not all users were impacted in the same way, so it is possible some users will experience the changes differently than others.  
 

Recommendations 

  • Students: Discontinue forwarding to outside email services and log in to BuckeyeMail to retrieve messages sent to your Ohio State email. If your course instructors use Carmen, check Announcements and Carmen Messaging to ensure you do not miss messages from your instructors. While Ohio State’s policies around email remains unchanged, we recommend that students transition all accounts and contacts not related to the university to a personal email address instead of an Ohio State address. 
     
  • Instructors: Use Carmen Announcements and Carmen Messaging to ensure your communications reach students in your courses.  
     
  • Alumni: Ohio State is sending a separate communication to Lifetime Email Forwarding (LEFs) alumni to offer recommendations.