29 June 2026 – Email und groupware Linux email system to be upgraded: more storage space, improved performance
From 3 July, the standard university email accounts – which are used by many students and staff via the SOGo web interface – will be migrated to a modern email infrastructure. The three-day migration phase to the new technical platform, taking place over the weekend of 3–6 July 2026, will involve a brief, planned outage, after which all users will benefit from a number of improvements.
From Friday 3 July 2026 to Monday 6 July 2026, the University Computing Centre will migrate – that is, transfer – the standard email accounts automatically set up for students and staff from the existing Cyrus email platform to a new Dovecot email cluster.
Planned outage – no access to email accounts from 3 to 6 July
Important: Whilst migration work is being carried out on the new servers, you will not be able to access your standard email account via SOGo or via email programmes (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird or mobile email apps). We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this necessary interruption during the migration.
Please make a note of the period 3–6 July. During the migration, email reception, forwarding and out-of-office replies will not work. The ‘Spam/Ham’ folder will also be unavailable. During the migration, emails will be temporarily stored and delivered once the maintenance work is complete. Please schedule any important emails outside this timeframe.
What will change for users following the switch?
For users, the way they use their email account will remain largely unchanged once the migration is complete; there will be no changes to the user interface either.
- All existing emails will be transferred.
- Forwarding rules, out-of-office messages and filter rules will be retained.
- The server addresses for the inbox and outbox will not change.
- No adjustments to email programmes are required.
Benefits of the new infrastructure
With the switch to the new Dovecot mail cluster, students and employees will benefit from several improvements:
- Increased mailbox capacity: Each standard email account will now have 10 GB of storage space, instead of the previous 1 GB. You will have more space for documents and emails and will need to archive less.
Note on storage limits: On the new system, the storage limits (quotas) set for mailboxes are consistently monitored and enforced. You should therefore check regularly to ensure you have sufficient free storage space in your mailbox. - Improved performance: The new infrastructure provides a modern and high-performance foundation for email operations. You will benefit from faster loading times, particularly when dealing with large attachments.
- Greater operational reliability: The new platform enables future-proof and reliable operation of email services with shorter response times in the event of faults. Security and functional updates can be deployed more efficiently.
- Enhanced security: The new email infrastructure supports the latest security standards and helps to ensure that your data is better protected.
- Scalability: The new cluster can easily handle the email volume and is easily expandable without the need for further migrations.
- Open-source-based email alternative for employees: With the roll-out of the new system, based on open source and Linux, staff now have an efficient alternative to Microsoft Exchange.
After the migration, please check your inbox to ensure you have the new 10 GB of storage space and test the synchronisation in your preferred email client. If you receive any unusual error messages, please contact IT Support.
For further information, please refer to the linked pages.