An NC State email alias provides an easy-to-remember alternative email address that points to your NC State Gmail address.

Alias requirements

• Available to NC State faculty, staff and a few other job classifications.
• Available to campus units; i.e., departments, student organizations and other NC State entities. 
• Not available to undergraduate or graduate students.
• Cannot conflict with any existing alias.
• Must be 9 characters or more in length.
• Is not kept after an individual’s affiliation with the university ends or becomes ineligible for an alias.

Individual alias (for faculty and staff)

• Should be requested by the individual wanting the alias.
• Must be related to the user’s name in some way.
• Preferred alias format:
  firstname_lastname@ncsu.edu
• Alternative formats:
  • firstname_m_lastname@ncsu.edu
  • f_lastname@ncsu.edu
  • nickname_lastname@ncsu.edu
  • lastname@ncsu.edu (length requirements must still be met)
  • Other alias formats will be considered.
• Certain job classifications are not eligible for an alias

On August 1, 2018, OIT stopped offering mail aliases to graduate students. Graduate students who have existing aliases will see these continue to work until the student graduates. These graduate students will lose their aliases after completion of their degree program. OIT recommends that graduate students not provide their aliases to correspondents they wish to retain after completing their degree programs.

Departmental alias (for campus units and student organizations)

• This is an alias that targets an existing Google Generic Account owned by a department, club or other NC State entity.
• Some departmental aliases have been created to target individual Unity IDs.
• OIT will continue to maintain support for these existing aliases but will no longer create new ones that target individual accounts.
• Instead, OIT recommends these be created as Google Generic Accounts.
• A departmental alias:
  • Must be tied to a valid organization, office, club, or other entity at NC State.
  • Cannot point to any external email address.
  • Should always attempt to improve the identity of a given account.
• Simple cosmetic changes (e.g., switching dashes to underscores or vice versa) of aliases are discouraged.

Hosted alias

Example: rqu@cropsci.ncsu.edu
as an alias for rqu@ncsu.edu

To request an alias

• Contact the Help Desk with the following information:
  • Your preferred alias.
  • Your official NC State email address: <UnityID>@ncsu.edu
• Alias creation is not automated, so expect your alias to be available within seven business days of your request, frequently much faster.
• Additional delay may occur if your alias is already in use or does not meet all the alias requirements.

To set up your alias

1. 1. Sign in to your NC State Gmail.
   2. At the top of the page, click on the gear (settings).
   3. From the drop-down menu, select:
      Settings.
   4. Select:
      Accounts tab.
   5. Under Send mail as, click:
      Add another email address you own.
   6. In the Email address field:
      enter your alias.
   7. Click Next Step.
   8. Click Send Verification.
      Gmail will send a verification message to your alias email address to confirm that you own it.
   9. Open the verification message.
   10. Do either of the following:
       • Click on the link contained in the message.
       • Enter the confirmation code in the Accounts section of your Gmail settings.

For full instructions see Send mail from a different address or alias.

Individual alias renewal

• Your alias is valid as long as your NC State Gmail account is active and your primary affiliation with the university is listed as faculty or staff.
• You may also request any of your aliases to be retired at any time.
• NOTE: Messages addressed to a retired or expired alias will bounce back to the senders with an “Address does not exist” error.

Help with aliases

If you have any questions about aliases, please contact the NC State Help Desk.