Changes to DMARC Policy May Affect Delivery of Sent Email
MIT's central IT department updated our DMARC policy in January 2025 to enhance email security and reduce the flow of spam through our servers. This change may impact your ability to send emails if you're sending from an outgoing server not associated with your alum address. Essentially, any email sent “from” an alum.mit.edu address should be sent via our outgoing email servers. For example, if you're using Gmail's outgoing server while listing your alum address as the return address, the email will fail the DMARC check and won't be sent. We apologize for the inconvenience this change causes. Without this DMARC policy in place, our reputation as a valid email sender has suffered, leading to significant email delivery issues for those who rely on email forwarding. This change will protect the reputation of our domain, reduce spam, and improve email delivery.
For Gmail users, if you want to send email "from" your alum address, you need to configure Gmail's "send mail as" feature to send via one of our outgoing email servers. Here are instructions on how to do this.
Also, you may not be aware, but your alumni email address is now a fully functional Outlook account rather than just a forwarding address. Using this account is a reliable option for both receiving and sending emails.
You can access your email account at http://outlook.office.com. Sign in with your alumni email address (timbeaver@alum.mit.edu). If you're prompted to choose between work or school or personal account, choose the work or school account option. You should ultimately end up on the MIT Touchstone login page, where you should enter your alumni username (timbeaver) and password (the same password you use here).
If you prefer to use an email application like Apple Mail or Outlook, or you would like to add your alum email account to the email application on your mobile device, here are instructions: