Pitt Email and Calendar (Outlook)

Pitt Email (Outlook) is the University of Pittsburgh's official enterprise email service for all students, faculty, and staff. It runs on Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, comes with 100 GB of mailbox storage and an integrated calendar, and is protected by Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Your username@pitt.edu address is the address used for all official University communication — including PeopleSoft, Canvas, myPitt, e-Bills, and academic and HR notifications.

Read your Pitt Email in Outlook — do not auto-forward to a third-party provider. Pitt Digital strongly recommends against forwarding your University email to a personal Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, ProtonMail, or other non-University account. Forwarding bypasses Pitt's security protections, can cause messages from federal agencies and other senders to go undelivered, and is a common indicator of a compromised account. See Your Pitt Email Is Your Official Address below.

Accessing Pitt Email

Pitt Email is accessible from any modern device using any of the supported clients below. Sign in with your Pitt Passport credentials.

Supported ways to access your Pitt Email
Platform How to Access
Web Open Pitt Email (Outlook) via myPitt or go directly to outlook.office.com.
Windows / Mac Use the Outlook desktop client included with Microsoft 365. Sign in with your username@pitt.edu address; configuration is automatic.
iOS / Android Install the Microsoft Outlook app from the App Store or Google Play. See Pitt Email on Your Mobile Device for setup details.
Linux Use Outlook on the web in a browser, or configure a Linux mail client. See Accessing Pitt Email on Linux for supported approaches.
Want Pitt Email on your phone without forwarding?
Install the official Microsoft Outlook mobile app. It delivers Pitt mail to your phone as it arrives, keeps the messages inside Pitt's tenant (so the security protections still apply), and supports push notifications. The mobile app is the recommended alternative for anyone who would otherwise forward Pitt mail to a personal account for portability.

What's Included

Features included with every Pitt Email mailbox
Feature Details
Mailbox storage 100 GB of mailbox storage per user.
Calendar and scheduling Integrated calendar with shared free/busy lookup, meeting scheduling, resource reservations, and the FindTime add-in for polling attendee availability.
Teams integration View colleagues' availability, start a chat, and schedule a Teams meeting directly from Outlook. For phone extensions running on the Teams telephony platform, you can also place voice calls from Outlook.
Global Address List Look up any Pitt faculty, staff, or student by name to find their email address and basic directory information.
Email aliases Personalize your address by adding an alias alongside your username@pitt.edu. Set this up under Manage My Account on myPitt.
Microsoft 365 apps Read and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments without leaving your browser. Attach files directly from OneDrive for Business. Create Microsoft 365 Groups that combine shared email, calendars, and document libraries.
Spam and threat filtering Every mailbox is protected by Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — see Managing Spam and Quarantine and Email Protection: Defender for Office 365.
Focused Inbox Outlook automatically separates important mail from clutter. The Focused tab shows mail Outlook thinks you'll want to act on; the Other tab holds lower-priority items. You can move messages between tabs at any time to teach the sorter.
Alumni retention Graduating students keep their Pitt Email mailbox and all of its contents for life, including any aliases created while enrolled. The University's spam and threat filtering continues to protect the alumni mailbox.

Your Pitt Email Is Your Official Address

Your username@pitt.edu address is the only email address that appears in University systems of record — the Student Information System (PeopleSoft), the Learning Management System (Canvas), myPitt, e-Bill notifications, financial aid correspondence, HR and benefits communications, and academic notifications. It is the address Pitt Digital uses for security alerts, password-reset notifications, and incident response.

For these reasons, Pitt Digital strongly recommends reading your Pitt Email in Outlook rather than auto-forwarding it to a third-party provider. If you forward, you remain responsible for every message sent to your Pitt address — but you also assume real risks that don't apply to mail you read in Outlook.

Why Auto-Forwarding to a Third-Party Provider Is Risky

Concrete risks of forwarding Pitt Email to a personal Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, or similar account
Risk What It Means in Practice
Security protections end at the boundary Safe Links rewriting, Safe Attachments sandboxing, impersonation analysis, and Zero-hour Auto Purge all operate inside Pitt's Microsoft 365 tenant. Once a message is forwarded to an outside provider, those protections no longer apply — you are reading the message under whatever protections the third party offers, which are typically weaker.
DMARC delivery failures Many senders — including U.S. federal agencies — refuse to deliver mail to forwarded addresses because of DMARC alignment requirements. If you forward your Pitt mail to Gmail and a federal agency emails you about a grant or a student-loan matter, that message may silently fail to arrive. You will never know it was sent.
Third-party spam filtering Your personal email provider's spam filter does not know which Pitt-internal senders are legitimate. Legitimate University mail — class announcements, payroll notices, security alerts — can be routed to the spam folder at the third-party provider. You are responsible for checking that spam folder regularly.
Records responsibility You remain responsible for every message sent to your username@pitt.edu address regardless of where you read it. "I never got it because Gmail filtered it" is not an excuse the University accepts for missed deadlines, missed financial aid notices, or missed compliance notifications.
FERPA and sensitive-data exposure Pitt Email may carry FERPA-protected student records, employment records, and other sensitive University data. Forwarding routes those records through a third-party provider that has no agreement with the University and no obligation to protect them under FERPA, HIPAA, or Pitt's data classification policy.
Compromised-account indicator One of the first things an attacker does after compromising a mailbox is set up a forwarding rule to exfiltrate mail quietly. Forwarding rules on Pitt mailboxes are routinely audited as part of incident response. A forwarding rule you set legitimately can be mistaken for one set by an intruder; one set by an intruder is easier to miss when forwarding is already normal on your account.
If you currently auto-forward Pitt Email and want to stop.
You can disable forwarding under Manage My Account on myPitt > Email & Messaging > Set Email Preferences > Forwarding. For details, see Setting Your Email Preferences. To read your Pitt Email on a phone, install the Microsoft Outlook mobile app instead — it gives you the same convenience without the risks above.
If you choose to forward anyway.
Pitt Digital does not block forwarding for most user accounts, but if you set up forwarding, also select Also keep a copy of my email in My Pitt Email so a copy remains in your University inbox. Check your third-party provider's spam folder weekly, and remember that you remain responsible for messages sent to your Pitt address. For the full forwarding policy, see Understanding Email Forwarding.

Applicant Accounts

Applicants to the University receive a Pitt Applicant account so they can track their application activation, but Pitt Email access is not granted until enrollment is fully accepted. Once you accept enrollment, your account is converted to a Primary account within approximately two business days — that is when your Pitt Email mailbox is provisioned and accessible.

Related Topics

Key Contacts

Technology Help Desk 412-624-HELP (4357)
Setup, access issues, mobile and Linux configuration, alias setup		 Pitt Digital Security Via Help Desk
Unexpected forwarding rules, suspected account compromise
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Related Services / Offerings (3)

Microsoft 365
EMAIL AND COLLABORATION SERVICES Includes Copilot Chat Microsoft 365 features online versions of recognized Microsoft applications, Pitt Email and Calendar (Outlook), and five terabytes of cloud file storage.
Microsoft Outlook
EMAIL AND COLLABORATION SERVICES Microsoft Outlook is a secure email application that keeps email, calendar and files all in one place.
Threat Protection
SECURE COMPUTING The University of Pittsburgh has a robust series of security controls to protect from threats including Enterprise Spam and Virus Filter with Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.