Migration of CalMail system to bMail

Plan and schedule of our move to bMail

Below are dates and specifics about how the migration will affect you, your email access, and our department.

Scheduled move date

Friday, March 15 at 5:00 pm

It will take most of the weekend to move all the department’s mail from CalMail to bMail, but please understand that you will always have access to email. You will be able to send and receive messages using http://bmail.berkeley.edu throughout the weekend while the migration is underway. The migration will be completed by Monday, March 18.

Summary of changes related to bMail migration

1. Existing CalMail accounts @berkeley.edu will be moved to bMail (hosted by Google).
2. People who do not have a CalMail account @berkeley.edu will get bMail one before the move.
3. Existing CalMail (subdomain) accounts @math.berkeley.edu will be merged with ones @berkeley.edu. Both @berkeley.edu and @math.berkeley.edu addresses will stay valid but will point to the same (Gmail) mail box.
4. The storage quota will increase from 10 to 25 GB.
5. The web interface of bMail will look quite different from CalMail SquirrelMail and RoundCube. However, it is designed for best user experience and is recommended by campus IT team as a primary email tool.
6. The IMAP desktop and mobile access (via Thunderbird, Apple Mail, MS Outlook, alpine, mutt, etc.) to bMail will require a separate password (a.k.a. bConnected key) that has to be setup via https://idc.berkeley.edu/mmk/. The incoming mail server should be set to imap.google.com.
7. Some CalMail settings will not be migrated. Most notable setting that will get dropped is CalMail forwarding. You will need to reconfigure the forwarding after the move via https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/account. Other to be re-established settings may include filters, vacation message, and authorization (mail delegation).
8. Personal address books will not be migrated to Google contacts as well. This is because a personal address book is not part of CalMail system, but rather a part of email client — each application (Thunderbird, alpine, SquirrelMail, etc.) may have its own address book. However, in bMail web interface, typing a name, a portion of name, even a single letter in the address field will bring up a list of campus(!) email addresses. Recently used addresses will be at the top of the list.
9. Existing CalMail (IMAP) folders will be translated to so-called Gmail labels. The main difference between label and folder is that a message can be tagged by several labels and, thus, can appear in multiple "folders" (without being duplicated) in contrast to CalMail in which a message may belong to only one folder.
10. bMail comes with a couple of predefined labels, namely "All Mail" and "Important", which may confuse a beginner and cause troubles for IMAP users. "All Mail" is an archive place for all the mail one's ever sent or received, but has not deleted. It is not recommended to "subscribe" to this "folder" from a desktop/mobile IMAP client. "Important" label is automatically assigned to incoming messages based on Google importance ranking. Such messages are marked by a small yellow "sticker" in Gmail interface. Of course, not every message marked as "important" is really important, and vice versa.

Frequently asked questions

Will my existing addresses john.doe@berkeley.edu and jdoe@math.berkeley.edu remain valid as they are?

Yes, they will, though the mail boxes will merge into one. The address john.doe@berkeley.edu will become primary in bMail.

Can I change my email address assigned to me in bMail?

Not now. The deadline for change was Feb 27. Wait till migration is over.

I use "nail". Will it still work?

Yes, it will, but you will need to set up a bConnected key and point "nail" to the bMail server (imap.google.com).