All student e-mail addresses will have different domain names when GW switches to Gmail this fall, the University announced today.

Beginning in August, the student e-mail suffix will change from “@gwu.edu” to “@gwmail.gwu.edu.” Students will have six months to transfer their messages from their Colonial Mail (@gwu.edu) accounts, as well as redirect any incoming mail. Faculty and staff will continue to use Colonial Mail.

University officials said in April they were about to sign a contract with Google, but months later Information Services and Security spokesperson Rachel Blevins said they were still in legal negotiations.

The new e-mail service will have more than six gigabytes of storage, nearly 300 times the amount available in Colonial Mail, as well as Google applications such as Calendar and Chat. Executive Vice President and Treasurer Lou Katz said in April that switching to Google will save the University money — data is currently stored on University servers in Foggy Bottom and Loudoun County, Va.

Students will also be able to keep their GW accounts after they graduate, whereas they were deactivated in the past. Current alumni can activate the “e-mail for life” option by visiting GW’s Alumni Online community at http://alumni.gwu.edu. Alumni accounts are also under the @gwmail.gwu.edu domain name.

Colonial Mail, a system purchased and run in-house, was introduced in 2003 to replace the primitive “Webmail.” The University had hinted at the move to Google since 2006, but said for years that they were still exploring the security risks and complexities of several systems. The new “GWMail” will be run by Google at an off-site location.