ubmail-keep-alive

Don't let my buffalo.edu email address get garbage collected

Introduction

Every two months, I receive the following email:

Our records indicate you have not logged in to your UBmail Powered by Google email in the last 60 days. You must log in using the link below at least once every 90 days to keep your UBmail service active.

Please log in here: https://ubmail.buffalo.edu

If you do not log into your UBmail for 90 days, you will lose access to your UBmail service. Any existing email messages you may have in your UBmail will eventually be lost.

I'm tired of manually logging into my old email account just to save it from garbage collection.

Thankfully, this chore can be automated.

How it works

Once per week, a GitHub action runs script.py. The script uses Selenium, a browser automation tool, to programmatically log into my UBmail account. The script also automatically forwards me all unread emails because, sadly, mail forwarding rules are no longer supported. My username, password, and "forward to" email are stored as repository secrets and passed to the script as environment variables.

If you want to keep your buffalo.edu email address alive:

1. Fork this repository
2. Add UBIT_USERNAME, UBIT_PASSWORD, and FORWARD_TO_EMAIL repository secrets
   • Under Settings > Secrets > Actions
3. Enable GITHUB_TOKEN "Read and write permissions"
   • Under Settings > Actions > General > Workflow permissions