Understanding Your Maricopa Email Addresses
As a Maricopa employee, you have more than one email address. These email addresses are used for different purposes, so it is important to know which one to use.
The most important thing to know is that your college employee inbox is where you receive official employee communications.
Your College Employee Email
Your college employee email is based on your name and the primary college where you work or teach. It is a vanity email, the real email is your meid @ the primary college you work at. For Google sign ins you should be able to use the firstname.lastname@yourcollege.edu but be prepared to try the one with the MEID if it doesn’t work.
You may see two versions of this email address:
- Name-based address:
firstname.lastname@cgc.edu - MEID-based address: meid@cgc.edu
Both addresses are associated with your college employee email account. The name-based address is often called a vanity email address, while the MEID-based address is the underlying account address.
Which should you use?
Use your college email for employee communication and Google Workspace services. When signing into Google, your name-based address will generally work. If it does not, try your MEID-based college address.
Teaching at multiple colleges? You may have additional college-specific email aliases, such as firstname.lastname@mesacc.edu. Your primary college determines your primary employee email account.
Your Maricopa.edu Email
You also have a Maricopa email address connected to your MEID.
Example:MEID@maricopa.edu
This address is tied to your Maricopa systems login. When you sign in using Maricopa’s Single Sign-On, or SSO, you will use your MEID@maricopa.edu address.
In most cases, employee email is not sent to this address unless you are also a Maricopa student.
Why this matters
Both addresses may appear in Maricopa systems, but they serve different purposes:
- Use your college employee email for employee communication.
- Use your MEID@maricopa.edu address when signing in through Maricopa SSO or accessing certain district systems.
How Email Addresses Affect Google Workspace Sharing
Your Maricopa email address can affect how Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Drive folders are shared.
Sharing with colleagues and employees
For sharing with colleagues at your college or with employees across the district, your college employee email usually works as expected. Once you are logged in, you can access Google Workspace tools such as Google Docs, Forms, Slides, Sheets, and Drive.
Many internal Maricopa documents are shared so that only Maricopa employees can view them. This is often appropriate for internal documentation, department resources, committee materials, and employee-facing guides.
A common misconception about student access
A common misconception is that students can also access documents shared internally with Maricopa employees.
Even though students also have Maricopa accounts, student access does not always work the same way as employee access. A document restricted for internal employee viewing is not available to students.
This matters if you are creating course materials, Google Forms, sign-up sheets, collaborative documents, or resources that students need to open.
Sharing Google files with students
If you want to restrict a Google file so that only students can access it, rather than making it available to anyone with the link, you may need to create and share the file using your MEID@maricopa.edu account.
This can be useful, but it is also more advanced. Permissions may depend on which account created the file, which account is used to share it, and whether students need to view, comment, edit, make a copy, or submit a form.
Before using this option for a class, contact the CTLA for guidance. We can help you choose the safest sharing setting for your purpose.
Key reminder
Use your college employee email for employee communication and most employee-to-employee sharing. Use your MEID@maricopa.edu account when Maricopa SSO, Google access, or student-specific sharing requires it.