Your CNetID and password are your keys to accessing electronic services both on- and off-campus. The group of services to which you are eligible and that you use your CNetID and password to access are considered your account. You may choose to use a password or a passphrase with your CNetID—the difference between using a password instead of a passphrase is the required complexity and length.
Since your CNetID is so important, you may have questions about how to manage it. Select a question below to read answers to your questions. You may also contact IT Services for assistance.
Note: If your question is related to account closure, visit Account Closure Overview.
Most people have more usernames and passwords than they'd care to remember. IT Services has adopted a single set of credentials for access to all common services we provide. This is the Chicago Network ID, or CNetID, and the CNetID password. The CNetID password must be between 12 to 18 characters in length and contain at least three different character classes. Alternately, you may use a passphrase, which can be a string of words of at least 19 characters and no more than 32 characters long.
You will use your CNetID and either a CNetID password or a CNetID passphrase to log in to all the central University services you are eligible to use based on your affiliation with the University.
This is usually because you tried and failed to log in ten times. Talk to the ID & Privileges Office (IPO) to unlock your account. This is a security precaution to prevent someone from trying to break into your account through brute-force guessing.
If you forget your CNetID password or passphrase, or need to change it for some other reason, you can use the MyAccount website. For more information on changing your password, see the article Change Your CNetID Password or Passphrase.
No, you cannot recover a lost password or passphrase. Passwords and passphrases are encrypted in a non-recoverable form as soon as you create them. This is a security mechanism that helps protect your password or passphrase from data theft.
While you can't recover your old password or passphrase, you can reset it. See this article Change Your CNetID Password or Passphrase for more information. If you can't reset your password or passphrase online, contact the ID & Privileges Office (IPO) or IT Services.
No, you may never reuse CNetID passwords or passphrases. You may, however, create a plan for changing your password or passphrase that allows you to easily remember successive passwords or passphrases. For example, if your passphrase is "Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light," changing the passphrase can be as simple as moving on to the next line: "What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"
If you have forgotten your CNetID, you may look it up using Who Am I?. You can also contact the ID & Privileges Office, or visit the Regenstein Library, or call 773.702.3344 to reach them.
CNetIDs cannot be changed. If you want to change your CNetID because of harassment, stalking, or other situations, contact abuse@uchicago.edu to discuss the problem. If you're looking for an alternate email address, you should create an alias. To learn how to create aliases, see the CNetID Email Aliases FAQ. You may set up an alias on the MyAccount website.
If you're unable to create a CNetID through the CNetID website, it may be due to one of the following:
To determine which of these is the case, contact the ID & Privileges Office.
Your CNetID must satisfy all of the following criteria:
For almost all purposes there is no difference between @midway and @uchicago addresses. You should only give out your @uchicago.edu address, as @midway.uchicago.edu addresses are considered deprecated and only maintained as a legacy service.
While some changes may be made to your account when you switch between faculty, student, and staff status, your CNetID and password are unaffected. In other words, while you may use different services, you will access them in the same way. You should replace your UChicago Card when you change roles at the ID & Privileges Office.
If you have a question about 2FA, consult the Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) FAQ or seek help from IT Services.