You are trying to connect to your academic email via the old webmail IA 85 Nantes address, and the page is no longer loading. This is not a bug in your browser. The historical Webmel service of the Nantes academy has been permanently disabled since January 12, 2026, rendering the old URLs that many agents had bookmarked obsolete.
Closure of webmail IA 85: what has changed since January 2026
For years, staff of the Nantes academy (teachers, administrative staff, CROUS network personnel) used local portals to access their professional email. The “ia85” address referred to the departmental webmail of Vendée, linked to the Nantes academy.
Since January 12, 2026, the academic Webmel service has been permanently stopped. This is not a temporary maintenance issue or an SSL certificate problem. The old system is simply no longer operational.
Specifically, the pages you may have saved (such as webmail.ac-nantes.fr or ia85) no longer respond or redirect to an error page. If you are looking to access the webmail IA 85 Nantes, you now need to take a completely different route.
Nantes academic email: the two new access points
The Ministry of Education has centralized the management of professional emails. Two portals replace the old departmental webmails.
- The national portal messagerie.education.gouv.fr is the main entry point. You authenticate there with your usual academic credentials (the same ones used for the old Webmel).
- The ETNA intranet (Academic Digital Workspace) also allows you to check your mailbox via an integrated link, without re-entering your credentials if the session is already open.
- For primary education institutions, access may also go through the e-lyco portal, depending on the configuration chosen by the academic inspection.
Have you noticed that these two portals are similar in their login logic? That’s normal. The system relies on single sign-on (SSO), which means that one login grants access to email and other digital services of the academy.
Connecting to the national portal: concrete steps for staff in Vendée
Open your browser and type messagerie.education.gouv.fr in the address bar. The page displays a list of academies. Select “Nantes”.
The login form asks for two elements: your username (often in the form firstname.lastname, sometimes followed by a number) and your password. These are the same as those for your old Webmel account.
If you have never changed your initial password, it generally corresponds to the NUMEN followed by characters generated during the first activation. If in doubt, the reset procedure goes through the page moncompte.ac-nantes.fr, which remains active.
Once logged in, you will find your inbox, folders, and contacts. The interface is that of Roundcube or Zimbra email, depending on your institution’s migration.
What to do if the connection fails
Three situations frequently arise for staff trying to connect for the first time to the new portal:
- The password is rejected even though it worked on the old Webmel. This happens when the account has been migrated with a forced reset. Go to moncompte.ac-nantes.fr to generate a new password.
- The username is not recognized. Check the exact format (firstname.lastname without accents, all in lowercase). Staff recently assigned to Vendée may have a username linked to their original academy.
- The page remains stuck on a white screen. Clear your browser cache or try in private browsing. Old cookies from webmail IA 85 may create a session conflict.
Setting up Nantes academic email on phone or tablet
The national portal works from a mobile browser, but the experience is not always smooth on a small screen. The most stable solution is to set up a native mail client (the Mail app on iOS, Gmail or Outlook on Android).
You will need the IMAP server and the SMTP server of the academy. These settings are the same as those of the old Webmel:
Incoming IMAP server: imap.ac-nantes.fr, port 993, SSL encryption. Outgoing SMTP server: smtp.ac-nantes.fr, port 465, SSL encryption. The username remains your full address ([email protected]).
Once these settings are entered, your messages will sync automatically. Folders created on the web portal will also appear on your phone.
Why avoid redirects to a personal address
Some agents had set up an automatic redirect of their academic email to their personal Gmail or Outlook inbox. This practice poses a real privacy issue. Exchanges between staff of the Ministry of Education transit through secure servers, and redirecting them to a commercial service takes them out of this perimeter.
Since the centralization on the national portal, several academies have also disabled the ability to create these redirects. It is better to configure your phone’s mail client directly with the IMAP settings mentioned above.
Digital life on campus and the Nantes academic network
Professional email is just one brick among others. The Nantes academy includes five departments (Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne, Sarthe, Vendée), and training staff on IT tools remains uneven from one department to another.
For staff in Vendée who were looking for webmail IA 85, the change may seem abrupt. The departmental portal has disappeared without leaving a clear redirect. Bookmarking the address messagerie.education.gouv.fr is the simplest reflex to avoid wasting time on the next connection.
Agents who encounter persistent difficulties can contact the academic IT support platform via the ETNA portal, under the “Assistance” section. Response times vary, but requests related to email are prioritized since the migration.