Webmail Tasks

• Logging In and Out
• Changing Webmail Options
• -- Options > Personal Information
• -- Options > Folder Preferences
• Folder Tasks
• -- The Folder List
• -- Moving Messages to Other Folders
• -- Managing Your Sent-Mail Folder
• -- Note About Webmail Message Folders and Pine and Eudora
• Converting a Eudora or Pine Address Book to (or from) Webmail
• -- Selecting To: Recipients the Easy Way: from Your Webmail Address Book
• -- Webmail Address Book and Spam Whitelist
• -- Searching for Email Addresses in Your Webmail Address Book or the UIC Online Phonebook
• Handling Messages with Attachments -- and an Important Warning
• -- Keeping a Copy of the Message Without the Attachment
• Deleting (or Something Else) All the Messages in a Folder

Logging In to Webmail

Logging Out of Webmail

On any Webmail window, click the Sign Out link in the upper right corner to log out from Webmail (the number 8 in figure 1). It is very important to log out -- click the Sign Out link -- of Webmail when you're finished using it, particularly if you are using a public computer. If you don't, other people will have access to your email.

However, if you're composing a message, before you logout be sure to:

Send a message that you're composing.
Or: Save a message that you're composing as a draft.

It's actually possibly OK if you don't, because Webmail saves notes that you're composing in a cookie, but cookie's size and lifetime are limited, and, of course, you'd have to log back in on the same computer. See Problems getting timed out in the Webmail FAQ for more information.

If you're using a public machine and you're paranoid, you might want to erase the browser cache when you're finished, so no one else can stumble on any of your email.

One set of Option Preferences that everyone will have to set are the Personal Information preferences. The full name and Email address are entered the first time you log into Squirrel Webmail.

Here are Ada Byron's Personal Information Options:

Full Name:

Ada Byron Lovelace

Email Address:

adabyron@uic.edu

Reply to:

 

Signature:

Ada Byron Lovelace, adabyron@uic.edu
University of Illinois at Chicago

Your current timezone:

Same as server

Reply Citation Style: (This is used to introduce the copy of the note that you're replying to; you can choose between Webmail's or one of your own.)

On DATE, AUTHOR Wrote

Use Signature:

Yes

Signature with '-- ' Line: (This is to put a line with only '--' before your signature; it's your choice.)

No

Click Submit to submit your option changes.

Special Folder Options

Trash Folder:

Default: deleted

Sent Folder:

Default: sent-mail on the server.

Draft Folder:

Default: drafts on the server.

Folder List Options

Auto Refresh Folder List:

Default: 30 minutes This saves you from being timed out.
You might want to change it to: 10 minutes (nothing less) This saves you from having to click the (refresh folder list) link before you click the INBOX link to refresh your Inbox.

Webmail automatically subscribes you to all the folders you have in your mail directory automatically each time you login. If you don't see the same set of folders that you see using Eudora/Outlook, the problem is usually because you do not have them stored in the right place. Don't worry, they are still there. If you have tried subscribing to your folders and that doesn't work, send a note to systems@uic.edu and tell us what your IMAP prefix is set to. For more information, see Where are all my folders? in the Webmail FAQ.

In any Webmail window, click Folders from the main menu at the top to open the Webmail Folders page. The Folders page used to be used to subscribe or unsubscribe to folders, but that is of limited use now that you are subscribed to all folders each time you login. Other functions of the Folders listing:

• Create a folder for email messages or a folder that can contain folders.
• Rename or delete a folders.

And notice that the Inbox, drafts, sent-mail, and deleted folders have special icons. That's because they are special folders.

Figure 3: The Squirrel Webmail Folders Page In any Webmail window, click Folders from the main menu at the top to open the Webmail Folders page.You used to have to use the Webmail Folders page to subscribe to your folders, but now we have a plugin that subscribes to all the folders you have in your mail directory automatically each time you login. If when you login, you don't see the same set of folders that you see using Eudora/Outlook, the problem is usually because you do not have them stored in the right place. Don't worry, they are still there. If you have tried subscribing to your folders and that doesn't work, send a note to systems@uic.edu and tell us what your IMAP prefix is set to. For more information, see Where are all my folders? in the Webmail FAQ Useful functions of the Folders page: Create a folder for email messages or a folder that can contain folders. Rename or delete a folders And notice that the Inbox, drafts, sent-mail, and deleted folders have special icons. That's because they are special folders.

As with any other email system, Webmail stores your email messages (both the ones you send and the ones you receive) in email mailboxes or folders. By default, Webmail uses four email folders, each of which has a special icon: (See figure 3.)

• INBOX, your Inbox. Its icon is a wooden inbox with an arrow pointing into it.
• drafts, where Webmail keep copies of outgoing email messages that you have saved without sending. Its icon is a wooden inbox with a pencil writing in it.
• sent-mail, where Webmail keeps copies of all the messages that you send, until you delete them. Its icon is a wooden inbox with a black letter "S" over it.
• deleted, the folder for your deleted email messages; see Deleting and Undeleting Messages in Using Webmail. Its icon is supposed to look like a trash can. (I think it looks more like a weird mushroom.) Webmail deletes the messages in the deleted folder when you log out.
  
  
• spam -- You will also have a spam folder, created for you by default by the ACCC antispam filters.
  
  
• Squirrel Webmail will also use your other email folders on the server. The icons for your spam folder and for your other folders look like paper folders.

All these folders are listed by name in Webmail's blue left frame. Double-clicking on the name of any folder, at any time, will open a listing of the email messages in that folder.

To save the message you're reading into a folder, select the folder you want to move the message to from the Move to: dropdown list in the last, dark gray line at the bottom of the reading email frame (Number 6 in figure 3 in Reading, Reply, and Forwarding Mail in Webmail Basics) and then click the Move button.

To save a group of messages into a folder, in the message index, click in the boxes beside the From: names of the messages you want to move, then select the folder you want to move the message to from the Move Select To: dropdown list (in the light gray box just above the list of messages on the far left), then click Move. (Number 6 in figure 1in What You See When You Log In in Webmail Basics.)

By default, Webmail keeps a copy of each outgoing email message that you send in its sent-mail folder. All messages in your sent-mail folder will stay there until you delete them. This means that your sent-mail folder could get pretty full if you send a lot of email. You should check it periodically and delete the messages that you don't want to keep. Click on sent-mail in the folder list in the blue left side of any Webmail screen, then use any method you want to delete messages or move then to another email folder:

• Delete: Click in the boxes to the left of the To: address of each message you want to delete then click Delete.
• Move: Click in the boxes to the left of the To: address of each message you want to move, select the mailbox you want to move them to from the Move Selected To: dropdown box in the left upper of the white section, then click Move.

See Deleting and Undeleting Messages in Using Webmail.

Webmail uses IMAP (see IMAP: What's New in Electronic Mail), so when Webmail is used with any other email system that's also set up to use IMAP, including pine, all the mail folders that you keep on the email server (not the ones that you keep on your personal computer) will be available to you, regardless of whether you're using Webmail or your other email system.

If you already have a Eudora or Pine address book, you can use the ACCC Email Address book Conversion Utility Web page to convert your existing address book for use with Webmail or Eudora or Pine or vice versa.

Note that if you convert an address book to Webmail it will replace whatever address book you already have in Webmail. So generally, this is something you only do once. Also note that we moved your address books from the old Webmail to the new Webmail, so if you used the old Webmail, you probably will have an address book already in Squirrel Webmail.

The ACCC Email Address book Conversion Utility is really easy to use.

1. Go to the page: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/addbookconv.html , and click the Login button,
2. log in with UIC Bluestem using your netid and ACCC common password,
3. select the FROM: and TO: and click NEXT --->.
4. Your conversion selection will be described. If that's not what you wanted, you can click your browser's Back button to go back to the previous screen to select a different conversion. If it is the conversion that you wanted, click CONVERT ADDRESSBOOK.

If you normally manage your email with Eudora or Pine, the address book conversion utility is also provides the best way to keep your Webmail address book up-to-date. Each time you change your Eudora or Pine address book, use the ACCC Email Address book Conversion Utility to convert it for use with Webmail. The new copy produced will replace your previous Webmail address book. But if you do this, you can not use Add to Address Book (a menu item between the header and body when you're viewing an email message that you've received.

Any email address that you'd add within Webmail would be lost the next time you converted your Eudora or Pine address book to Webmail. So you should think twice about using the conversion utility more than once, unless, of course, you always update your Eudora or Pine address book. In this case, you'll make changes only in your other "master" address book, and will run the conversion whenever you make any changes in your master address book.

For instructions on Making a Webmail Address Book and on adding email addresses by hand and by the easy way -- from email messages, see Making a Webmail Address Book in Webmail: Special Topics.

Another reason to have a Webmail address book even if you don't use Webmail that much is that every address that you put in your Webmail address book will automatically be put into your ACCC anti-spam filter whitelist. This means that no email from that address will ever be marked as spam. While it's a lot easier these days to put email addresses in your whitelist, this feature is by far the easiest and most reasonable way.

Opening an attachment does not delete it from the server nor does it automatically save the attachment on your disk. You have to make sure that you save it if you want it and that you eventually delete it from the server; sooner rather than later if the attachment is large.

If you receive an attachment that you don't want, or after you download an attachment that you do want, be sure to delete the email message that the attachment came with; that will delete the attachment from the server.

If you want to keep a copy of an email message that came with an attachment, Forward the message back to yourself and tell Webmail not to send the attachment with it:

1. While viewing the message, click Forward.
2. At the bottom of the white frame, in the Attachments box, click in the checkbox beside the attachment you don't want to keep.
3. Click Delete Selected attachments. (Note this deletes the attachment from the note that you are sending, not from the server.)
4. Highlight the name the attachment(s) and click the Delete button.
5. Click Send.
6. Then delete the original copy of the message, the one with the attachment.

If you are using the ACCC's antispam filters, you probably will have a SPAM folder that you need to clean out every once in a while. Or maybe you want to delete all your sent email once each month.

Here is how to select all the messages in a folder so you can delete, or something else, them all at once.

1. If you're deleting all the messages in the folder, click Show All.
   
   
   
2. If you're deleting all or most of the listed messages, click Toggle All to select all the messages. If you want to keep some of the messages on the server, click in the box beside those message's From: address to deselect them. Then click Delete. I have used this to delete 967 messages in Ada Byron's spam folder, and it only took moments. That's really cool.