Accessing E-mail using SquirrelMail

SquirrelMail is a program that will allow users to view their e-mail from anywhere with Internet access.

To begin, use the following address: http://www.mydomain.com/webmail

.

If you make an error in your Binghamton login you will get the following message:

Click Go to login page to retry.

Once you've successfully logged in, your page should look similar to the one below, with your folders list on the left side of the page and the your Inbox messages on the right.

Note: The bold-typed blue messages are the ones that have not been read.

Reading mail

To read your mail, click on the Subject of the message. Once you've read the message, you have a number of options (other than the standard option links at the top of the page). These are:

Message List – Choosing this option will take you back to your Inbox message list.

Delete – Choosing this option will allow you to delete the message and return you to your message list.

Previous/Next – Choosing either of these options will move you to the next full-text message in either direction from your message listing.

Forward/Reply/Reply All – Choosing any of these options will respond to the message respectively. Reply All will include all names on the From and Cc lines in your message.

Full View Header – This link will show the various servers this email passed through to get to your inbox.

View Printable Version – This link will open a new window showing the message in a printable format. Choose Print or Close Window to return to the original view of the message.

Delete & Prev/Delete & Next – These links will delete the message you are currently reading and move you to the previous message or the next message.

Tools

The link tools at the top of the folder page will allow you to Compose Email, manage an address book, manage personal folders, configure your screen view, search for mail by text, and use the SquirrelMail calendar. These options appear at the top of most screens within SquirrelMail.

Compose

Click Compose to create a new Email message.

Within this window, you can select from several options to create an Email:

• Type the recipients email address in the To: field.

• You can click on the Addresses button (right above the message box, not the link in blue at the top of the screen) if you know the person is listed in your address book. After you've found the person's name, choose which place you want their address to appear in your email, i.e.: To, Cc, or Bcc. After selecting the person you want, click Use Addresses.

Note: If you want to include all the names in your address book in your Email, choose All at the top of the correct column. You will see a check mark next to every name in the respective column.

• Type a subject for the Email in the Subject: field.

• Choose a priority for the Email from the pull down menu. The choices are High, Normal, and Low with the default being Normal. Choosing High or Low will result in the Email being presented to the recipients with a different look. You do not need to change this field.

• You may or may not choose to receive a message when the recipient has received or read the Email. Check the appropriate box for these selections.

• NOTE: This option may be server and client dependent. It does not work with the Binghamton University mail client.

• Move your cursor to the inside of the message box to type the Email.

• You can also attach a document to send with the email by typing a file location in the Attach: field. If you do not know the exact location of the file, choose Browse to find the file on your computer. Once found, click Add to add the file to be sent with the message.

• When complete, click Send, Save Draft, or Check Spelling.

• If you choose Send, your message will be sent and you will be returned to your Inbox.

• If you click Save Draft, the message will be saved to a Draft folder. You can access this anytime by clicking on the Drafts folder at the left, listed beneath INBOX.

• If you choose Check Spelling and there are spelling errors, you will receive a message box as shown below. The word error will be depicted with asterisks within the document and there will be choices for the correct word spelling. You can chose from several options within the spell check option.

Creating an Address Book

In order to select names from your address book, you must first create one. To begin, click on the Addresses link at the top of the page.

• To add a name to your address book, you must fill in at least the first three fields, Nickname, E-mail address, and First name. Last name and Additional info are optional fields.

• Once you've entered the correct information, click Add Address from either the top link or bottom radio button.

• The name will automatically be viewable once this is done.

• You can also import a .CSV file. Create this by exporting a Netscape address book (comma-separated file).

• To Edit and Delete an address, click the box to the left of the name and choose one of these buttons.

Creating a Folder

To organize your email, you can create folders to store your messages.

• Click Folders from the links at the top of the page.

• Type the name of the folder that you want to create.

• Choose from the pull-down menu where you want the folder located.

• Click Create.

• The folder will appear at the left within the subfolder specified.

• Follow the same procedure to rename or delete a folder.

SquirrelMail Options

The Options link allows you to set up your SquirrelMail many ways.

• Click Options from the links at the top of the page.

Personal Information

This area allows you to customize personal information that, in most cases, your recipients will see. It includes information you want in new messages and reply messages. It is not mandatory that you set up this information (that's why it's called an option). There is also a feature that will allow you to assign yourself multiple identities. When this feature is turned on, (Edit Advanced Identities) it replaces the information on the first page.

• Full Name – when viewing a message from you, this is the name that people would see. Leaving it blank would default to your email address.

• Email Address - If your email address is different than what is automatically assigned, you can change it here.

• Reply To – Fill in this field if you want your replies sent to another address, i.e.: your Yahoo! Account.

• Signature - Signatures are attached at the bottom of all messages you send out. If you want a signature, you must make sure that you mark the signature options at the bottom of the page appropriately.

• Timezone Options – Use this option if you are writing from a different time zone and need your recipients to see this real time.

• Reply Citation Options – Use these options if you want to customize the way a reply message looks to the recipient.

Message Highlighting

With Message Highlighting, you can color code your emails, depending on who they're from. This may be useful if you are on several mail lists and want to quickly identify which messages came from which list. You will automatically know just by looking at your inbox who the messages are from.

• Click on [New] to create a new one, or [Edit] to edit an existing one and the options will appear below.

• The Identifying name will be anything you choose to recognize this group. If you want all your messages identified that come from a Student group, you could call this identifier Students.

• The color chosen will be the color that the background of the Email will be. This is the actual color that the background will be. You can choose between a number of pre-defined colors that we have selected for you, or you can enter the HEX code for the color that you desire (i.e. a6b492). If you choose to enter your own color, you must also select the radio button next to that color.

• You can also choose which field of the header will be used for matching. The pull-down menu will default to the From line, but will also allow you to choose a phrase to be recognized from the To, Cc, To or Cc, and Subject lines.

Index Order

You can arrange your columns in your message folders anyway you'd like them to appear using the links to the left of the column headings. Use the Add button to add a function that does not already show.

Spellchecker Options

Use this option to remove any word(s) you've added to your custom dictionary. Click on the box next to the word you want removed from your personal dictionary and click Delete checked words.

Note: You cannot change the SquirrelMail dictionary, only the words that you've created.

Display Preferences

The Display Preferences option gives you the ability to personalize your SquirrelMail.

• Theme: - SquirrelMail offers different color themes for your viewing pleasure. You can choose between the many listed there if you so desire.

• Custom Stylesheet: - Changing a theme only changes the colors, a stylesheet may change more, for example the font size used by SquirrelMail.

• Language: - If English isn't your first language, you can easily change the language that most text displays in. If your desired language is in the list, choose it and all future SquirrelMail related messages would be in that language. Note that this doesn't translate incoming email messages or folder names.

• Use Javascript: - One of our main goals in creating SquirrelMail was to eliminate Javascript from our pages. Rather than remove it, we now give you the option of using pure HTML or allow Javascript as well. If you don't know what this means, you are safest to choose Autodetect.

• Number of Messages to Index: - This is the number of messages to show at a time in a folder. If there are more in the folder, you will see a "Previous" and "Next" link above and below the listing to take you to the other messages.

• Enable Page Selector: - Setting this to Yes shows page numbers above and below the message list to quickly jump to a specific page of messages. The number Maximum pages to show can limit how many page numbers will be displayed above and below the message list.

• Wrap Incoming Text At: - How many characters should we allow before wrapping the text. This prevents messages from scrolling beyond a screen view. Eighty-six is a standard line length, but you are free to change it to whatever you desire.

• Size of Editor Window: - How wide do you want your "Compose" box to be? This is the number of characters per line that you will be able to type before the text wraps to the next line.

• Location of Buttons when Composing: - This is where the buttons Addresses, Save Draft and Send are located.

• Addressbook Display Format: - If you want maximum compatibility with all browsers, use HTML. Select Javascript if you know your browser supports it, it will display a nicer addressbook.

• Show HTML Version by Default: - If a message you receive is in both text and HTML format, you can choose if you want to see the HTML version (Yes) or the text version (No) by default.

• Enable Forward as Attachment: - Enables the user to forward the message as an attachment (unopened) rather than displaying the message on the screen in full text.

• Include Me in CC when I Reply All: - Reply All sends your reply to all recipients of the original message, including yourself and anyone Cc'd or Bcc'd. To leave your own email address out, set this to No.

• Enable Mailer Display: - When viewing a message, this displays which email program the sender used.

• Display Attached Images with Message: - If someone sends you a message with one or more images attached and you've set this to Yes, the images will be displayed right away when you view the message.

• Enable Printer Friendly Clean Display: - This will clean out the message so the print looks nicer.

• Enable Mail Delivery Notification: - This option will show when a message has been delivered, received, or read by the addressee(s), depending on the delivery options chosen when the message was sent.

• Compose Messages in New Window: - This option, when set to Yes, will open a new window when composing a message. If set to No, the message will be composed within the same window.

• Other Options: - Depending on the configuration of your SquirrelMail installation, more options might be displayed here. They should be self-explanatory. Ours are:

• Width and Height of Compose Window (defaulted to normal size but can be changed.

• Append Signature before reply/forward text (Y/N).

• Show my User Name and IP under Folders List (Y/N)

• Delete/Move/Next Buttons – where they are displayed on the screen and when.

Folder Preferences

• Trash Folder - You can choose which folder messages will be sent to when you delete them. If you don't want deleted messages to go to the trash, set this to "Don't use Trash"

• Sent Folder - You can choose which folder your sent messages will go to. If you don't want to save these, set it to "Don't use Sent".

• Draft Folder - You can choose which folder the messages you save as drafts will go to. If you don't want to save these, set it to "Don't use Drafts".

• Location of folder list – You can set this to where you want your folder list to reside, the left or right of your window.

• Width of folder list - With this option, you can select how wide the list of folders will be. If you have very long folder names or large fonts, it is good to set this pretty high. Otherwise, you should set it low so you don't waste screen space.

• Auto refresh folder list - SquirrelMail has the functionality to automatically refresh the folder listing on the left side of your browser window. This will also update the number of unseen messages that are in each folder. This is a good way

to check for unseen messages in the INBOX without having to click on it every time.

• Enable Unread Message Notification - This option specifies how to display unseen messages in the folder listing on the right side of your browser window. If you set this to No Notification, you will not be notified of unseen messages. If you set it to INBOX, when you have new messages, the INBOX will become bold and a number will appear to the right of it to say how many new messages are in it. If you set it to All Folders, this behavior will happen on all folders. If you notice that loading the folder list is really slow, you can set this to INBOX or None and that should speed it up.

• Unread Message Notification Type - When new messages are in a folder, this option tells either to display the number of new messages only or display the total number of messages in that folder.

• Enable Collapsible Folders - Collapsible Folders allow you to 'fold' or collapse a folder that contains subfolders; the subfolders will not be displayed. You can collapse a folder by clicking the "-" next to it and expand it again by clicking the "+" sign. Setting this to No disables collapsing.

• Show Clock on Folders Panel - Choose if you want a clock to be displayed above the folder list and how it should look (Y=year, D=day, H=hour, M=minute, S=second). The option Hour Format below gives you the choice of a 12- or 24-hour clock.

• Memory Search - If you search a mailbox, the search will be saved for quick access later. This defines how many mailbox searches will be saved.

• Folder Selection Options – Use this pull-down menu to format your view of folders in the Inbox Menu Screen.

Unsafe Image Rules

The unsafe image rule option within SquirrelMail will replace images with warning signs within emails received from "unsafe" sources. .

To turn off the Unsafe Image locks, click Unsafe Image Rules in the Options window. Read each option for turning off the image lock and select the one that best suits your email needs. The last option, Trust Defined Sources, will prompt you to include exact parameters of emails to trust. The most common selection would be Trust All Sources.

Note: The options below may still not display within some versions of Netscape.

New Mail Options

This configures settings for playing sounds and/or showing popup windows when new mail arrives.

Exceeding your Disk Quota

If you are over your disk quota, you can fix this within squirrelmail. The problem with trying to delete your mail to clean up the space is that by default, everything once it is deleted is moved to your Trash folder and this can't take place if you are over your quota limit.

To fix this so that you can remove some of your mail files to regain your disk space you can do the following:

• Click Options (at the top of your screen)

• Choose Folder Preferences

• For the option, Trash Folder, use the pull-down menu and choose [Do not use Trash].

• Click Submit.

Now you can successfully remove unwanted mail to regain your disk space. If you want to use the "Trash" option, you must go back through the steps above and for the Trash Folder, choose INBOX.Trash and hit the "Submit" button on the bottom of the page.

Squirrelmail Search

This option gives you the ability to search messages based on varying criteria. Click the Search link at the top of the page. Choose the folder you wish to search, type in the search criteria, and then choose the part of the message to search. When you submit your data, the list of messages will come up below the search form. You can choose the message you wish to view, and read it just like a normal message.

To the right of the input field, you see a drop-down list of places that are possible to search through. This includes: Body, Everywhere, Subject, From, Cc, To.

• Body - Searches through the body of the message. This is the main part of the message where the important stuff is located.

• Everywhere - This searches everything, including the entire header for the message. Unless you are sure this is what you want, it probably isn't. It can return results that you wouldn't normally expect.

• Subject - Searches through the subjects for all the messages.

• From – Searches on the "From" field. Note that this might be more than is actually displayed in the folder list. A normal "From" field includes the name AND email address, but SquirrelMail usually only displays the name. If your criterion matches the email address, but it is not displayed, that message will still return as having matched.

• To – Searches on the "To" field. This can be many addresses, and is not always just one email address.

• Cc – Works like the "To", except searches on the "Cc" field.

Recent Searches

If you've enabled this option, the Search page also displays an overview of up to nine of your most recent searches for quick access. Click on Search next to the listed search to perform it again. With the Save link you can move a search to the Saved Searches which will be kept until you explicitly press Delete. Click Forget to remove a search from the list of recent searches.

Calendar

To schedule events, click on the Calendar link at the top and add events, meetings, or appointments as necessary.

Important! When you are finished using SquirrelMail, make sure to use the link to

in the upper right hand corner. This option is located on every screen.