Introduction

Some users in Chemistry have been inadvertently consuming a lot of space on the mail spool of the central Unix server--where all Chemistry user mail is received and initially stored. Computer Support has had to ask some users on a regular basis to reduce their usage. The situation has gotten to the point where , in some cases, we had to archive mail from users who had exceeded their 20MB mail spool quota by a factor of three or four for a long time and didn't respond to the requests. This is a time consuming task, far from ideal from the point of view of both users and Computer Support.

This FAQ addresses ways users can optimize their usage of deparmental mail services.

In addition to optimizing mail spool usage, this FAQ also will provide brief instructions on how to configure your mailboxes so that you can access all of your mail from any client you choose. Following the guidelines below will help keep mail traffic on our server to a minimum and allow you to use virtually any email client on any machine and have universal access to all of your Chemistry mail.

Contents of this FAQ:

How email clients check mail: IMAP, POP and other methods
Help with Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express
Help with Qualcomm Eudora
Help with TWIG web browser client
Help with Terminal-based clients, like pine (mail) and elm
Help with Netscape Messenger

Note: Graphical email clients, such as Outlook and Eudora, use the word "account" to refer to a connection to an email server. Setting up an "account" in these programs DOES NOT mean you will be establishing another user account with the Department of Chemistry. Your Windows and Unix accounts with the Department of Chemistry will not be modified in any way.

What are IMAP and POP and why should I care?
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The two most widely known Internet-based email protocols are POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). POP is the oldest and consequently the best known. IMAP offers good support for both online and offline remote mail access.

POP was designed to support "offline" mail processing. In the offline paradigm, mail is delivered to a server, and a personal computer user periodically invokes a mail "client" program that connects to the server and downloads all of the pending mail to the user's own machine. Thereafter, all mail processing is local to the client machine. If you use Eudora or Outlook, it is likely you are accessing our server using POP. The default configuration for Eudora and Outlook is to have the messages deleted from the server after downloading to your machine. Though this is the default, during installation, some clients get configured to leave messages on the server. Messages left on the server can, over time, contribute to heavy mail spool usage. This FAQ will discuss recommended settings to avoid this case, below.

Like POP, IMAP can also do offline processing, but its special strength is in online interaction. In online mode, mail is again delivered to a server, but the mail client does not copy the mail to the local machine. Instead, the client can ask the server for message headers or the bodies of messages and display them to the user. Also messages on the mail spool can be marked with various status flags (e.g. "deleted" or "answered") and they stay on the spool until explicitly removed by the user. To give an example, you can select "Purge deleted messages" from the Edit menu in Outlook. You will be asked if you want your deleted messages removed from the folder. If you say yes, the messages you marked for deletion are removed from the spool when you end your session. You may also move mail to mailboxes that you create from your mail client. In our configuration, mailboxes are located in your Unix home directory (more on directories below) and, thus, moving mail into folders frees up space on the shared mail spool. IMAP is designed to permit manipulation of remote mailboxes as if they were local. In other words, IMAP "feels" like POP.

But the similarity stops at feel. IMAP and POP represent different requirements and styles of use. POP works best for people who use a single client machine all the time; it is not well-suited for those who wish to access their mail from different machines at different times. If you use POP's "download and delete" mail access from different computers at different times, your mail tends to get scattered across the different computers, since you are physically storing mail on different machines.

The text-based clients covered in this FAQ (pine and elm) both use a system of mail delivery that functions in ways similar to IMAP (in fact, pine can be configured to use IMAP). TWIG uses IMAP. If you use TWIG or the text-based clients, you'll notice that wherever you login from and whatever machine you use, the same mailboxes and messages are always present. This is an enormous advantage for remote users, and, if properly configured and used, all of the online clients perform optimally for our mail spool and mail delivery system in Chemistry.

Properly configuring the online clients and showing you ways to use IMAP for the popular Outlook/Outlook Express and Eudora clients is also covered below. And following our recommendations will greatly improve the efficiency of the mail system here.

The goal for the user is UNIVERSAL MAIL ACCESSIBILITY--having the same messages and mailboxes visible from any client on every machine you use. The goal for the department's computer resources is a smooth-running, efficient and lean mail system. Our guidelines will ensure email Nirvana (okay, maybe that's an exaggeration--how about, happy users, happy support staff?).

Much of the above was adapted from Terry Gray's informative paper on POP and IMAP

Optimizing Outlook/Outlook Express
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General

Both Outlook and Outlook Express (the free, paired-down version of Outlook), can be configured to work with either POP or IMAP servers. By default, both programs use settings for POP servers, but it is not difficult to configure the clients to use the IMAP server. Neither is it difficult to move all of your current mail (or just the folders and messages you'd like to move) over to always-available IMAP, and thus be able to have an equivalent email session regardless of the machine or client you're using. It is possible to have Outlook check multiple email accounts on different email servers. However, for obvious reasons, it only makes sense to have your chemistry account configured to connect to EITHER the POP or IMAP servers on Chemistry. Depending on the version of Outlook or Outlook Express, the way to navigate through the menus may differ slightly.

POP setup

The simplest way to tell if you are currently set up using a POP server is to look at Tools -> Accounts. Select the name of the account (Chemistry, for example), and hit "Properties." Under the "Servers" tab, the "incoming" server will say "POP."

If you've had Outlook or Outlook Express set up by us or are just using the defaults from Microsoft, you're probably using our POP server. If this is the case, there are only a couple of things you need to concern yourself with: the ports and security configurations and whether or not Outlook is set up to leave its mail on the server or download it to your machine.

• Under Tools -> Accounts, select the "Properties" button
• If you wish to download all of your mail to your local machine and take it off of the server, clear the box that says "Leave a copy of messages on the server."

IMAP setup

• Under Tools -> Accounts, select the "Add" button
• On the flyout, select "mail...". This will launch a wizard that will guide you through the process.
• Put in your name and your email address (e.g., jdoe@chemistry.ohio-state.edu).
• In the third dialog, choose IMAP in the pull-down menu and set the incoming mail server to chemistry.ohio-state.edu.
• For Outgoing, use chemistry.ohio-state.edu.
• In the following dialog boxes, you will be asked for your username and password. Use your UNIX username and password. Leave clear the checkbox for secure password authentication (SPA).
• When you finish, you should have a new account visible in the main Accounts window. At this point, you should delete your previous Chemistry POP account, if you had one.
• Select your new IMAP Chemistry account and hit the "Properties" button.
• Under the "IMAP" tab, enter "mail" (no quote marks) into the "Root folder path:" textfield.
• Under the "Advanced" tab, check "This server requires a secure connection" for Outgoing and Incoming mail. The default ports chosen, 25 and 993, will be fine.
• Under the "Servers" tab, check "My server requires authentication" under Outgoing Mail server.
• Select "OK" and close the Internet Accounts dialog box.

Creating IMAP email folders and moving mail into them

Chances are that the email folders you've created in Outlook/Outlook express have been created to reside locally, on the machine you're using at the time, or, if you're using a machine witin the department, perhaps in your U: share on the Windows file server. IMAP folders, on the other hand, do not exist locally. Instead they reside in your home directory on the Unix server, where they can be accessed through any of the mail clients that use an IMAP or IMAP-like protocol, from any machine, anywhere in the world.

Here we discuss how to create new online folders and how to move mail from your local machine to your newly created folders. As covered in more detail above, these online folders exist on the Unix server in your home directory and take the burden for storing mail off of the shared mail spool.

To create a folder for IMAP use using Outlook,

• select File -> Folder -> New Folder...
• In the dialog box, type a name for the new folder.
• In the hierarchical tree of folders that appears, you should see at least two folders at the top of the tree. One will say Chemistry (assuming this is the name you chose for your new IMAP account) and the other will say "Personal Folders." Under Personal Folders, you will see all of the email folders you've previously created, all of which reside on your local machine (or U-share). We want to move these folders to IMAP-readable folders. That is, we want to create new folders under the Chemistry/IMAP tree and move the contents of the old folders into these folders.

• Let's assume you have a local folder called "urgent."
• First, create another folder called "urgent" and locate it under the Chemistry/IMAP tree.
• If you click the plus-sign to expand Chemistry, you'll see at least two sub-folders, something like "Inbox" and "mail." If you have used other online clients, such as pine or elm or TWIG, you will see folders under "mail," such as "received," "saved-messages," and "sent-mail." (See the section on text-based clients, below, for help in consolidating some of these online folders.)
• To create a new "urgent" folder, type the name "urgent" into the dialog box
• Select the "mail" folder under Chemistry, so that it is highlighted
• hit "Okay."

• Click the old folder, either in the pull-down menu or on your shortcut bar.
• Click once in the window displaying your urgent emails.
• Hit Ctrl-a, to select all of the messages in the folder.
• When they are all highlighted, right-click and select "Move to folder..."
• Next, in the menu, select the newly created "urgent" folder, under the Chemistry mail hierarchy. When you hit "okay," you'll see a window that shows files transfering. Your messages are being moved to the new online folder.
• When this process completes, you can delete this old, local folder entirely by selecting File -> Folder, and choosing "Delete 'urgent'" from the list.

One final note. It is important that you purge your deleted messages. Outlook will not do this automatically, but it is quite easy to do yourself. Under Edit, select "Purge deleted messages." This will permanently delete from the mail spool all mail you've so marked for deletion and will complete the moving of mail that you've marked to move.

Optimizing Eudora
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General

General configuration and POP set up of Eudora is well described in other FAQs on this website. Have a look at these to optimize Eudora for POP and to configure secure connections:

General instructions on establishing secure connections with Eudora can be found in the FAQ:
How can I access my email from outside the department?
More specific guidelines and configuration instructions are in the FAQ:
Notes on setting up SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in Eudora 5.2
POP settings for Eudora are handled in greater detail in the FAQ:
Mail Spool Size Issues & Eudora Settings
For instructions on setting up Eudora to read Chemistry email, see the FAQ:
How do I configure Eudora properly?

Since IMAP configuration is not explained in these FAQs, this section of the present FAQ will deal exclusively with issues related to IMAP.

IMAP setup

This setup assumes that you already have set up a POP account using Eudora. Here we will walk you through the key steps in setting up an IMAP account and moving your email from your POP account-- that is, from your local machine or U: share--to your online/Chemistry account.

First, create a new persona and call it something different from the name of your current POP persona. (If you don't know how to do this, read the FAQs at the beginning of this section on Eudora--they contain other important information, as well.) After the new persona is created,

• Select Tools -> Options....
• Select the Incoming Mail icon
• Next to Server Configuration, select the IMAP radio button. The dialog box will change-- new fields will appear, etc.
• Considering you've set up your persona correctly, there is only one field you need to be concerned with: In the textfield under "IMAP Mailbox Location Prefix," type 'Mail' (no quotes)
• Click okay

That's it. Eudora will grumble awhile, while it connects to the IMAP server and requests the headers from /var/mail/yourusername. You should see a set of mailboxes in the tree associated with your new persona. You will likely see boxes such as "sent-messages" "received" and, maybe, "mailer-daemon." These are boxes established by other online mail clients (pine, elm, TWIG, etc.). These boxes and the folder with your new persona name will look slightly different from the boxes associated with your POP account(s). These online folders and boxes will have at their base representations of wires leading in and out of them. This tells you they're "online" folders.

One strategy for moving your mail from POP to IMAP--and, thereby, having UNIVERSAL EMAIL ACCESSIBILITY--is to create online mailboxes with similar or identical names to your current set of POP mailboxes. Say you have a POP mailbox called "Urgent" and you'd like to migrate this to an online mailbox, so that you can have access to your urgent mail from any client on any machine. First, create an IMAP mailbox called "urgent." To do this,

• Select/highlight the folder associated with your new persona in the tree at the left of the window.
• Next, choose Mailbox -> new
• when the dialog box appears, type the name of the mailbox you'd like to create ("urgent"). You now have an online mailbox called "urgent," and you can simply drag and drop your messages from your old, POP, "Urgent" mailbox into your new online "urgent" mailbox.

There is a particular protocol to follow when deleting messages from IMAP accounts. If you have the "When I delete a message, move it to Trash" option turned off in the Incoming Mail options window, all new messages are delivered to your IMAP server and are kept there until you actively delete them. Also, whenever you retrieve a message, either in part or in full from the IMAP server to your computer, a copy of the message is kept on the IMAP server until you actively delete it.

Therefore to delete an IMAP message, you must delete it from the IMAP server. To delete messages from the IMAP server, you must perform two steps. First, mark the message for deletion. Second, remove all marked messages.
To mark a message for deletion, do the following:

• Open the IMAP mailbox or folder containing the message.
• Select or open the message.
• From the Message menu, choose Delete. Or press the Delete key.

• Select or open the message
• From the Message menu, choose UnDelete. Or right-click to display the drop-down list, then choose UnDelete.
• To remove all messages from the IMAP server marked for deletion, from the Message menu choose Purge Messages.

Once you remove marked messages using the Purge Messages command, these messages are completely gone and cannot be restored. Therefore, use this command with caution. But, please do remove messages periodically to ensure optimal performance of the Chemistry mail system.

Optimizing TWIG
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Issues regarding secure connections and TWIG can be found in the FAQ:
How can I access my email from outside the department?

TWIG uses the IMAP protocol for checking messages, which means that, so long as you remove/delete messages that you don't want and move messages that you want to hang on to into folders, you'll be making optimal use of Chemistry's email services.

TWIG is smart enough to look through your Chemistry home directory for mail folders and it should locate any folders that you've created in other online clients, such as pine or elm. It is also very easy to create and delete folders using TWIG. Mail moved to folders (or deleted entirely) is removed from the Chemistry mail spool permanently and lightens the demands on our mail server. It is good practice to conscientiously remove mail you don't want to keep and move messages you want to save to folders.

Managing folders in TWIG

• Under Mail, select Feature -> Folder Management
• Type a name for the folder you want to add in the Add Folder textfield and hit Add Folder. The new folder will appear in the "unsubscribed" area, above.
• Select the newly created folder in the list (that is, click on it)
• Hit the >> button to move that folder into the "subscribed" list. You will now see this folder in the pull-down list of available folders next to the "Move selected messages to" pull-down.

• Put a check in the checkbox next to the message (far right of message list),
• Select the appropriate folder in the pull-down
• Hit "Go."

You can mark messages for deletion by clicking the dot toggle, next to the read/unread mail icons, to the left of your mail subject lines. Clicking the dot will change it into a trashcan icon. You can log out of TWIG and log back in and you'll notice that those messages that you've "trashed" are still there. They must be manually deleted. To do this,

• Select "Empty Trash" from the Feature pull-down menu
• Hit the "Go" button.

Optimizing Terminal-based Mail Readers (pine, elm)
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Issues regarding secure connections and text-based clients can be found in the FAQ:
How can I access my email from outside the department?

General

Elm and pine (launched also by entering "mail" on the Unix command line) are two widely-used, terminal- and text-based mail clients. In our department, most users use pine, as it is considerably easier to navigate than elm.

Elm and pine will read mail from your "inbox." All of this mail will stay in /var/mail/, on the mail spool, in the space allocated to your username, unless deleted by marking the mail for deletion or moving the mail to other folders. Computer Support recommends regularly marking unwanted mail for deletion and moving mail you want to keep to folders you have set up (or the programs' default folders).

Elm and pine store saved mail (that is, mail moved to "folders") in the user's Unix home directory. Moving mail to a folder removes it from the mail spool and saves precious mail spool space. Elm saves "foldered" mail in a directory named "Mail" (capital "m"). Pine saves mail into a directory named "mail" (lower case "m"). Since the goal, in addition to conserving mail spool space, is to be able to access all of your mail from any client, we need to have a way to make pine and elm look for folders in and be able to save in both Mail and mail. This can be accomplished very easily, by making a "symbolic link" between the Mail and mail directories, in effect making one the alias of the other.

• First, move all of the folders in Mail into mail:

   mv Mail/* mail

• Next, remove the "Mail" directory (this is okay, since you've moved its contents into "mail"):

   rm -r Mail

• Finally, create a link pointing everything directed at Mail to mail, that is, make Mail an alias of mail:

   ln -s mail Mail

Great! Now elm will effectively be looking in pine's directory for its folders, and vice versa.

Now any mail client that looks for folders in Mail will see all of the folders in mail. From this point on, any folders you create should be located in mail (pine's default mail directory). Mail (capital "m") will no longer be a directory at all, but instead will simply be a link pointing to mail (lower-case "m").

Pine and elm will ask you if you want to permanently delete ("expunge") deleted or moved mail upon exiting the programs. You should choose "yes" (type a "y" or just hit enter). This action removes the mail from the mail spool and deletes or saves it to the mailboxes you specified during the session.

You will need some folders in which to save all the mail you are removing from the mail spool. The following section briefly explains how to create, move mail into, and check mail in folders.

For elm

To create a folder:
Type '>'. This will give you a prompt that reads "Select Folder for Save:" and a program-generated name of a folder (derived from the last name and first initial of the sender of the message that happens to be highlighted), preceded by an equals sign (e.g., =lastnamef). You can type any name for the folder that you wish, just be sure that you precede the name with an equals sign, as in the example.

To move mail into a folder:
Type either 's' or '>' and enter the name of the folder you want to move mail into, preceded by an equals sign (e.g., =urgent). Any mail you have tagged (by selecting the message and hitting 't') and the message that is currently highlighted will be moved into the folder you designate.

To check mail in folders:
Typing 'c' brings up a dialog asking you to enter the name of a folder. Entering "=" will produce a list of the names of the available folders. Entering the name of a folder will allow you to view the contents of that folder. Hitting return without typing anything else will return you to the main elm menu.

Two other useful elm commands: Type 'Ctrl-d' at any point to abort the current command; type '!' at any point to return to view your /var/mail/ (i.e., your INBOX) account.

For pine

To create a folder:
Type 'a'. Type the name of the folder you want to create and hit return (or Ctrl-c to cancel the operation).

To move mail into a folder:
Choose the message you want to move by entering a mailbox and selecting/highlighting it. Type 's' and, at the prompt, type the name of the folder you want to move the message into (the default folder is "saved-messages").

To check mail in folders:
From the main menu, type 'l' to get a list of folders. You can use the arrow keys or the Tab key to highlight the available folders. Hitting Return/Enter will allow you to view a list of the messages in that folder.

For more information on saving mail in pine and TWIG, see the FAQ:
How do I save messages in PINE and TWIG?

Optimizing Netscape Messenger
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Instructions on secure connections and basic setup of Messenger can be found in the FAQ:
How can I access my email from outside the department?

Last update: Tue Dec 13, 2005