Q. What are POP and IMAP?
Q. How do I change my email password?
Q. How do I find out how much disk quota I have left for my email?
Q. I've deleted lots of messages but I still seem to be over my quota.
Q. I can read my email OK but get error messages when I try to send.
Q. I have set up SMTP authentication on the college SMTP server according to instructions but still cannot send mail.
Q. Why can't I open attachments in Outlook Express / Outlook?
Q. I sent an attachment to someone but they only received a file called winmail.dat which they couldn't read.
Q. When I send a message from Webmail, why are several copies sometimes sent?

Q. What are POP and IMAP
A. POP and IMAP are two of the ways that dedicated email clients such as Pegasus or Eudora can interact with a mail system. Most email clients support both methods of operation and you can choose the one that suits you best. The college mail system allows both access methods as well as Webmail.

• POP is designed to fetch your new mail from a remote system and store it on your local machine. The remote copy is then normally deleted automatically, although POP mail clients can usually be configured to retain a copy on the remote system if necessary. POP is suitable for people wanting a minimum connection time (e.g. over a phone line) and who want to work offline as much as possible on a single computer. The disadvantage of POP is that, once downloaded, messages will not be viewable using different computers at other locations.
• IMAP gives you a view of a remote email store. Messages and folders reside on a remote server, although IMAP clients also provide local folders and you can move mail to and from remote and local storage. IMAP is useful for people who access their email from several locations and want it located in a secure central repository. IMAP tends to involve longer online connections than POP.
  

Q. How do I change my email password?
A. Changing your password is one of several utilities available via One-Stop links on our home page.

Q. How do I find out how much disk quota I have left for my email?
A. Log in to the Quota Tool where you can view your current quota and, if necessary, increase it to 2GB.

Q. I've deleted lots of messages but I still seem to be over my quota.
A. Some possible reasons for this are:

• You may not have successfully 'purged' the messages you have marked for deletion. Check your email client settings to see how your deleted mail is being handled. In Webmail click on 'Purge Deleted' in the Inbox screen.
• You have deleted numerous small messages but one or more large ones remain.
• New messages that were waiting to be delivered have now arrived and filled up your inbox again.
  
  If you receive many attachments with your email messages, many mail clients will let you delete the attachments but keep the message, enabling you to reduce the size of your mailbox. Remember to save a copy of the attachment to a suitable location first though.

  Note: Members of staff and research postgraduates can increase their own mail quota to 2GB using the Quota Tool web page.

Q. I can read my email without a problem but get error messages when I try to send.
A. The most common cause of this is incorrect outgoing 'SMTP' mail server settings in your email client.

• If you are on campus and directly connected to the college network, or are using direct dial-up to the college you should set this to be smtp.qmul.ac.uk. See our web pages on email client configuration to see how to check your settings.
• For all other types of connection you should use the SMTP server of your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

  Note: some ISPs may not allow you to use their SMTP server when using your college email address. In this situation, you can use the college SMTP server (smtp.qmul.ac.uk) but will need to set extra options for secure authentication. See full instructions for setting up SMTP authentication.

Q. I have set up SMTP authentication on the college SMTP server according to instructions but still cannot send mail.

A. Two common reasons for this are:

• Your ISP may be blocking outgoing mail through the default smtp 'port' (port 25). Try changing the port number in your SMTP settings to either 587 or 465.
• Another common cause of not being able to send mail is having the outgoing mail scanning feature of your anti-virus program switched on.
  

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Q. Why can't I open attachments in Outlook Express / Outlook?
A. There are several possibilities, including a corrupt attachment or it being a file type that your PC doesn't recognise. However, a likely cause for these particular email clients is their security setting:

• Outlook Express (version 6.0 onwards) has a security setting which prevents potentially dangerous attachments being opened. To change this setting, go to Tools > Options > Security and untick the box labelled Do not allow attachments to be saved...   Note that you should have anti-virus software set to check your mail if you do this.
• Microsoft Outlook (version 2000 SP3 onwards) prevents the opening of certain types of potentially dangerous attachments (e.g. .exe files), whereas less dangerous attachments (e.g. filenames ending with .doc or .xls) can only be saved to disk. See this statement from Microsoft. More information on using attachments with Outlook .

Q. I sent an attachment to someone but they only received a file called winmail.dat which they couldn't read.
A. The winmail.dat file is produced by Microsoft Outlook when a message is composed in Microsoft Rich-Text format. The file contains the formatting information for the message, but if you send any attachments with the message, they are also incorporated into the winmail.dat file. Unfortunately, this file can only be read by Outlook so if the recipient is using some other email client, they will not be able to open or even see the attachment you sent. Those using Outlook Express will not even see the winmail.dat file.

To avoid sending winmail.dat files with Outlook messages, use Plain Text mail format. To select Plain Text for all messages, follow these steps:

• Choose Tools > Options > Mail Format.
• In Send in this message format, select Plain Text.

• In the Format menu of the mail message, select Plain Text.
• Select Plain Text on the General page of recipient's Contact form.

For further information on Outlook message formats and the winmail.dat file see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290809

It is good practice to send plain text only messages, whichever email client you are using. There are details on good practice settings at:

• Thunderbird
• Outlook Express
• Pegasus
• Eudora
• Netscape Messenger
  

Q. When I send a message from Webmail, why are several copies sometimes sent?
A. There are two possible reasons for this. You may have used your browser's Back button to return to the inbox after sending the message, which causes the browser to repeat its last operation. To get back to your inbox in Webmail, always click on the Inbox button. The other possibility is that you double-clicked on the Send button instead of clicking just once.

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