Mail

Within each screen in the Mail section are three main components: the Message Window, the Mail Folders Menu and the Top Menu:

3.1 The Message Window

The Message Window, lets you read and manipulate messages within the folder you are viewing:

The default folder you will see when first logged in is the Inbox.

Unread messages appear in a boldface font and a closed envelope symbol.

There are five main things you can do in the message window:

• Read messages
• Sort messages
• Delete messages
• Move messages
• Flag or Mark messages

3.1a Read messages

To read a message: click on the Subject of the message you want to read. It will appear as follows;

At the top, you can see the menu tabs. These are:

• Delete: deletes messages, returns you to the message window
• Reply: opens the compose window (see below), automatically addressed to the sender of the messages you are reading.
• Reply All: as above, but sends the message to everyone that the original message was sent to.
• Forward: opens the compose window, using the original message as an attachment
• Forward Inline: opens the compose window, but includes the original message in the actual message body.
• Add Address: Adds the sender to your Address Book.
• Close: closes the e-mail, returns you to the message window.

The Move message to folder drop-down box allows you to put the message in a particular mail folder, and will automatically open the next e-mail message from the list in the message window.

In the top right-hand corner is the Next option. This will automatically open the next e-mail message from the list in the message window.

The small arrow in the far-right of the to or from fields allows you to view the full message headers for that message.

3.1b Sort messages

Messages in a folder can be sorted by clicking on the headings at the top of the columns:

Received / Sent shows the most recently arrived messages at the top of the message window. Subject and From are sorted alphabetically, and Size numerically.

The order of the chosen sort can be reversed by clicking again on the heading. Messages can also be sorted by priority (the exclamation point symbol) and attachments (the paperclip symbol).

3.1c Delete, Move, Flag and Mark messages

Select the check-box in the far-left column for the message you wish to manipulate. If you want to select all the messages, click the double-checked box icon at the top of the column. Once you have selected one or more messages, you can click Delete to delete them, or choose an option from one of the drop-down boxes:

From the Actions drop-down box, you can;

• Mark as Read: Marks an unread message as having been read.
• Mark as Unread: Marks an already read message as being unread.
• Flag for Followup: Inserts a flag icon in place of the envelope icon for messages, which will need future attention.
• Clear Flag: Restores the flag icon back to the envelope icon.

The usage of the Undelete and Expunge options are not used unless you change how messages are deleted. In The Options section of ANUmail, there is a section on deleting messages. The default setup is to have messages selected for deletion moved straight into the Trash folder. In this case Undelete and Expunge are not used.

However, if your deletion setup is to have messages marked for deletion, when you click Delete, they will still appear in your folder with a red cross over the envelope icon. Clicking Expunge will delete the message permanently. Clicking Undelete will remove marked-for-deletion icon.

From the Move to Folder drop down box, you can choose to move the selected messages to whichever folder name you click on.

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3.2 The Top Menu

The top menu provides options for writing and retrieving e-mails:

3.2a Compose: this will open the following window where you can write your message.

Some things to consider while composing your e-mail:

Clicking To, Cc and Bcc will allow you to select e-mail addresses that you have stored in your Address Book.

The default setting for the text format is Rich Text, which allows you to format your messages with features like fonts and indentation.

You can save a draft of your message if you do not wish to send it immediately. This will automatically be stored in your Drafts folder.

There is a Spell Check option, with a choice of language dictionaries (the default in English).

As with other e-mail clients, you can attach files, set a priority level for your message and request a receipt of message acknowledgement from the addressee.

All sent messages are automatically stored in the Sent folder.

3.2b Get Mail: this checks for new e-mail messages in your Inbox.

3.2c External Mail: this option opens a new window which allows you to collect e-mail from another POP e-mail account, eg. Your home e-mail address.

You will need to enter the details for the POP server, plus your ID and password for the account. Before clicking “Collect”, you will also need to choose which folder you want the external mail to downloaded into. The default is the Inbox.

As a default, the External Mail Window will delete the messages from the server once they are downloaded into your ANUmail account. If you do not wish to do this, un-check the “delete messages from server” tick-box.

3.2d Search: This allows you to search for particular messages in any of your folders using various criteria selected from the drop-down boxes and any text you enter.

Searches for text will find any examples of those characters: eg. typing “car” will find messages with the subjects “car”, “cars” and “carols”.

3.2e View: Allows you to view only particular types of messages in your selected folder. The categories are: all (the default setting), unread, flagged and deleted.

3.2f Quicksearch: this more simple search option will search the subject headings of the folder you are currently in for any messages containing the specified text. As with the main search feature, typing “car” will find messages with the subjects “car”, “cars” and “carols”.

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3.3 The Mail Folders Menu

This menu provides options for navigating between and managing your e-mail folders:

Clicking Inbox, Drafts, Sent and Trash will take you to those folders.

Inbox is where your new e-mails will appear and remain until you move them to another folder or delete them.

Drafts is where draft e-mails are kept until they are sent.

Sent is where sent e-mails are kept.

Trash is where deleted e-mails are kept. See the Options section for more on Trash deletion.

Clicking on the firstname.surname@anu.edu.au or Manage Folders options will take you to the Folder information screen:

This shows you the number of messages in each folder and the disk space they take up.

The Refresh option updates the screen information.

Compose opens the normal window where you compose an e-mail.

New creates a new folder after prompting you to enter a name for it.

The Subscribe button lets you search for and add shared e-mail folders to your list of folders.

Delete will delete the selected folder.

The Folder Actions drop-down box gives the following options:

• Rename folder allows you to change the folder name
• Share folder allows other users to share access to the folder
• Unsubscribe folder deletes a shared folder