Mail Configuration and Best Practices (Macintosh) *DRAFT*

Introduction

Account Creation

Additional Settings

Advanced Settings

Enhanced Authentication

Best Practices and Miscellaneous Tips

Introduction

This document will cover Mail (OS 10.3.x up to version 1.3.9 (v619)). Mail from the default configuration appears quite simplistic. Appearances are deceiving though as this package has a lot more under the hood. Here you will find recommended configurations for several of these protocols as well as useful tips that will allow you get the most out of this client.

Account Creation:

There are several things you will need to know prior to creating your local email account. Contact your Internet service provider (ISP) or mail account provider to find out the following information.

1. Your login and password that you (or your administrator) created.
2. The protocol that your email server uses (IMAP, POP, Exchange...).
3. The authentication method (password, MD5, Kerberos...) for your email server.
4. The incoming and outgoing server addresses (provided by your administrator or service provider).
5. If you are using IMAP, your accountís home directory

When Mail is first opened up, you should get a basic configuration screen.  In this screen, this is where you can choose the protocol of your email services as well as put in basic account information.

In this window only the basic information is requested. It may be necessary to visit the Mail Preferences to configure additional settings. Since Mail supports multiple accounts it will be this articles intent to focus primarily within the accounts window from the Mail Preferences menu.

Choose Mail > Preferences and click Accounts from the Mail menu.

Account Type: This is the protocol your email server uses.

Description: Describes your account (can be left blank).

Email Address: Your chosen or assigned address.

Full Name: Your name as you would like it to appear.

Incoming Mail Server: The server that is sending your mail to you.

User Name:  The first part of your email address before the @.

Password: Your chosen or assigned password.

Outgoing Mail Server: The email server you are sending to, or the server that must relay your mail to the email server.

Note: If you are using an Internet Service Provider (ISP) other than Penn (for example; Comcast, DCANet or Earthlink) to connect to your mail account, you will have different SMTP servers than those listed for Penn.

For a more detailed explanation of server addresses or which SMTP server you should be using at Penn, try looking here or consult your I.T. department.

Setting up a POP or IMAP account:

1. Choose Mail > Preferences and click Accounts from the Mail menu.

2. Click on the Plus symbol at the lower left. The "+" and "-" symbols add or remove accounts.

3. Choose either POP or IMAP for whichever service your server is supporting.

4. Choose a description that you would like for Mail to display in the accounts window from the description field.

5. Type in your email address in the Email Address field.

6. Type in your full name in the Full Name field.

7. Type in you email serverís address in the Incoming Mail Server field.

8. Type in your username (the first part of your email address before the @ symbol) in the User Name field.

9. Type in your password in the Password field.

10. Select your Outgoing Mail SMTP Server. Your email server administrator, I.T. staff, or service provider (ISP) should have this information for you depending on who you have an account with.  You can find a list of Pennís SMTP servers as well as additional information here

If your Outgoing server differs from you incoming, select Add Server from the Outgoing Server SMTP menu.

Here you are provided a window for your outgoing serverís information.

Enter in your outgoing serverís address. If your outgoing server requires additional authentication, you can choose which method to use in the area below the line and enter in your credentials so that you will not be prompted every time Mail checks for new messages. Once you have finished, click the OK button.

11. With the Accounts window still open, click on the Advanced Tab

From this pane there are several important settings to note.

a. You can enable or disable an account here.

b. The Account Directory is where your mail is stored locally on your computer. While this can be changed it is not recommended. Knowing where this folder is located is important for when you need to backup your email.

c. Keeping copies for offline viewing is recommended only for those who have mobile computers. For IMAP, it is less load on the server if you select "Only messages that Iíve read" or "Donít keep copies of any messages".

d. The IMAP prefix path. Here is where your home folder exists on the mail server using IMAP.  Your Administrator can tell you if this differs from the default.

e. The authentication method for the email server can be chosen here.

Additional and Advanced Settings:

Mail > Preferences

1. General Tab

Here you will find your default email client. If you are clicking on a reply to address from Internet Explorer or Safari it will use the selected email client here.

For the checking frequency, 10-15 minutes is usually sufficient for most. If you need to check for frequently you can manually enter the exact time in minutes between checking. Indexing your messages is recommended, as it will help speed up searching later on.

2. Accounts

Special Mailbox settings can be changed here. You may want to keep things on the server for viewing your mail from other computers. You can also tell Mail when to delete items from these folders. This comes in handy for purging your Junk folder.

3. Junk Mail

The Junk Mail filter is a great feature. Here you can tweak your filtering as well as  more criteria to the filter in the advanced window.

4. Fonts and Colors

Here you can choose your customized settings for viewing text.

5. Viewing

Here you can customize your header detail and display information as well as images. Message threading highlights other messages in your mailboxes when you select one that is part of the thread.

6. Composing

This area is dedicated to option regarding format, Addressing, and Responding and are a matter of personal preference with exception to one thing, Configuring the LDAP server. Configuring your LDAP server will allow you to bring up and search addresses that are found already on the directory server. You can add as many as you want. Below the settings for Pennís LDAP Server are shown.

With these settings, when you start to type in the address field of a new message, you will get a list of addresses that match what you are typing.

If your department uses a different LDAP server, please consult with your I.T. department on which server you should use.

7. Signatures:

Here you can have several signature files that you can choose to show as an option on creating a new message. You can also set an option to display your signature list on a compose window.

8. Rules:

Rules are filters set up to do anything from beep to move or delete a message out of the conditions you set. While creating rules is not necessary, it is a powerful and extremely useful feature in organizing your mail.

Advanced Settings

There are several windows that you can customize. In the Viewer Window, for instance you can control (right-click) on the Toolbar or choose View > Customize Tool Bar... form the menu.

Here you can drag a number of previously hidden features to the toolbar. Other windows have additional configurations including the New Message window.

In the Main Viewer window you can choose to view more information in your email list by checking the various options from within the View > Columns menu. This is fully customizable as you can drag the fields to whatever you personal preferences are.

A word about searching...

Make sure to select the mailbox or folder you wish to search from. Nested folders cannot be searched from their parent folders and so this can be a problem if you are used to having your folders set this way. Make sure to click on the magnifying glass next to the search field to see the options within.

Enhanced Authentication

By default the Mail client uses no method of encryption to protect transmitted email. You must find out what will work with your email server from your ISP or server administrator. The available options are:

a. Password

b. MD5 Challenge-Response

c. Kerberos Version 4

d. Kerberos Version 5 (GSSAPI)

There are two places that you may need to set up additional authentication: The Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) settings and under the advanced tab for each accountsí email server (if there is more than one account).

For Kerberos authentication make sure you download the Pennís kerberos installer from here

If you are prompted for Kerberos authentication, use UPENN.EDU as the realm.

Best Practices and Miscellaneous Tips

-  Turning off "Download all images, animations, and other html attachments" is strongly recommended.

-  Adding a BCC header can be done from the View menu > BCC Header. To add a contact from your address book to a new message window you have to add it first the either the "To:", or "CC:" fields first and then manually drag the contact to the "BCC:" field

-  If you are moving from Eudora to Mail, there is a helpful application you can freely download called Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. This is a simple drag and drop application which will import all of your mailboxes over and create a vCard for your Address Book. The only caveat is that group lists are not moved over and have to be recreated from Address Book.

-  Become familiar with creating rules.  If you subscribe to lists, create a mailbox for each list in "On My Mac" and then create a rule to move messages automatically to that mailbox. Here is an example below:

Notice in this window that there is an online folder containing a separate Junk directory. If your IMAP server has spam filtering such as "Spam Assassin," you will occasionally need to check here for false positives or deletion of confirmed junk mail.

-  It is recommended that you use IMAP over POP if both services are provided on your email server.  If setup correctly and across the board, this significantly reduces the amount of traffic the server has to handle.