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E-mail help »

Overview

E-mail is a method of communication that allows computer users to send messages to other users electronically. Every person with a Unix ICS account automatically has an ICS e-mail account too. E-mail is read, sent, and managed by connecting to a computer or computers designated for those purposes. E-mail messages are tranmitted by use of several protocols, POP, IMAP, and SMTP. The protocols POP and IMAP are used to retrieve and read messages, the protocol SMTP is used to send messages.

Contents

Links

Q: What's my E-mail Address?

Your e-mail address is yourloginname@ics.uci.edu.
Q: What e-mail clients/readers are supported at ICS?
The suggested clients are Thunderbird and Pine. Documentation on the pine e-mail readers is available via a UNIX man page.

Under the ICS Unix environment these readers is available via a module. For example, to use Pine, first run the command module load pine to load the pine module.

Instructions for seting up the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client are here.

Q: What's the name of the incoming e-mail servers?
The POP server: pop.ics.uci.edu.
The IMAP server: imaplb.ics.uci.edu.

Note: SSL is required from off campus

More information is available in the document IMAP Frequently Asked Questions.

Q: What's the name of the outgoing e-mail SMTP server?
The SMTP server: smtp.ics.uci.edu.

This server is only available from on campus of via the VPN. If you connect to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider, then you should use your service provider's SMTP server or be sure to follow the directions in the next section "How do I access ICS e-mail services from off campus?"

Q: What's the difference between IMAP and POP?
The differences between IMAP and POP are explained here.
Q: How do I access ICS/UCI e-mail services from off campus?
If the ISP you are connecting through provides an SMTP server, we recommend that you configure your e-mail client to use that server. If you do not wish to configure your e-mail client to use the ISP's SMTP server, you still have more options:

Use the VPN software provided by NACS.

Or

Use NACS SMTP server with authentication. Click here for more information.

To use the VPN software follow the instructions on the NACS website.

Q: How do I forward my e-mail elsewhere?
Important Note: For all new undergraduate ICS accounts, your ICS mail will automatically forward to your UCI email.

There are several ways to forward your e-mail:

  • mailboss will allow you to specify an email address to forward or copy your mail to.
  • Create a .forward file with the e-mail address you would like your ICS e-mail forwarded to.
  • Use procmail. See this page for information on using procmail.
  • Send an e-mail to helpdesk@ics.uci.edu with your ICS e-mail address and the address that you would like your e-mail forwarded to.
Q: How do I send automatic replies when I'm away?
There are two ways to enable automatic replies:
  • Use mailboss to set it up yourself.
  • Have ICS Support set it up by sending an email to support with the dates that you will be out of the office and the message you would like the automatic reply to send.
Q: How do I filter out SPAM?
You can filter out SPAM in a variety of ways. The easist is to use the MailBoss application. This application will allow you to set a specific SPAM scores to filter to another folder or trash. You can also specify a whitelist of addresses to allow through no matter what the score.

Other ways are to set up filtering via rules in a client such as Mozilla Thunderbird. You can read the manual or visit NACS' How To Filter Mail page for more information.