Many people prefer to manage their e-mail using client software on a desktop or notebook computer rather than using a web browser. Such an arrangement allows a person to have full text (and attachments), date stamps and other mail metadata of email messages available for use without need for an Internet connection. Mail clients have the added advantage of being able to remove mail from mail servers so that your mail box does not get clogged. These programs (such as Eudora, Evolution, IBM Notes, Mac Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Open Office Mail, Opera Mail, Outlook, Pegasus, and Seamonkey Suite) are capable of managing email through a number of protocols, including the two most popular, the venerable POP (POP3) protocol and the more sophisticated IMAP.
POP vs. IMAP
Under the most common configurations of mail software, POP clients go out to your mail server, login, “harvest” the mail that is there by downloading it to your computer, and then they erase the original mail files from the server, leaving room for more e-mail. After this process, your mail now resides only on your local computer.
However, under typical IMAP configuration, the mail stays on the server until you take specific action to delete it. This provides some added flexibility so that you may access your “current” mail on multiple computers (home, office, notebook) as well as on the remote server, accessible through a web interface. Action to delete mail from any one of those locations effectively deletes it from all locations. Creation of mail folders from any one of those locations results in mail folders at all locations. For an enlightening discussion on IMAP, POP, and Exchange, visit a discussion on the matter at the How to Geek website.
Configuring your client
When you setup your client software to manage your mail, you typically tell it what protocol or account type you want to use (POP or IMAP). You then need to give the software the addresses of your incoming and outgoing mail servers. You will need the values for:
- Incoming mail server(NetPresence will provide you with this)
- Outgoing (smtp) mail server(NetPresence will provide you with this)
- Username= your full e-mail address (e.g. pat@yourdomain.com)
- Password= your e-mail password
Multiple mail addresses in one client
The mail client software mentioned earlier (such as Mac Mail, Outlook, Pegasus, Opera Mail, etc.) can be set up to harvest mail from many different servers, many different accounts. The way that you do this is to set up (configure, according to instructions above) multiple accounts or multiple mail boxes. Thus you might have your Pegasus mail client go out and harvest mail from your Gmail account and store it in one mail box, and you might have it go to your domain.com and store it in another. Typically you add mail boxes within the mail client by selecting Accounts / New or some such thing.
Emptying the trash
As you manage your e-mail, you routinely delete messages after you read them. Typically, this moves mail to a trash folder or to a folder named something like “Deleted Messages.” It may not be truly deleted until the trash folder (or its equivalent) is emptied or purged of its messages. If you have set up your account using the IMAP protocol, those messages continue to take up space on the mail server and ultimately could lead to a full mailbox.
Related Documents:
- Email management
- Doing Web mail