E-Mail Management 

Add / Remove E-mail Accounts

This option allows you to add or remove Email accounts. Email sent to each account will be stored in a separate mailbox ready for downloading to a POP3 compatible Email program such as Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Mail or Eudora. Alternatively, you may view each mailbox using the web-based Web Mail facility which is available in your Control Panel. It is important to realise that all mail sent to anything.at.all@yourdomain.com will reach your "main" mailbox by default (unless a specific mailbox, forwarder or autoresponder exists for this particular address), so there is no need to set up a separate mailbox for a_particular_name@yourdomain.com unless you want any mail sent to this address to be stored and accessed separately. 

You may also update the password for each mail account using this option. The "Main Account", which may not be deleted, uses the master password for your hosting plan which may be updated via the Change Password option. When configuring your Email program you should use the full Email address including your master domain name (eg name@yourdomain.com) as the user name when accessing any Email accounts you have created. This is in contrast to the preinstalled "Main Account" for which you may use your normal hosting plan user name (without appending @yourdomain.com).

Read E-Mail

Web Mail Allows you to send and check your Email by logging in to a user-friendly web-based interface, similar to that operated by Hotmail. This can be particularly useful when away from your home or office. This feature allows you to safely access your mail from anywhere you can access the web, without needing to install or reconfigure a dedicated Email program. All you need is a computer connected to the Internet and a web browser. 

One thing to be aware of is that when Emails are "deleted" from within Web Mail they are actually moved into the Trash folder rather than being deleted outright. Also, when Emails are sent from Web Mail, a copy will be kept in the Sent folder. In order to avoid gradually running out of account space, you will need to delete the older Emails from both your Web Mail Inbox and Sent folder, as well as clearing out your Web Mail Trash folder, from time to time. The Trash folder can be emptied by clicking the Empty Trash icon, represented by a picture of a dustbin. 

For convenience, you may also access Web Mail directly, without going through your Control Panel, by going to the URL http://www.yourdomain.com/webmail/. Please be aware that for all Email accounts other than the "Main Account" (which uses the master user name for your hosting plan) the user name will include your master domain name and will be of the form name@yourdomain.com..

Default E-mail account

When the server receives an Email sent to something@yourdomain.com it will first check to see if you have set up an Email account (a POP3 mailbox), an Email forwarder or an auto responder specifically for this address. Any incoming mail which is "unmatched" by any mailbox, forwarder or auto responder will be stored in your default Email account. This allows you to accept Email sent to various different Email addresses (e.g. admin@mybusiness.com, webmaster@mybusiness.com and sales@mybusiness.com) without having to set up (or separately download from) a number of different POP3 accounts. 

The default Email account is normally your "Main Account", which has the same username and password as your web hosting plan. 

You can override this if you wish by selecting another Email account to be the default using the Default Address option in your Control Panel. The default address may be changed to an external Email address or the Email address of any mailbox at your master domain. 

The option to modify the default address is particularly useful if you wish to have all incoming mail (actually all "unmatched" mail) forwarded to an external Email address (i.e. an address not based on your account domain name, such as the Email address provided by your ISP). 

You may wish to simply discard all "unmatched" mail. To arrange this enter :blackhole: in the box, being sure to include the colons on either side of the word blackhole. Please be aware that the :blackhole: setting will cause all "unmatched" incoming mail to be automatically and permanently deleted - you will never get to see it! 

You may also find this option useful if you have any parked or pointed domains. By default, any mail sent to parked or pointed domains will end up in the "main" mailbox of your hosting account. If you prefer to be able to access the mail sent to a particular parked/pointed domain separately from mail sent to any other domains at your account, this can be done by changing the default address for this domain. In order to change the default address for a domain other than your master domain, simply select the appropriate domain name from the drop-down box when making the change in your Control Panel. For more on understanding and customising mail handling for parked and pointed domains, please refer to the Parked/Pointed Domains section below.

Auto Responders

The Auto Responders option in your Control Panel allows you to set up and edit auto responders for any Email addresses at your domain(s). An auto responder will automatically reply to any mail sent to a specified Email address with a predefined reply. Auto responders are a good way of allowing your visitors to request standard information, such as FAQs and price lists, simply by Emailing a special address such as pricerequest@yourdomain.com. Another example of how they might be used is to send an automated message confirming receipt of any enquiries, possibly even giving the current average reply time and warning of any temporary administration backlogs. 

Auto responders may be set up for Email addresses based on any domain at your account, including parked and pointed domains. Simply select the appropriate domain name from the drop-down box when creating the auto responder. 

To delete an auto responder you created previously, choose the Auto Responders option and simply click on the word Delete next to the account you wish to delete.

Aliases / Forwarding

Email forwarders (or aliases) are Email addresses which forward or redirect to one or more other Email addresses. They can either be set up to forward to an external Email address or to another address at the master domain of your account. Forwarding to another address at your master domain has the effect of placing the mail in the POP3 inbox belonging to the address to which the mail is forwarded. This is sometimes called aliasing and allows you to have various different Email addresses all stored in a single inbox other than the default one. 

You can set up as many Email forwarders as you like using the Forwarders option in your Control Panel. You shouldn't normally create a POP3 account for the same address as that of a forwarder, unless you want to keep a copy in the POP3 mailbox in addition to the copy being forwarded. If you set it up this way and only download the forwarded Emails then the copies left in the mailbox may eventually grow to use up all of the allocated disk space for your account, so please be careful to avoid this happening. 

Email forwarders may be set up for Email addresses based on any domain at your account, including parked and pointed domains. Simply select the appropriate domain name from the drop-down box when creating the forwarder

You may wish to simply discard all mail sent to a particular address at one of your domains. To arrange this enter :blackhole: in the target box, being sure to include the colons on either side of the word blackhole. Please be aware that the :blackhole: setting will cause all mail sent to the specified Email address to be automatically and permanently deleted - you will never get to see it! 

To delete an Email forwarder you created previously, choose the Forwarders option and simply click on the word Delete next to the forwarder you wish to delete.

E-Mail Address Trace

With this feature, you can look-up the IP Addresses of the MX Servers that this person's e-mail is directed through. 

Mailing List

The Mailing Lists option allows you to set up and administer one or more Mailing Lists which are a convenient way of communicating with many people at one time. Mailing lists may be highly technical, or social and recreational. They may be used to send a regular or occasional newsletter to a list of subscribers or they may be operated as a discussion group where subscribers can send messages for distribution throughout the group. Discussion groups may be either "open", with all contributions being distributed automatically, or "moderated", requiring a moderator to review each contribution before deciding whether to pass it on for distribution. 

The Mailing List Manager which we provide is called Mailman. You can learn more about Mailman, and find extensive documentation, at the Mailman web site.