Email Addresses

Faculty, staff and student email addresses are in the format:

First.M.Last@williams.edu and username@williams.edu

The username format changed in April 2007:

Faculty and staff pre April 2007: your first initial followed by the first 7 letters of the last name (ewilliam)
Students pre class of 2011: your class year followed by your initials (10ejw)
Faculty, staff and students post April 2007: your initials followed by a number (ejw3)

Selecting and configuring an Email Program

Every email client has a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. At OIT we are most familiar with Outlook Express and Outlook for the PC and OSX Mail for the Mac.

Should I choose POP or IMAP?

IMAP is recommended. One distinct advantage is that IMAP mail resides up on our server, not your computer, and it gets backed up every night. All of the messages stay on the mail server until you delete them. All of your Inbox contents and IMAP folders can be viewed on multiple computers (your home and office computer for example).

POP is an older protocol that moves your email from the server to your desktop computer. When you start a email client in POP mode, all the mail in your inbox is transferred to your desktop computer. The mail then only exists on your computer. If absolutely necessary you can use POP with a "Leave mail on server" option. If you do, be sure to select "delete from server when emptied from trash" and "delete after x days" where x is less than 30.

Setting Up Your Email Program

Webmail, IMP, and Pine require no setup. Local email clients (Eudora, Outlook Express, Mac OSX Mail, etc.) must be configured for your account and your mail server. The data you need is:

• Account: your username, e.g. jsmith, abc1 or 06abc
• Email address: username@williams.edu
• Mail Server (IMAP or POP): studentmail.williams.edu or facstaffmail.williams.edu
  (students use studentmail, all Staff/Faculty and "affiliates" use facstaffmail)
• SMTP server: mail.williams.edu
  (You must set your outgoing mail to use authentication. See below for directions.)

Outgoing mail authentication:

• Eudora:
  Tools | Options | Sending Mail | Allow Authentication

• Outlook Express:
  Tools | Accounts | Properties (of the Mail Account) | Servers tab | Outgoing Mail Server | Check "My Server requires Authentication" | Settings: "Use same settings as my incoming mail server"

• Outlook
  Tools | Email Accounts | View or change existing email accounts | select your account, click "Change" button | click on "More Settings" | Outgoing Server tab | "Use same settings as my Incoming Server"

• Mac OSX Mail
  Mail | Preferences | Account Information | Outgoing Mail Server Options button | select "Password" in the Authentication drop down menu, then add your username and password.

Security settings to encrypt your email (required for wireless, recommended for all):

• Eudora:

• Outlook Express:
  Tools | Accounts | Properties (of the Mail Account) | Advanced tab | Check "This server requires a secure connection (SSL)" for both outgoing and incoming

• Outlook
  Tools | Email Accounts | View or change existing email accounts | select your account, click "Change" button | click on "More Settings" | Advanced tab | Check "This server requires a secure connection (SSL)" for both outgoing and incoming

• Mac OSX Mail
  Preferences | Account Information | Under Outgoing Mail, select Server Settings | Check "Use Secure Sockets Layer" | Click OK | Click Advanced | Check "SSL" at the bottom

• Thunderbird
  Tools | Account Settings | Outgoing Server section | Edit | Check the button for TLS (not SSL) under Use Secure Connection | Click OK | Server Settings | Check the button for SSL (the port will change to 993) | Click OK

Speeding Up Email

Set your client to check for new email every 15 minutes. Please do not go under 5 minutes as it will slow down the mail server for everyone.

Keep your inbox small. The mail server must scan through the entire inbox every time you check for new email. Reduce your inbox by moving messages you want to save to other folders and delete and purge everything else.

The number of email messages you have is not the only issue. The number of attachments you received may be more of a burden. A simple email message that is text only would be only a few kilobytes in size. One email message with a Word document or a picture can be several megabytes in size.

Setting Up Automatic Replies (Absence Mail Server)

To activate the absence mail server:

1. Go to: http://www.williams.edu/go/myaccount
2. Enter your username and password: Authenticate
3. You will see the various account tools that are available, click on 'Absence Notices'
4. Type your 'away' message in the box. You can also copy the message from a Word document and paste it in the web dialogue box, but it will not handle any special formatting, just plain text.
5. Click the 'Enable' button

Within one-half hour, anyone who sends email to your account will receive back an email containing your automatic reply message. If you receive any listserv messages while the absence mail server is activated, the entire listserv will get your automatic reply message. You should consider unsubscribing or suspending any listservs you are on.

To deactivate the absence mail server:

1. Go to: http://www.williams.edu/go/myaccount
2. Enter your username and password: Authenticate
3. You will see the various account tools that are available, click on 'Absence Notices'
4. Click the 'Disable' button

Your recorded message will no longer be delivered and you will receive a list of everyone who received your message while your absence mail server was activated.

Forwarding Email to Another Account

Email forwarding instructions

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