'Old' Staff E-mail Service
Staff Frequently Asked Questions
We also have a separate page of Outlook Express Frequently Asked Questions www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/oe-faq.html.
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Webmail access doesn't seem to be working today. I get to the login page but no further. I know there are no problems with my password. What can I try?
If IMP Webmail is not working, please try the following alternative servers:
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Alternative Server 1 https://webmail1.lboro.ac.uk/webmail/.
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Alternative Server 2 https://webmail2.lboro.ac.uk/webmail/.
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Alternative Server 3 https://webmail3.lboro.ac.uk/webmail/.
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How do I change folders (from INBOX to Sent Items or one I've created) in IMP?
At the top of the INBOX screen are the IMP icons. At the far right is a drop-down menu of folders. Select from this list, and then click the Open Folder icon or link to confirm your choice.
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How do I select several messages in IMP?
In the INBOX screen you can select individual messages by clicking the checkbox to the left of the message. You can also select messages of the same status (all read, all important, all deleted, etc.) by chosing from the Select drop-down menu and then clicking the Select link to confirm your choice.
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How do I mark selected messages as read, important, deleted, etc.?
Select the messages. Choose the status to apply to the messages from the Mark as drop-down list and then click the Mark as link to confirm your choice.
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How do I move selected messages to a different folder?
Select the messages. Select the folder to move the messages to from the Messages to drop-down list, and then click the Move link to confirm your choice. There is an alternative Copy link, but this is not recommended, as storing messages twice is a waste of space.
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Click on the Folders icon or link to open the Folder Navigator screen.
For any option other than Create Folder, first select one or more folders from the list. Select the option required from the Choose Action drop-down menu, and click the Choose Action link to confirm.
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How do I empty a folder of all messages?
Click on the Folders icon or link to open the Folder Navigator screen.
First select one or more folders from the list. Select Empty Folder(s) from the Choose Action drop-down menu, and click the Choose Action link to confirm.
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The new version of IMP removes certain punctuation marks including backslash \. You now use your Active Directory password. If this has punctuation marks, see the next question, "
How do I change my password?
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How do I change my E-Mail password?
Please see our staff password changing web form at https://pass.lboro.ac.uk/.
N.B. Your user name is not the same as your E-Mail address. User names take the form of two letters indicating your department, followed by your initials, and an optional number if you are not the only person in the department with the same initials.
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What do I do if I don't know my E-Mail password?
If you do not know your password then you will need to get it reset by the IT Services' Service Desk You should contact them either in person at the help desk, or by telephone. For security reasons they may require proof of your identity before resetting your password for you.
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How do I forward my E-mail to another mailbox?
You can forward your E-mail using a web interface to mail forwarding, but please read the warnings - this is not recommended.
You can access the web interface to staff mail forwarding at https://staff-webmail.lboro.ac.uk/cgi-bin/preferences.pl?action=changeforward.
Note: Loughborough University IT Services can take no responsibility for the safety of E-mail after it has left our mail service. If you mistype the forward-to e-mail address, we are not responsible for the fact that you will lose all of your e-mail. In particular we do not support any E-mail systems outside of IT Services, and can not take responsibility for E-mail on these systems. When forwarding E-mail to another E-mail service, you should check with the administrators of that system that it is safe to forward your mail there. If you have any doubts, then you should contact the IT Services' Service Desk for advice on mail forwarding, before attempting to forward your E-mail.
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Can I read my E-mail from another site, or from home?
There are two options available to you for reading E-mail from off campus. These are:
Option 1
If you have access to a private P.C. connected to the Internet in the off campus location (e.g. Your home P.C. connected to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider), then you can configure Outlook Express to read your Loughborough mailbox. This option should never be used where you do not have access to a private PC. In particular it should not be used in public access labs at other sites, or on shared machines where you can not trust all the other people able to use the machine. Using this option in such a location could result in loss of privacy, as well as other serious security implications.
For effective use in this way, the additional copy of Outlook Express should differ from a normal Office configuration in that the outgoing SMTP server should be set to ispstaff-mailout.lboro.ac.uk instead of the normal setting of staff-mailout.lboro.ac.uk. Full details of the configuration of Outlook Express are available on our web site at www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/oe-setup-home.html.
For occasional remote use, or for use in a public access lab at another site, the best option is to use the new web interface to E-mail. This interface gives you secure access to E-mail, both reading and sending from any web browser that has Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) enabled security. Examples of web browsers with built in SSL support are: all modern versions of Internet Explorer, and all modern versions of Netscape Navigator. The web mailer gives you access to items of E-mail waiting for you on the new staff E-mail server, it also gives you the ability to send new E-mail messages, and reply to existing E-mail messages.
To use the web interface to E-mail, you should use the link or point your web browser at:
https://staff-webmail.lboro.ac.uk/webmail/
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Why doesn't the Web mailer see all the address book details / nicknames that I have created with Outlook Express ?
Outlook Express stores its address book on your computer. The web mailer has its own relational database that it uses to store nicknames, and no other programs have access to this database. Thus adding an e-mail address to either of these systems does not add it to either of the others.
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Is if safe to read my E-mail from a public lab at another site?
It is only safe to read your E-mail from a public lab at another site, if you take suitable precautions to ensure that your network connection is safe. The easiest way to gain secure access to your E-mail is to use a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) enabled web browser to access your E-mail using the web interface to E-mail described above. When you do this, your entire network connection will be encrypted by the browser, and this should ensure that a casual hacker can not gain access to your account details or E-mail messages. This is the same protocol that is used to encrypt many secure transaction facilities elsewhere, such as online purchasing, and Internet banking.
If you ignore the above advice, then you could be putting the University computer systems at risk, as well as risking your own personal E-mail privacy. In the past, several computer system security incidents, were linked to staff or students accessing Loughborough systems from remote systems outside of our control, via an insecure network connection. We would request that all staff and students take a responsible attitude to computer security, and only access Loughborough Computing facilities over a secure network connection. Failure to do so could put the whole University at risk.
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How can I configure an auto response (vacation) message for when I am on holiday or away from the University?
To configure the sending of an auto response e-mail message (sometimes called a vacation message) in response to messages sent to your address, you should use the link https://staff-webmail.lboro.ac.uk/cgi-bin/preferences.pl?action=changevac.
If you configure your mail account to use the above mechanism, then your pre-prepared message will be sent to people that send you e-mail while you are away from campus. If you receive important messages requiring your attention, then sending an auto response to senders to tell them that you are away can be a very useful facility. You might also like to look at the mail forwarding facility that can be used to forward a copy of your e-mail to another person while you are away (but read the warnings!).
While the auto response system is enabled, mail delivery to your account takes place as per normal. All e-mail messages sent to your account are stored (or forwarded if you use e-mail forwarding) in the same way that they are when the auto response system is not enabled.
The auto response system does not send response messages to mailing list messages that you receive as this is very unpopular with most mailing list administrators and subscribers. It does send a response message to people that send you personally addressed e-mail, but only the first time that they send you a message while you are away.
NOTE: The auto response system is switched on and off by using the web address above. You need to remember to switch on the auto response system just before you leave, and switch it off when you come back to the University! You should think of it as similar to changing your answer phone or voice mail message while you are away.
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Why do auto response (vacation) messages only ever get sent to each sender once while I am away?
The auto response system stores the sender address of each person that sends you an e-mail message. It records these in a mini database associated with your e-mail account. The first time someone sends you a message while your auto response message is enabled, the system sends your pre-prepared message to the sender, in order to let them know that you are away from campus. After that, the sender's address is stored in the mini database file. Subsequent times that that sender sends you an e-mail message, the system remembers that it has already sent that person a copy of your auto response message and does not send them another copy.
You might ask why it goes to all this trouble not to send the same person your message more than once. The answer is simple. A message that you receive could be (and most often is) from another human being, however not all mail that you receive is necessarily from a person. Some of it comes from other automated mail sending programs. It is not always a trivial task to tell the difference between an automatic message and one generated by a person. If the auto response service responded to all e-mail messages that you were sent, then there would be a risk that it could respond to an e-mail message that was itself automatic (for example someone else's auto-response message!). This could result in a mail loop, where two auto responding systems continue to send each other messages indefinitely. If you remember, the auto response system does not change your normal mail delivery process, so you would receive a copy of each of these looping messages, which would eventually fill up your mailbox with pointless mail. Some poorly written auto responders can and do cause this problem. The Loughborough auto response system sends the auto response message just once to each sender in order to avoid causing e-mail loops. This is in line with preferred Internet e-mail practice.
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I don't seem to be able to use the web mailer from my browser. Why is this?
The web mailer is designed to work with either Internet Explorer 5 (or above) or Netscape 4.04 (or above). It does not work well on earlier versions of either of the above browsers. It has also not been tested on any other browsers such as Lynx or HotJava. If you are trying to use the web mailer with something other than the two browsers that it is designed for then you will almost certainly find that it doesn't work. Some people have found that they can get "nearly" all the functionality of the web mailer working with slightly earlier versions of Netscape, however earlier versions may produce pages of warnings about the signing authority for the secure web pages. This is because these versions of Netscape have out of date signing authority configurations.
NOTE: The official supported browser at Loughborough University is Internet Explorer 7, it is this browser that all software is tested against. If you choose to use another browser then IT Services can not take responsibility for software failures that may occur as a result.
Other known problems are:-
The web mailer requires the use of "web cookies" in order to work. People often switch off "cookies" in order to make their browser more secure. If you do this, then you will have to ensure that you switch "cookies" back on when you are using the web mailer.
If you have a large number of messages in your e-mail "inbox" (1200+), and you use Internet Explorer 5 then you may find that the web mailer does not start up correctly. This is because the web mailer tries to download a "web cookie" to the browser which defines the unique id's of all the messages in the "inbox". The "cookie" generated is too large for Internet Explorer 5 and is silently rejected by the browser. The only known solution to this problem is to get someone in IT Services to move some of your messages out of the "inbox" and into another folder. You can still access all of your messages, but you need to look for the older messages in the alternative folder. If you keep on top of your e-mail, and process it as it arrives, then this situation should not arise under normal use.
Some parts of the web mailer use JavaScript. Not all of the web mailers functions require JavaScript, however you may find that some parts of the interface do not work if you have disabled this feature of your browser.
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Can I filter my e-mail into different folders on the mail server?
Yes, the staff e-mail web server has a server side mail filter system which you can use to filter your e-mail in various ways. This system was developed at Loughborough and lets you perform most of the common filter operations. You can find the filter manager from the link (temporarily unavailable).
There are two advantages to running your mail filters on the server. They are:-
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They will be performed as the mail arrives not just when you run your mailer thus reducing how much work your mail client has to do.
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They will work for any mail client that understands IMAP (i.e. IMP, Outlook Express etc.).
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How can I check how much space I am using?
You can check your staff disk usage with this link: https://staff-webmail.lboro.ac.uk/cgi-bin/quota.
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How can I reduce the space I am using?
Each incoming and each outgoing e-mail with an attachment keeps a separate copy of the attachment. Thus one can reduce your space requirements by deleting mail with attachments from Sent Items. You should also look through your Inbox and any other folders for large items, and - once they have been saved - consider deleting them. We are not asking staff to delete e-mail that they need to keep.
Click on the "Size" column heading / hyperlink to sort by size.
Staff should also consider using the Intranet to store a central copy, rather than circulating multiple copies.