HelpDesk

E-mail FAQ

Note: Webmail FAQ,  Outlook FAQ, and  IMAP Clients FAQ are also available.

1. How do I check my JMU e-mail when I am away from school/campus?
2. What is the default e-mail quota?
3. I am receiving a lot of e-mail that concerns my department specifically. How can I get a departmental mailbox setup?
4. What e-mail clients can JMU students use to access their JMU e-mail?
5. I am leaving the university. How will my e-mail/e-ID and other accounts be affected?
6. How can I forward new e-mail sent to my JMU e-mail account to another e-mail account?
7. I deleted and permanently removed some email messages (through empty my trash or compact in webmail, or purge in IMAP client). Can I retrieve them or have them restored?
8. How can I hide the list of names and addresses when sending out an e-mail?
9. I'm not receiving an attachment sent with an email. Why are some attachments blocked by our email system? Which attachments are blocked?
10. I'm receiving messages returned from people I have not sent anything to alerting me that I have a virus!
11. How can I limit the amount of unsolicited e-mail I receive?
12. Why can't I send e-mail to a departmental mailbox, such as to the helpdesk?
13. Does my Internet Service Provider (ISP) have a restrictive configuration that will cause me a problem when sending e-mail?
14. How do I use my e-mail client's address book search capabilities?
15. How do I send out a Large or Bulk e-mail?
16. Why am I receiving winmail.dat file attachments?

1. How do I check my JMU e-mail when I am away from school/campus?
   • Use https://webmail.jmu.edu/
   
   
   
2. What is the default e-mail quota?
   • 100MB for faculty, 50MB for staff, 10MB for students.
3. I am receiving a lot of e-mail that concerns my department specifically. How can I get a departmental mailbox setup?
   • Supervisors may request a departmental mailbox by completing the Departmental Mailbox Request Form
   • The simplest method to access a departmental mailbox is through Webmail. E-mail IMAP clients, such as Outlook (PC) or Tiger OS X Mail (Mac), can also be configured and subscribed to in order to access and view a departmental mailbox. Please beware that it is easy to accidently delete a departmental mailbox with an IMAP client.
   • Behind the scenes, everyone that accesses a departmental mailbox must have their e-mail mailboxes located on the MPMAIL1 server. Due to this, some mailboxes may need to be moved before access can be granted to a departmental mailbox, which requires contact to that person to have them log out of e-mail while their mailbox is being moved
   .
   • If all the information is provided on the form, Departmental mailbox requests will be completed within 2 business days (exceptions: longer turnaround times may be experienced at the start of a semester, or problems contacting employees to move or issues in moving mailboxes).
   
   
   
4. What e-mail clients can JMU students use to access their JMU e-mail?

   Webmail is the recommended method to access e-mail. Webmail licenses were purchased for all members of the JMU community. The decision to move toward a web based solution and away from an IMAP solution was based on several factors including:  

   • Campus-wide surveys and evaluation committee feedback
   • Industry trends
   • IMAP's need for more central system hardware resources than Webmail
   • Increased costs for license duplication (the product is licensed per user and per access method)
   • Anticipated growth in e-mail usage
   • Ability to have e-mail and address books available from any computer (office, residence hall, lab, home, while traveling, etc.)

   A limited number of IMAP licenses were purchased for faculty and staff use.

5. I am leaving the university. How will my e-mail/e-ID and other accounts be affected?

   See "How and when is my e-ID removed" FAQ.

6. I deleted and permanently removed some e-mail messages (through empty my trash or compact in Webmail, or purge in IMAP client). Can I retrieve them or have them restored?
   • Currently, in our new e-mail system we cannot retrieve or restore from system backups entire individual user mailboxes. If you deleted just a few messages, you may wish to contact the sender or recipient to see if they still have a copy to resend to you. If you realize you deleted an important message almost immediately and contacting the sender and/or recipient is not an option, please contact the Computing HelpDesk at (540) 568-3555 or helpdesk@jmu.edu before you continue to delete other information. The e-mail system will hold up to 5MB of the most recently deleted messages in a deletedmessages folder that may allow message retrieval. If you continue to delete messages, though, there is a good chance that the message in question cannot be retrieved.
7. How can I hide the list of names and addresses when sending out an e-mail?
   • To prevent the display of recipient addresses, send the message To: yourselfand include all recipient e-mail addresses in the blind carbon copy (bcc:) line.
8. I'm not receiving an attachment sent with an e-mail. Why are some attachments blocked by our e-mail system? Which attachments are blocked?
   • See Protective E-mail Filters
9. I'm receiving messages returned from people I have not sent anything to alerting me that I have a virus!
   • See Security Hot Topics
10. How can I limit the amount of unsolicited e-mail I receive?
    • Please view the latest information about SPAM and unsolicited e-mail at http://www.jmu.edu/computing/security/info/spam.shtml
    • Using Webmail, when opening an e-mail message you can flag the message as spam. Click on the "This is Spam" link in the message header.
      
      
      
      A new window with three options are available; select the "Add sender to Black List" and "Move message to junk mail folder" if desired.
      
      
    • Also in Webmail, you may use the Black Mail List feature. This can be found in Options->Junk Mail Control->Black List. You can add a specific e-mail address or a domain such as @somewhere.com or @*.somewhere.com.
11. Why can't I send e-mail to a departmental mailbox, such as to the helpdesk?
    • When I send e-mail to a departmental mailbox, such as helpdesk, I get a message returned with the the following error: "Returned mail: User unknown", why? With our e-mail system, you must fully qualify the address domain @jmu.edu when sending mail to a departmental mailbox, such as To: helpdesk@jmu.edu versus To: helpdesk.
      
      Here's what the error message would look like in the Inbox of Webmail, if you left off @jmu.edu:
      
      
      
      Here's the somewhat misleading error message content:
      
      
      
      
      Note the error message states "---- The following addresses had permanent delivery errors ---- helpdesk@jmu.edu". The error is misleading as it appears the message was sent to the correct e-mail address of helpdesk@jmu.edu, but the sender actually sent it to: helpdesk as noted in the very last To: statement of the error message.
12. Does my Internet Service Provider (ISP) have a restrictive configuration that will cause me a problem when sending e-mail?
    • You should not experience a problem sending e-mail if you are logged into https://webmail.jmu.edu and use your internet broswer to send e-mail. If you are using an IMAP client (i.e. Outlook), you may experience problems sending e-mail. Please consult with your ISP concerning restriction details..
13. How do I use my e-mail client's address book search capabilities?
    • Please view the LDAP Services Configuration Info.
14. How do I send out a Large or Bulk e-mail?
    • Please view the Bulk e-mail and Label Request
15. Why am I receiving winmail.dat file attachments?
    • When sending with Outlook, some recipients report that their messages include either an additional file called the Winmail.dat file or the original message attachment is included as a Winmail.dat file attachment. This problem occurs because the Winmail.dat file is used to preserve formatting that the sending client includes in the message, but the receiving client does not recognize the Winmail.dat file. In Outlook, the Winmail.dat file includes Rich Text Formatting (RTF) instructions. This type of formatting is used with the Microsoft Outlook Rich Text format and when you use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor.
    To resolve:
    1. In Outlook, go to Tools
    2. Go to Options
    3. Chose the Mail Format tab
    4. Beside the statement "Compose in this message format", change the format to plain text format and resend.