Composing screen layout
(Click on image to zoom in)
1. Email toolbar
This toolbar allows you to edit or add things to your email such as Cc/Bcc addresses and attachments. You can also save the email as a draft or send the email from here.
- Cancel: This will cancel your current email and return you to your inbox.
- Attach: This will bring up your filesystem so you can attach a file or image to your email. All attached files/images will appear on a list in section six.
- Signature: This adds your signature to the email if it is not there already. This is useful if you accidently delete your signature and would like to restore it.
- Responses: This allows you to add pre existing phrases or paragraphs to your email to avoid repeating yourself over and over, saving you time. More information about this feature can be found in the Responses section here.
- Save: This will save a copy of the email into your Drafts folder.
- Send: This will send your email to the email addresses in your To, Cc and Bcc address bars.
2. Contact look up
This allows you to quickly add contacts to your emails by using either the search bar at the top or by navigating your address book. You can then quickly add them to the email using the To+, Cc+ and Bcc+ buttons towards the bottom. You can find out more about your contacts on the following help page.
3. Address bars
This area is used to specify which addresses to send to and from, as well as the subject title of the email.
- From: This will be a drop down box where you can select from all of your aliases if you would like to send from a different address. You can also edit these aliases by clicking on the Edit Identities link. Further details about Identities can be found in the Identities section here.
- To: You can type in the email address you would like to send to here. You can also quickly populate this box with your contacts by using the contacts lookup in section two. You can also start typing into this field and it will attempt to auto complete the address you are typing out based on your contact list.
- Add Cc and Bcc: These will show you the Cc and Bcc boxes in the address area if you wish to add more addresses.
- Cc: Cc stands for carbon copy. This is normally used if you would like to send a copy of the email to another address, without directing the message towards them. You can add a Cc address by either using the button in section one or the button in your contacts in section two.
- Bcc: This stands for Blind carbon copy. This acts the same but the receiver of the email won't be able to see that this address has been Cc'd in. This can be accessed the same way Cc is.
- Subject: This is the title of your email, and normally the first thing the receiver will see.
4. Advanced email options
There are also some more advanced options you can access by clicking on the small downward triangle near the bottom left of the address boxes.
- Editor Type: HTML allows the use of text formatting such as bolding, paragraph alignments and adding images to your email. If you prefer plain text, you can switch between these options.
- Priority: You can mark this email by priority. This will let the receiver of the email know how important the email is. Depending on their email software, it may bold or flag the email in their inbox. You can use the search function to view all of your prioritised emails. (Scroll further down to view our search guide).
- Return receipt: This will return a notification to you (in the form of an email) when the recipient has opened the email. (This depends on the recipient's server/privacy settings, so there is no guarantee that you will receive a receipt).
- Delivery status notification: This will return a notification to you (in the form of an email) when the receiving server has received your email. (Again, this depends on the recipient's server/privacy settings, so there is no guarantee that you will receive a receipt).
- Save message in: This gives you the option to save the email once it is sent to another folder if you would like it somewhere other than the sent folder.
5. Body and text editor
This area is where you can type in the message you would like to send to the recipient. You can use the text editing toolbar at the top if you would like to format your text (if you can't see this refer to Editor type in section four). If you are not sure what one of the icons is, hover over it to see the name of that tool popup.
6. Attachments
All of your attached files and images will be listed here once they have successfully attached to the email. You can either attach a file by using Attach on the toolbar in section One, using the Attach file button in this section or by dragging and dropping the file into this area.
You can use the down arrow on each attachment to either download, rename or open the attachment. If you would like to remove an attachment, press the Trash icon next to the attachment.
Viewing mail
When you are viewing an email, you should notice that instead of the address bar area, there is now another area with different features.
- From: This will show who the email you are viewing is sent from. This will normally display their display name rather than their address. If you would like to see the address, simply hover over the display name and it will show you. Using the icon next to this will add this address to your contacts.
- To: This will show who this email was sent to. It's useful to know this as it will show what address it was sent to if you have multiple aliases setup. It will also list any other recipients of the email. Using the icon next to this will add this address to your contacts.
- Date: This shows the date and time the email was received to your account.
- Anti Spam
- Add sender to Block list: This will add the address of the sender to your Block list. Any address on your Block list will not be able to send emails to you anymore.
- Add sender to Safe list: Email addresses added to your Safe list will always reach you. This is useful if you are having trouble receiving emails from a legitimate source or they keep getting marked as spam. Please note, if an address is added to both lists, your Safe list will always override your Block list.
- You can access your Block list and Safe list by going to My Account > Spam settings.
- Left and right arrows (top right): These allow you to view the previous and next emails in your inbox.
- HTML and plain text (middle right): The icons just below the left and right arrows allow you to quickly switch between HTML and plain text emails.
- Downward arrow (bottom right): The arrow located in the bottom right, when clicked on, will show you the current email headers for the email. These are detailed technical descriptions of the email and are useful when troubleshooting issues. If you are not sure, you can safely ignore this!
Threads
Threads allow you to group your emails based on conversations instead of having them individually listed. This helps tidy up your inbox and keep things simple. You can turn on and off threads by using the two symbols just above your email list.
Each thread will comprise of the following:
- The original email that was sent.
- Replies made by the original sender.
- Anyone else who has replied to the original email.
Your replies will be in your sent folder. You can identify a thread in your email list by the small plus symbol at the bottom left of each email.
If you do not wish to use this feature, please select the left, three lined icon to display emails individually.
Searching your mail
You can use the search bar to search for hard to find emails in your inbox. The search bar is located on the top right hand side of your inbox. (See below)
PLEASE NOTE: If you cannot see the search bar in this location, your screen may be too small for them to fit on the page. You can either maximise the window on your screen or zoom out with your browsers zoom function.
(Click on image to zoom in)
The search function has three separate features: filters, Search options and the search box itself.
Search box
You can use this box to type in text to search for. You can use the small "x" symbol at the end of the box to clear your search. Press Enter on your keyboard to initiate the search.
By default, it will search with the following:
- Filter: All.
- Search options: Subject and From fields in the current folder.
- Search bar: The text you enter.
If you are not getting the search results you are expecting, please take the above into account.
Filters
These filters, which are located in the drop down box to the left of the search box, allow you to filter your search results by how the emails are marked. Marked could mean that the email is unread or flagged or even marked at a certain priority.
- All: This displays all emails regardless of how they are marked.
- Unread: This will show all emails that haven't been opened yet.
- Flagged: Will show all emails that are flagged.
- Unanswered: Shows emails that you haven't replied to.
- Deleted: If an email has been marked for deletion, it will show with this filter (see the Server Settings section here for more about marking emails for deletion).
- Not deleted: Emails that are not marked for deletion will show with this filter.
- With attachments: Any email that currently has an attachment will show.
- Priority: This will show emails that have been marked at a certain priority by the sender.
Search Options
These options will refine your search even more and can affect where your search is looking, such as which folder or field. You can access this by using the magnifying glass icon within the search box.
You can use the toggles to select where the search will take place within each email. You can enable multiple toggles if you wish. The date dropdown box will allow you to select a time frame for you search, and the scope section will allow you to specify what folders the search should take place in.
- Toggles
- Subject: This will search the text in the subject line for each email.
- From: Search the addresses in the From field for each email.
- To: Search the addresses in the To field for each email.
- Copy: Search the addresses in the Cc field for each email.
- Bcc: Search the addresses in the Bcc field for each email.
- Body: Will search the main text of each email.
- Entire message: Will select all of the above.
- Scope
- Current folder: The current folder you have selected or are viewing.
- This and subfolders: If the current folder has any folders within it, include these in the search.
- All folders: Widen the search to every folder on your account.
When you have finished selecting these options, click on the search link at the bottom to begin your personalised search.