Features of IU Webmail
IU Webmail is a web-based email service at Indiana University, allowing access to accounts on the Cyrus mail system. It provides basic email service through a simple web interface, allowing you to read mail easily from anywhere without having to reconfigure a browser or mail client software, as well as to send and open attachments easily from your desktop.UITS acquired and further developed Webmail specifically to provide ease of access and easy attachment handling, and thus it offers only some of the more sophisticated features of other email clients. If you need features that Webmail doesn't offer, you may want to try using a desktop client to read your Cyrus mail, or see if another email system is available to you. For more about IU email options, see Reading your Cyrus email and At IU, what email systems are available?
For information on how to connect to IU Webmail, see What is IU Webmail? Below are descriptions of some basic features of Webmail, and links to more information.
Storage usage information
Your used storage space is not based on the number of messages you have, but on the total size of all messages and their attachments. For more, see What is the default storage space for various UITS accounts, and how do I request an increase?
In IU Webmail, your total storage space and the amount and percentage of that space you are currently using are displayed at the top of the Webmail screen when you first log in. The first number is how much of your space you are using in megabytes (MB); the second number is your total available space; the third number, in parentheses, is the percentage of your used space.
Options
You can set your Options to display how your name appears, include a personalized signature in outgoing mail messages, choose mailbox and folder display options, organize your messages in your Inbox, and set other features. For more, see In IU Webmail, what's available under Options?
Note: You cannot modify the font. By default, the font is formatted as plain text.
Checking for new mail
After you first connect to Webmail and read any new mail, Webmail
will check the server periodically for any new messages. Under
Options, you can set how frequently Webmail should check for
new mail, and also select whether or not you wish to be notified of
new mail via a pop-up window.
You can also manually prompt Webmail to check for new mail by clicking the new mail icon. This icon looks like two arrows forming a rough circle, and is located immediately to the right of the word "Inbox", on the line just below the "Mailbox Quota:" line.
Deleting messages
To delete messages from your account, while looking at the list of
messages, check the box next to each message you wish to delete, and
then click Delete. Each message you selected will still
appear in the list of messages but will have a line through it marking
it as deleted. To actually remove the deleted messages from your
account, in the upper right corner of the screen, click Purge
Deleted.
As soon as you click Purge Deleted in Webmail, all the
messages you have marked as deleted will disappear permanently from
the server. There are no recovery options from within Webmail.
Note: You can arrange a retrieval attempt for a fee, but UITS cannot guarantee that your files will be recovered; see At IU, how do I recover files or email deleted from UITS central systems?
Attachments
To learn how to include attachments in outgoing mail and to open attachments you receive, see In IU Webmail, how do I use attachments?
Folders
You can create folders and subfolders, and save your messages in them to keep your account organized; see In IU Webmail, how do I use folders?
To keep the messages in your folders organized, see In IU Webmail, how can I sort the messages in a folder?
To find a particular message in a folder or your Inbox, see In IU Webmail, how can I search my messages?
Spell check
Webmail offers a spell check feature; see In IU Webmail, how can I spell check my messages?
Address book
To add entries to or remove entries from your address book, see In my IU Webmail address book, how do I add or remove entries?
Postpone or save drafts of messages
You can save a draft of a message and resume composing it later by
clicking Save Draft in the Message Composition
window. To set the options for how drafts are stored, see the
appropriate section in In IU Webmail, what's available under Options?
Filters, forwards, and vacation mail
The Cyrus mail servers use a filtering language called Sieve; the web interface for building Sieves is called Ingo, and is accessible via IU Webmail. You can use Ingo to sort incoming mail and send it to different folders based on the sender or the subject line, for example. You can also set up forwarding or a vacation mail message. For more, see:
- At IU, how can I filter my incoming Cyrus mail?
- In Cyrus mail, how do I set up a vacation message?
- In Cyrus mail, how do I set up or remove forwarding?
To learn more about IU Webmail, see the IU Webmail tutorial provided by IT Training at IU.
Last modified on February 27, 2013.







