In IU Webmail, what are Options and how do I use them?

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Your IU Webmail Options determine how you view your mail and how the interface behaves, among other things.

To set or change your Webmail Options, log into your email account using the Webmail interface. Once you are logged in, click the Options link in the header bar at the top of the Webmail screen. This will take you to a new page with three sets of Options you can configure to your liking.

On this page:

General Options

The Options under the heading "General Options" allow you to personalize your name, and address, as well as set the language, time zone, and date format for your Webmail display:

Personal Information: This option allows you to choose an identity to use when you correspond using Webmail. The default identity uses your name and email address as they appear in the IU Address Book. To create a new identity, or change an existing one, click Personal Information. Select an identity to change from the pull-down list at the top under "Select the identity you want to change:", or fill in the required fields to create a new identity. When you have made your selected changes, click Save Options at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
You may also select an identity to delete, and then click Delete selected identity.

To select an alternate identity as your default, from the drop-down list under "Your default identity:", select the identity you wish to use as the default. Then click Save Options.
Locale and Time: You can use this option to change the language in which menu items, explanations, and help documents are displayed. Under "General Options", click Locale and Time. Then, from the drop-down list under "Select your preferred language:", choose the language you wish to use.
You may also select your time zone, choose whether to display 24-hour times, and select the date format that you prefer.

To save your changes, click Save Options.

Message Options

In this section you can customize your options for composing and displaying your mail, and for how Webmail handles new mail. Click Message Composition, Message Viewing, or New Mail to access the detailed options listed below. To save any changes that you make, click Save Options.

Message Composition: This set of options allows you to customize how the Message Composition window behaves and appears, as follows:
- Compose messages in a separate window? is checked by default, which means that when you reply to a message or create a new message, Webmail will open a new window. If you wish to have the compose message window open in the same browser window, remove the check from the box.
- In the field next to "Wrap text at this many characters.", you can set the width of your message. The default is set to 80 characters. If you select a larger number, you can fit more letters, numbers, and spaces on each line; a smaller number will allow you fewer characters per line before the text wraps to the next line.
- By default, the checkbox next to Compose messages with an HTML GUI by default (if browser supports the feature)? is unchecked. Check it if you would like to use a GUI editor that has buttons for common text formatting options.
- By default, the checkbox next to Check spelling before sending a message? is unchecked. Check the box if you would like your messages spell-checked before you send them. You can also specify the number of errors reported per screen when spell checking. The default value is three errors per screen.
- By default, the checkbox next to Display confirmation after sending a message? is unchecked. Check the box if you would like to see a confirmation message after you send email.
- By default, the checkbox next to Include original message in a reply? is checked, so that when you reply to a message, the original is automatically included with your response. If you wish to change this, uncheck the box.
- By default, Include a brief summary of the header in a reply? is unchecked. Check the box if you would like a brief header summary to appear when you are replying to a message.
- In the field under "How to attribute quoted lines in a reply:", you can enter the character you wish to precede each line of quoted text in your message. The default is > , but you can change this to be whatever character you choose.
- From the drop-down menu under "Drafts folder:", you can select the folder in which you wish to have Webmail store postponed messages. You can select a currently existing folder, or select Create a new drafts folder, in which case Webmail will create a new folder called Drafts in the main level of your account.
- Should the compose window be closed after saving a draft? is checked by default. When you save a message instead of sending it, so that you can resume composition at a later time, Webmail will automatically close the Message Composition window (if it was a separate window), or return to the message list.
- Save drafts as unseen? is unchecked by default. This option controls whether your drafts are saved with a status of "Unseen" (orange background and closed envelope icon when you view the contents of the Drafts folder). Check the box if you want your drafts to be marked "Unseen".
- Set the X-Priority header when composing messages? is unchecked by default. Check the box if you want the ability to set the "X-Priority" header.
- In the drop-down list under "Your default charset for sending messages:" you can specify a character set. The default is US-ASCII.
- A drop-down list appears under "Your default encryption method for sending messages:", but no encryption methods are currently available.
- Under "Request read receipts?", you can select Ask, Never, and Always. This option allows you to set whether you will automatically ask for notification when a message is opened by the recipient. Not all clients will be able to respond to requests for a read receipt.
- Under "Request delivery confirmation?", you can select Ask, Never, and Always. This option allows you to automatically ask for notification when a message is delivered to the recipient's inbox. (Note that this doesn't mean the recipient has seen it, only that it's been delivered.) Not all mail servers will be able to respond to delivery confirmation requests.
Message Viewing: You can change the following options for how your messages appear:
- Filter message content for profanity is unchecked by default. Check it if you would like your messages filtered. (Note that IU offers a spam quarantine service and a more sophisticated filtering capability in Webmail. See At IU, what is the spam quarantine service? and At IU, how can I filter my incoming Cyrus mail?)
- Show an icon to allow stripping of attachments from messages? is unchecked by default. Check the box if you would like to see an icon in your folder lists that will allow you to remove the attachments from messages but retain the messages in your mail folders.
- Block images in HTML messages unless they are specifically requested? is checked by default. For HTML messages displayed inline, this allows you to specify whether all image tags should be blocked until you specifically decide to view the images. The images will always be displayed if you're viewing an HTML attachment.
- Automatically show images in HTML messages when the sender is in my addressbook? is checked by default. If you're blocking images as described above, this will allow you to specify whether the block should be lifted if the sender appears in your Address Book.
- By default, Mark different levels of quoting with different colors? is checked. This means that when you reply to a message that already contains a reply to an earlier message, you will have several different levels of quoting, each of which will be displayed with a different color. If you wish to turn this feature off, uncheck the box.
- By default, Mark simple markup? is checked. Uncheck the box if you do not want this capability.
- Under "Should large blocks of quoted text be shown or hidden by default?", you can select Shown, Hidden in Thread View, or Hidden.
- Dim signatures? , when checked, means that any signatures in email messages you receive will be displayed very faintly. If you wish to have signatures appear the same as the regular text of the message, uncheck this box.
- Show link for JIS encoding is unchecked by default. See In IU Webmail, how can I view Japanese language characters?
- Convert textual emoticons to graphical ones? is unchecked by default. Check the box if you would like text emoticons like :) to be converted to icons.
- Under "How do you want to display attachments?", you can choose Listing in the Header, Display in Body of Message, or Both Header Listing and Body of Message.
New Mail: The following New Mail options are available:
- From the drop-down list under "Refresh Folder Views:", you can select how frequently you wish to have Webmail check your account for new messages.
- Display pop-up notification of new mail. is unchecked by default; each time new mail arrives in your account, a pop-up window will notify you. If you do not wish to have these pop-up notifications, uncheck the box.

Other Options

The Other Options include a variety of display options and automatic tasks to customize the way Webmail appears and behaves. To make changes, click the appropriate link; to save your changes, click Save Options. The following options are available:

Mailbox and Folder Display Options: This set of options controls the way the Webmail interface appears, as follows; click Save Options to save your changes:
- Under "When opening a new mailbox, which page do you want to start on?", you can select from the following:
  - Page with the First Unseen Message
  - Page with the Last Unseen Message
  - First Mailbox Page
  - Last Mailbox Page
- From the drop-down menu under "Default sorting criteria:" you can choose to sort your mail by Arrival Time (according to the time at which each message arrived in your account), Message Date (according to the time each message was sent), From Address (according to who sent each message), To Address (according to the recipients in the "To:" field of each message), Subject Field (alphabetical order according to the text in the subject field of each message), Message Size (how large each message is, in kilobytes), and Thread View (places messages that are in response to an earlier message into a single "thread" for easier viewing of an extended back-and-forth email conversation).
- From the drop-down menu under "Default sorting direction:", you can choose either Ascending or Descending for the sorting direction. When you select Ascending, messages will be sorted according to the value you selected in "Default sorting criteria:" from top to bottom. So, for example, if you selected to sort by arrival time, sorting in ascending direction, the most recent messages will be at the bottom of the screen when you view your list of messages. Selecting Descending will place the newest messages at the top of the list.
- In the field next to "Messages per page in the mailbox view.", you can set how many messages you would like to have displayed on each page when you are looking at your list of messages. The default value is 20 messages per page.
- Under "The From: column of the message should be linked:", you can select whether the information in the "From:" column will link to anything, and if so, to what. Your options are:
  - Clicking on the address will open the message to be read
  - Clicking on the address will compose a new message to the sender
  - Do not generate a link in the "From:" column
- Under "Format of message dates in the mailbox view for messages dated today", you can select the format for the timestamp on messages received today.
- From the drop-down menu under "Expand the entire folder tree by default in the folders view?", you can select No, Yes, or Remember the last view. Expanding the folder tree means that when you click Folders from the Webmail header bar, Webmail will display the folders that are nested inside other folders. Select No if you do not wish to have all of your nested folders displayed automatically, or Yes if you would like all nested subfolders to be displayed; or, select Remember the last view to have Webmail automatically return to the way it last displayed your list of folders.
- Uncheck Show legend in the mailbox view. if you do not wish to have Webmail display the legend at the bottom of the list of messages. The legend is the description of what each icon means in the color-coded list of messages.
You can select address book sources for adding and searching for addresses.
Address Books: Here you can select address book sources for adding and searching for addresses. You can select which campus Address Book(s) to search, and in which order to search them, when expanding addresses in the "To:", "Cc:", or "Bcc:" fields of a message you are composing. You can also choose to expand names in the Compose mail window automatically in the background, have recipients automatically added to the default address book, and list all contacts when loading the contacts screen. Follow the on-screen instructions to make your changes, and then click Save Options.
PGP Options: Here you can enable or disable PGP functionality. By default, it is disabled. To save your changes, click Save Options.
S/MIME Options: Here you can enable or disable S/MIME functionality. By default, it is disabled. To save your changes, click Save Options.

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Last modified on November 12, 2009.