ARCHIVED: How do I use Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x to read mail?

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Note: The software discussed here is no longer in common use at IU, and UITS may no longer be able to verify this text's accuracy; additionally, the UITS Support Center may no longer have the materials needed to adequately support this software.

Note: UITS no longer supports POP mail. For details, see Why UITS doesn't support POP mail

POP mail capability is not available for versions of Netscape Navigator prior to 2.0.

To use Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x to read mail, you will first need to set your identity and indicate to which computer your mail is delivered. Open Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x, and from the Options menu, select Mail and News Preferences.... Click the Server tab and enter the following information:

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server: Enter the name of the computer that handles mail that you send out.
Incoming Mail (POP) Server: Enter the name of the computer on which you receive mail.
POP user ID: Enter your username (e.g., dvader).
Mail Directory: Enter the directory where you will keep the mail that you transfer via POP mail. You can click the Browse... button and choose the folder or directory.
Maximum Message Size: If you click the None option, you will be able to receive messages of unlimited size. Otherwise, you can specify the maximum size of the message you want to be able to receive.
Messages are copied from the server to local disk, then: If you click Removed from the server, then mail you transfer will be deleted from your incoming mail server Inbox. Clicking the option Left on the server will prevent messages from being deleted from the incoming mail server Inbox.
Check for mail every: You can specify how often Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x checks the server for new mail. If you click Never, then to see if you have new mail, you will have to manually check for mail on your POP mail server.

When you are finished with the Server menu, click the Identity tab. Enter your name and your full email address. If you want to include a signature, you can create a small text file on your hard drive and tell Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x to include it in every message you send. In Netscape Navigator 3.0 there is an option that tells Macintosh users to use their Internet Config preferences if they click the Use Internet Configuration System box.

The other Mail and News Preference tabs let you customize your mail environment further, but you aren't required to complete them.

To access the POP mail client of Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x, from the Windows menu, select Netscape Mail. A new window will launch that is divided into three frames. The top left frame lists your mail folders, while the top right frame lists the messages within the currently selected folder. The lower frame shows the currently selected mail message. You can resize the frames by clicking and dragging the margins between them. You can also change the sizes of the fields in the top two frames by clicking and dragging the lines between their headers. By clicking and dragging the headers themselves to different parts of the frame, you can change the order in which they appear. Once you have modified these configurations, Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x will remember them the next time you launch the Netscape Mail window.

To check the server for new mail that has arrived, from an active Netscape Mail window, go to the File menu and select Get New Mail. (In Mac OS, the keystroke is Cmd-t; in Windows, it is Ctrl-t.) From the File menu, you can create new mail folders, address new mail messages, and open folders. From the Edit menu, you can delete mail messages and folders. You can navigate using the mouse, via keystrokes, or from the Go menu.

The Message menu allows you to reply to messages, forward messages, and move or copy messages between your mail folders. You can send a reply to more than one person by selecting the Reply to All option. When forwarding messages, the forwarded portion will be sent as an attachment unless you choose the Forward Quoted option, which will include it in the message editing screen.

New mail messages are indicated by a green diamond next to their entries. If you click a diamond, you can mark that message as read, replacing the diamond with a dot. You can click this dot and the message will be marked as unread. You can find the menu equivalents for these commands in the Message menu.

In addition to marking messages as read or unread, you can also flag messages that are important or those on which you want to perform an action. To flag a message, select it, then from the Message menu, choose Flag Message. This puts a flag to the left of the read/unread column mentioned above. To unflag the message, from the Message menu, use the Unflag Message option, or click the flag (changing the flag to a dot, indicating it's been unflagged); click the dot to flag the message again. To select all flagged messages, from the Edit menu, choose Select Flagged Messages.

When you delete a message, it is placed in the Trash folder. To empty this folder, from the File menu, select the Empty Trash Folder option. From the File menu, if you select Compress Folder, Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x will recover space taken up by deleted messages in your current folder. To see if deleted messages are taking up space in a folder, select the folder and look at the bottom of the Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x screen. There, you will see the location of the mail folder on your drive and how much of the space is being used (both by percentage and in bytes). If this amount is not zero, you have some deleted messages taking up space in that folder.

To add a person's email address to your Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x Address Book, select a message from that person, and from the Message menu, choose Add to Address Book. The person's name and address will be entered automatically; you can create a nickname and add comments in the "Description" box.

Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x is capable of threading messages much like newsreaders thread newsgroups. It will list replies, and replies to replies, in a hierarchical fashion, indicating different levels by indenting their listings in the message frame. You can select entire threads by going to the Edit menu and choosing Select Thread. You can turn threading off and on by going to the View menu, selecting Sort, and checking or unchecking the Thread Messages option.

You can further modify the way mail displays by choosing the different options under the View/Sort menu. If you only want to see unread messages, from the Options menu, check Show Only Unread Messages. To see read messages, check Show All Messages instead.

Netscape Navigator 2.x or 3.x mail is capable of displaying mail messages that contain HTML, complete with hyperlinks. You can decode ROT13 scrambling by selecting the View menu and choosing Unscramble (ROT13). To show full message headers, from the Options menu, select Show Headers, then check All. You can set Netscape Navigator 3.x to wrap the lines of mail messages so that they never go off the side of the Netscape Navigator window by going to the View menu and selecting Wrap Long Lines.