Overview
The behavior and the look-and-feel of the application can be adjusted in various ways. The Settings application holds all the switches and panels to configure your personal webmail.
Preferences
The user preferences let you adjust various options and settings that control the behavior and the UI of the webmail application. The numerous settings are grouped by the following sections:
Note: After changing preferences, don’t forget to save them by clicking the Save button below the settings form.
User Interface
- Language: The webmail is available in numerous languages. Switch it here if you like. When accessing the application, the language is automatically chosen from your computer’s operating system language.
- Time zone: Dates displayed anywhere (e.g. when a message is sent) will be automatically translated into your local time zone. Set this to Auto to let the system use your computer’s time zone settings or select a specific time zone from the list.
- Time format: Select how time (hours, minutes) is displayed.
- Date format: Select the format of how dates should be displayed.
- Pretty dates: With this option checked, dates close to today will be translated into relative terms like Today, Yesterday, etc.
- Display next list entry after delete/move: Enable this option to display the next message in the list when you delete or move the message.
- Refresh: Set the interval you want the system to check for updates (e.g. for new messages arrived)
- Handle popups as standard windows: When the Email application opens messages or the compose form in a new window, this can either be a detached window with a smaller size and without toolbar buttons or, with this option activated, be a regular browser window or even just another tab in your current window. If enabled, all windows opened by the webmail application obey the settings of your browser.
- Register protocol handler: You can register this webmail app to be opened whenever you click an email link somewhere on the web.
- Connect to XMPP chat server: Choose to connect to the XMPP chat server automatically or manually or never to disable chat.
Mailbox View
- Mark previewed messages read: Select the delay to mark new messages as read when opening them in the preview pane.
- Request for receipts: This option controls the behavior when you open a message for which the sender requested a read receipt.
- Expand message threads: When listing messages in threads, this option controls how conversation groups are expanded in the list.
- Rows per page: The messages list displays this number of messages at a time (aka a page). Increasing this number may result in longer loading times when opening a mailbox folder.
- Use an infinite scroll for the message list: The message list populates the next email messages automatically as you scroll down.
- New Messages
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Check all folders for new messages: By default, only the Inbox is checked for new messages periodically. If you have server-side filters installed that will move incoming messages to other folders, you should check this option.
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Display browser notifications on new messages: Enable this option to receive a browser notification on receiving new messages.
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Display desktop notifications on new messages: Enable this option to receive a desktop notification on receiving new messages.
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Play the sound on a new message: Enable this option to receive a play a sound notification on receiving new messages.
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Close desktop notification: Choose a time interval to close the desktop notification shown on receiving new messages.
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Desktop Notifications: Choose time interval and display mailbox option on receiving new messages. Click Test to verify if you receive a desktop notification. Select Off to disable receiving desktop notification.
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How to open a message on notification click: Decide to open the new message received in a new tab or window.
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Displaying Messages
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Open message in a new window: With this option checked, double-clicking a message in the email view will open it in a new window instead of the current browser window/tab.
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Show email address with display name: With this option enabled, the email id displays in the bracket next to the display name in the recipient box.
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Display HTML: Check this option to display formatted messages as the sender intended it. When disabled, formatted emails will be converted to plain text.
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Display remote inline images: Formatted (HTML) messages can contain references to images that have to be loaded from a remote server. This can harm your privacy and reveal to the sender that you opened the message. This technique is often used by spammers to verify that your email address works and you may receive more spam.
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Display attached images below the message: Enable this option if you want image attachments to be displayed below the message text.
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Display emoticons in plain text messages: Enabling this option will allow you to insert emoticons in a plain text message.
Advanced options
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Default Character Set: Some email systems do not specify the character set when sending messages. In such rare cases, the receiver (your webmail application) has to make an assumption on how to display the special characters (e.g. éäç) and therefore uses this setting. Select the character set/language the majority of your email correspondents use.
Composing Messages
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Compose in a new window: With this option checked, the message compose form will open in a new window instead of the current browser window/tab.
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Compose HTML messages: Check this option to enable the rich text (HTML) editor when composing a new message. This is only the default setting for HTML message composing. It can be toggled at any time while composing.
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Automatically save draft: While you write a new message, a copy will be saved to the Drafts folder every few minutes. Select the interval or disable the automatic saving here.
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Always request a return receipt: Activate the Return receipt sending option by default for new messages.
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Always request a delivery status notification: Activate the Delivery status notification sending option by default for new messages.
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Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to: Choose the current folder for saving the reply message instead of saving it to the Sent folder.
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When replying: This option controls whether and where to place the quoted original text when replying to a message.
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Messages forwarding: Controls the mode of how messages are forwarded by default when clicking the Forward button without choosing a forward mode.
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Default font of HTML message: When writing a formatted (HTML) message, this font face and size is used for the default text formatting.
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Default action of the “Reply all” button: When replying to messages coming from mailing lists, this setting controls how to reply to them.
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Remind about forgotten attachments: Controls the reminder about forgotten attachments to be displayed when sending messages.
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Enable emoticons: This option enables you to insert emoticons in the messages.
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Signature Options:
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Automatically add signature: Select in which cases the signature text from your sender identity is added to a new message.
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When replying remove original signature: As the name suggests, this setting removes detected signatures from the original message when citing it in the reply.
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Place signature below the quoted message: Control the place where the signature should be displayed in the message
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Force standard separator in signatures: This option will add a separator to the signature.
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Spellcheck Options: These checkboxes control the behavior of the spell checker function.
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Ignore words with symbols/numbers / all letters capitalized: Controls the spell check to ignore the words with symbols or numbers or all letters capitalized.
Advanced options
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Attachment names: Sometimes receivers of your email messages have difficulties correctly see the names of the attached files. Adjust this setting in case you get complaints about garbled attachment names.
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Use MIME encoding for 8-bit characters: This enables sending message texts the safe way but slightly increases the amount of data to be sent. Activate this option in case people cannot properly read the message you send out.
Address Book
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Default address book: Select the default address book where new contacts are saved when adding them from the mail view.
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List contacts as: Choose how names are displayed in the contact list.
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Sorting column: Select the contact attribute used for sorting the contacts in the list.
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Rows per page: The number of contacts displayed at a time (aka a “page”) in the contact list.
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Skip alternative email addresses in auto-completion: With this option checked, every contact will only appear once in the auto-completion list that appears when you start typing in the recipient field. The first email address of the selected contact will then be inserted. If disabled, all email addresses of a matching contact are displayed for selection.
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Use automatic address book: Controls if the automatic address book to be used or not.
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Use automatically-collected addresses for auto-completion: Controls if automatically-collected addresses to be used or not for auto-completion
Server Settings
This section provides more advanced settings that control how messages are treated by the email server.
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Mark the message as read on delete: With this option enabled, unread messages are also flagged as read when deleting them right away.
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Flag the message for deletion instead of delete: Email messages can be flagged as deleted first before they’re finally removed from a folder. That also allows them to un-delete them later on. In order to finally delete them, use the Compact command from the Mailbox folders operations menu.
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Do not show deleted messages: This option suppresses messages flagged as deleted from being listed.
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If moving messages to Trash fails, delete them: Moving to Trash can fail if the Trash folder isn’t selected or over quota. With this option enabled, messages are deleted from the current folder when you attempt to move them to Trash.
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Directly delete messages in Junk: Messages in the Junk folder are also move to the Trash first when deleting them. Skip that step by enabling this option.
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Clear Trash on logout: As the option name says, this will empty the Trash folder when you terminate the session.
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Compact Inbox on logout: This will remove all messages flagged for deletion from the Inbox when you log-off
Encryption
Provides options to enable the encryption which allows sending digitally signed email messages.
If you want to use PGP regularly, keep the following first three options activated by default.
- Enable message encryption and signing
- Enable message signatures verification
- Enable message decryption
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Sign all messages by default: If enabled, all messages you send will have a character of non-repudiation. The recipient will be sure that you have sent the message.
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Encrypt all messages by default: This option encrypts all messages automatically with the public key of the addressee (if he uses PGP) - so the message will only be readable with his private key.
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Attach my public PGP key by default: This attaches automatically your public PGP key to all outgoing mails. It allows that your PGP using recipients are able to verify the signature of a message or to send you encrypted messages if needed.
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Keep private key passwords for The time-frame in which the application keeps the password of your private key. Once the time has elapsed, it will you ask for the password, when sending mail.
Message Highlights
Highlight or color code the messages received in the mailbox from a specific recipient or sent to a specific sender.
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Managing Folders
This section of the settings task allows you to manage the tree of mailbox folders.
The hierarchical folder tree is displayed in the middle list widget where you can select a single folder by clicking it.
Folder information and some settings then appear in the right properties pane.
There might be folders that are grayed out and which cannot be edited nor deleted or renamed. Such folders are virtual folders that are only there for structuring but which cannot contain any messages.
Some Special System Folders cannot be renamed or unsubscribed because they have special purposes and are used by system processes.
Subscribe to Folders
In the folder list, the right column indicates whether a folder is subscribed and by clicking the checkbox, the subscription for that folder can be changed.
Subscribed folders appear in the email view whereas unsubscribed ones are hidden and only visible here.
Create a new Folder
- Click the Create new Folder icon (+) in the toolbar at the top of the right (folder properties) pane
- Enter a name for the new folder in the properties form on the right
- Select a parent folder or — to create the folder on top-level
- Click the Save button below the form to finally create it
Note: The Parent folder field is already pre-selected with the folder currently selected in the folder list on the left.
Manage the Folder Hierarchy
Folders can be nested to build a hierarchical structure to store your emails. Even an existing folder can be made a sub-folder of another one or moved to the top level.
To move a folder simply drag & drop it with the mouse from the list onto the desired parent folder.
Alternatively, the parent folder can be selected in the property form on the right, and by hitting Save the currently selected folder is moved to its new parent.
Delete Folders
- Select a folder in the list
- From the toolbar at the top in the right pane, click Delete
- Confirm the deletion
Search for Folders
If the list of folders happens to be very long, a search box can be unfolded from the magnifier glass icon in the header of the folder list. The folder tree is reduced to matching folders as you type in the search box.
Right above the search box, a drop-down menu provides ways to reduce the folder list to common scopes (aka namespaces) like Personal, Shared, or Other users. The selection may vary with the capabilities of your email server.
Sender Identities
The settings here control the name(s) and email address(es) stated as the sender when you send out email messages. Depending on the server configuration, you can define multiple sender identities or only adjust the name and other control fields.
Settings
This first block contains general properties for the selected sender identity:
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Display name: The full name displayed in the recipient’s email program upon receiving your message.
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Email: The email address stated as the sender of email messages you send with this identity. Please enter a valid email address that is handled by your email account. Otherwise, message sending might fail because of an invalid sender address.
Note: The Email field might not be visible or editable. This is no malfunction but a restriction set by the server administrator to prevent users from sending emails with faked sender addresses.
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Organization: Some email programs display the organization field when receiving messages from you with this filled out.
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Reply-to: Enter an email address that differs from the identity’s email address here in order to force recipients to send answers to that address instead of the sender's email address.
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Bcc: Specify an email address here that will receive blind copies of every message you send with this identity.
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Set default: Check this box to make the current identity the default selection when writing new messages. You can still choose another sender identity while composing a message, though.
Signature
Every sender identity can have its own signature text which will be appended to the message text when you start writing a new email message. Visit Settings > Preferences > Composing Messages to configure when and how signatures are inserted.
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Signature: Enter the signature text here.
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HTML signature: Check this option if you mainly send formatted (HTML) messages and enable the formatting of your signature. The text box above will then show a toolbar to adjust formatting.
Adding Images to a Signature
HTML formatted signatures also allow embedding images that are sent with outgoing messages. To add an image to your signature, first, check the HTML signature box. Then find an image file on your computer and drag & drop it into the signature box. The image can be moved around or resized within the editor box using the mouse.
Note: Instead of pulling an image file into the editor, you can also paste an image from your clipboard after copying it from another application or browser window.
Open the image in an image viewer or browser window, then press Ctrl+C to copy it, click into the signature text box at the position where you want the image to appear, and press Ctrl+V to insert it from the clipboard.
Managing Multiple Sender Identities
Unless restricted by the server administrator, the identity list has control buttons for adding and deleting sender identities. If present, click the + icon in the identity list footer to create a new identity. Fill out the form and click Save to create it. The new identity is now added to the list and can be edited or deleted from there.
The Delete button also located in the identities list footer will delete the currently selected identity after displaying a confirmation dialog.
Canned Responses
This settings section lets you manage your personal boilerplates (aka canned responses) which are handy when replying to messages with prepared responses.
Edit Responses
The middle pane displays a list of saved responses. Select one to see its name and text in the form on the right. You can right away edit both and save the changes by clicking the Save button.
Note If the fields are not editable and there’s no Save button below, this is a global response defined by the system administrator which cannot be edited.
Create a New Response
Click the + icon in the response list footer to create a new response. Give it a name, enter the response text and finish by clicking the Save button.
Delete a Response
The Delete button also located in the response list footer will delete the currently selected item after displaying a confirmation dialog.
The button may be grayed out for global responses managed by the system administrator.