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Email Client Setup

The two mail programs covered here are Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook. For other email clients, refer to your program's help documentation.

Features of the email system:

• All incoming mail from the system is encrypted using SSL.
• All outgoing mail to the system is encrypted using STARTTLS, which is sometimes also (erroneously) called TLS.

These measures ensure that sensitive information such as passwords and message contents cannot be intercepted and read as they pass through the public Internet. It is considerably stronger security than most mail services.

In addition, we always use IMAP mailboxes - these leave the mail on the server unless you explicitly delete it, ensuring it is available from all of the mail clients that you use.

NOTE: See also Firewall Settings below if you are stll having problems connecting to our mail service.

Mozilla Thunderbird (recommended)

Mozilla Thunderbird is highly recommended. It is available for free from:

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/

The instructions below are based on Thunderbird version 3.1.3, but should work for all of the 3.0 and 3.1 versions.

Incoming mail settings

1. Start Thunderbird. If you have just installed Thunderbird then it may show a "Mail Account Setup" wizard to help you set up your first email account, in which case you can skip the next two steps.
2. Under the "Edit" menu, select "Account Settings". The "Account Settings" window will be displayed.
3. Under "Account Actions" select  "Add Mail Account ...". The Thunderbird "Mail Account Setup" wizard will appear.
4. Enter your name (can be anything you like), email address and password. Your email address is the address of your mailbox on our server. It is also the same as your user name used to log into the mailbox. We will use the fictional example "aperson@my.domain" for the remaining steps.
5. Click "Continue".
6. Thunderbird will then attempt to automatically discover our mail server's settings by trying various ways to access our server. If we control your domain name (the part after the '@' in your email address - 'my.domain' in our example) this may work. Otherwise, "Stop" the operation, and (IMPORTANT!) make sure the "Incoming mail is set to "IMAP" - then use the "Manual Setup" option, and find your "Server Settings" in the left-hand column of the "Account Setup" window.
7. Use the following settings:
   • Server type: this cannot be changed at this point - it should be IMAP (hence the IMPORTANT! part above) - if it isn't IMAP, remove the account and start again.
   • Server Name: mail.sustainablesoftware.com.au
   • Port: 993
   • User Name: aperson@my.domain (for example)
   • Connection security: SSL/TLS
   • DON'T check the "Use secure authentication" box
   • any other settings on that tab as per your preferences
8. Verify that you have entered the details correctly with no typos.
9. Click "OK" and return to Thunderbird's main window. You should now see your account listed in the left-hand pane.
10. You can attempt to access your inbox by double-clicking it.

Setting up outgoing mail

1. If you use your ISP's mail server for sending email, and you wish to continue doing so, you can ignore this section. Note however we probably can't help you to diagnose or fix email sending problems if your do that.
2. In the  "Edit" menu, select "Account Settings".
3. "Account Settings" window, at bottom of the left-hand pane, you'll see "Outgoing Server (SMTP)". Click on this now.
4. You can Add" or Edit" an outgoing mail server here.
5. Use the following settings:
   • Description: Sustainable Software SMTP (or whatever you like)
   • Server Name: mail.sustainablesoftware.com.au
   • Port: 587
   • User Name: aperson@my.domain (for example)
   • DON'T check the "Use secure authentication" box
   • Connection security: STARTTLS
6. Click on "OK" to close the "Account Settings" window.
7. You can tell Thunderbird which outgoing server to use for a particular mailbox by selecting the mailbox name in the left-hand side of "Account Settings" and modifying the "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" setting to suit.

Reviewing Settings

If you are still having problems, review your settings under "Account settings" in the "Edit" menu.

Your account settings for incoming mail should look something like this:

(although if you are using our email server as the default for outgoing mail, "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" will show "Use Default Server") and this:

Outgoing mail settings should look like this:

Firewall

NOTE: See also "Firewall Settings" below if you are having problems connecting to our mail service.

Microsoft Outlook (not recommended)

Our instructions for Microsoft Outlook have become out of date, and so have been removed until we an get our hands on a recent version.

Firewall settings

Most firewalls shouldn't have a problem.

We have no step by step instructions for this as each brand of firewall is different. Generally speaking, you need to be able make outgoing connections to ports 993 (IMAPS - for accessing email) and 587 (SMTP - for sending email). If you are inside an organisation, and the firewall has these ports closed, you need to ask your IT administration if they can be opened. Generally, I have found that universities wont do this. If not, you need to use webmail.