Cornell WebMail

Sign in to Cornell WebMail

WebMail is available only to people with CIT Postoffice mail accounts.

• If you are a student who received their Cornell email account in April 2009 or later, you don't have a postoffice account. You will use Cmail instead.
• If you are a student who received their Cornell email account before April 2009, you will be able to use Cornell WebMail until you switch to Cmail (which we encourage you to do). After switching, you will be able to use Webmail in read-only mode for 35 days after you set up your Cmail account. After 35 days, WebMail will no longer be available to you.

Not sure if you have a postoffice account?

Cornell WebMail is a convenient way to check your email you're not at your own computer. It allows you to send and receive messages and attachments, and it encrypts (scrambles) your password, which means better security for you and for Cornell's networks.

You can use WebMail on any computer that has a web browser, such as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.

Getting Started

Through uPortal.Cornell: Once in uPortal.Cornell, click on the Bear Access tab. In the Bear Access channel, click on WebMail.

From any browser: Start your browser, then navigate to http://webmail.cornell.edu

You will need CUWebLogin to log in. If you do not already have a Kerberos ticket active, you will be asked to log in with your NetID and password.

WebMail should now be started and your INBOX should be in front of you.

Where's the rest of my mail? If you use Eudora, Thunderbird, or another email program to download your messages to your own computer, those messages will only appear in WebMail if you have set up your email program to "Leave mail on server" or if you use IMAP. Read more about POP vs IMAP (two methods for handling and storing your messages) and how to configure your email program to best meet your needs.

Your Inbox

The main part of the screen shows your messages.

• Unread messages appear in bold. Messages you have read are not bold.
  
  
• Date:
  

• If a message was received today, the time it was received will be displayed.
• If a message was received within the past week (but not today) the day of the week and the time will be displayed.
• If a message was received more than a week ago, the date will be displayed

• A plus sign ( + ) before the Subject means there is an attachment associated with this message.
  
  
• An upper-case "A" before the Subject means you have replied (or "answered") this message using WebMail.
  
  
• You can sort your messages by any one of the columns by clicking on the small grey icon next to the column header. The three icons are:

	not sorted by this column
	sorted A-Z or oldest to newest
	sorted Z-A or newest to oldest

• To the left of the sender's name for each message is a check box. You may use these boxes to select one or more messages, then tell WebMail what to do with the selection. See Managing Your Mail below for specifics.
  
  
• If there are more messages than will fit on one page, you can click on Next to go to the next page, or on a page number.

Reading Email

Click on the Subject of a message to read that message. Above the body of the message you will see a header like this:

• To return to your Inbox, click Message List
  
  
• To delete a message, click Delete
  
  
• Use Previous and Next to jump from message to message
  
  
• To send this message to someone, click Forward
  
  
• To reply to this message, click Reply or Reply All (which also sends a copy to everyone who received the message).

Sending Email

Click on Compose near the top of the screen
or
Click on Addresses then click on an address.

• If you used the Address link, the To line will already be filled in. Otherwise you can type in an email address or click on from this screen. You can also type in any nickname that appears in your address book. To send your message to more than one person, separate their email addresses (or nicknames) with commas.
  
  
• If you type in the address by hand, be sure to use the complete address (for example, ewe2@cornell.edu, not just ewe2).
  
  
• Enter your text in the large box. You can attach files (see Attachments below) or a signature (see Options below). Click either to send your message.
  
  
• If you are not ready to send your message you can save it by clicking , which will store it in your Draft folder. When you next open the message, you will be able to Resume Draft, which will allow you to complete and send the message.

Managing Your Email

Folders --- Filters --- Highlighting

WebMail allows you to create folders on the mail server where you can store and organize your email. (Within your Inbox you already have three folders: Drafts, Sent, and Trash.)

You can also have WebMail automatically move messages to specific folders and/or use color highlighting to identify messages.

Folders

To create folders, click Folders. You'll see a window like this one:

• The uppermost section lets you create new folders. By default, new folders will appear in your Inbox, but you can also create a hierarchy of folders by using the subfolder dropdown list. For example, you might want a folder called "Inquiries," with several folders inside it, one for each year.
  
  
• The second section lets you rename an existing folder. Select the folder you want to rename, then click You will be taken to a screen where you can edit the folder name.
  
  
• The third section lets you delete a folder.
  
  
• The final section will not be very important to most users. It determines whether you will see a folder you have created. You only see the folders that are "subscribed" (new folders are subscribed by default). If you want to store information but do not want the folder to appear on the list you see every day, unsubscribe that folder.

From the main WebMail screen you can view the contents of any folder by clicking on its name in the bar at the left. The dark grey bar at the top of the screen tells you which folder you are looking at.

Filters

Filters automatically handle your incoming mail, moving it to the folder you have chosen. To work with filters, click Options then Message Filters.

Next to What to Scan you can select either All messages or only unread messages. This selection applies to ALL filters you create.

To start a new filter, click New

Next to Match select the field you want the filter to check.

Next to Contains type in the text you want the filter to look for. For example, you could filter all messages from a particular email address, or all messages with a particular word in the Subject line.

Next to Move to select the folder where you want the messages to be stored.

Then click

Once you have created filters, you can edit or delete them using the links as shown above. You can also change their order using the Up and Down links.

Special Note:

The two filters shown in this example are VERY USEFUL! If you are using PureMessage, and we hope you are, these two filters will take most of the the spam and virus-infected messages out of your way. Please read the PureMessage pages for more information.

Highlighting

In the same way that filters move messages, message highlighting makes messages stand out using different colors. To work with filters, click Options then Message Highlighting.

To start a new highlight, click New

Next to Identifying name you can give the highlight a name. This is optional.

Select the color you want. You can chose a name from the dropdown list, type in the number value of the color, or simply click on one of the 95 colors shown.

Next to Matches select the field you want the highlight to check and the text you want to look for.

Then click

Once you have created filters, you can edit or delete them using the links as shown above.

Addresses

You can keep an address book in WebMail so you don't have to type every address every time.

Click on the Addresses link near the top of the screen.

For each address book entry, you must enter at least a nickname, an email address, and a first name or last name, then click

Please note:

• Nicknames must NOT include a space.
  
  
• You can type more than one address, separated by commas, in the Email address field. When you use this nickname, your message will be sent to each email address listed.
  
  
• When you are composing a message, you can type a nickname into the To, CC, and/or BCC fields instead of typing the full email address.
  
  
• When addressing a message, you can enter multiple nicknames, separated by commas.

Attachments

WebMail allows you to send and receive attachments. The total size of all files attached to a single message must be under 50 MB.

Sending Attachments

When composing an outgoing message:

1. Click on the button in the Attachment line.
2. A window will appear allowing you to choose a file on your hard drive.
3. Click Open or double-click to select a file.
4. The file name will appear in the Attachment field.
5. Click to attach the file.The name of attached file will appear below the Attachment field.
6. Repeat this process for each file you wish to attach.
7. To remove attachments, click in the check box next to the file(s) you want to delete. Then click

Receiving Attachments

When you receive attachments in an email, the message line will have a plus sign next to the Subject. When you open the message, the attachments will be listed as in this example:

Click on download to save the file to your computer. Some files can also be viewed in your browser. For example, you can view a graphics file before deciding whether or not to download it.

Don't confused with the Download this as a file link that appears just below the last line of text in the body of the message. If you click on this you will download a text file containing the body of the message, not the attachment.

Deleting Messages

In the INBOX, check the box next to the first column for the message or messages you want to delete, then click

or

When reading a message, click Delete.

Note: Deleted messages are NOT really gone at this point. Instead, they've been moved to the Trash folder. To delete them once and for all, no going back, click on the word "(purge)" which appears next to the Trash folder in the bar at the left or open the Trash folder and delete the messages there. Now they are really, really gone. Really