Internet – Webmail Usage and Policies


  • Webmail Usage

    Webmail Usage

    Eastex has recently introduced a new way to handle e-mail while you are away from your home computer. We have been testing the new mail server for a few months and feel confident you will like the new look and features. We welcome all feedback from our customers if you have questions or suggestions.

    In this article, we will highlight some of the new features as well as point out how to find items that have moved locations since the old webmail.

    Overview

    The new Webmail has a modern interface which should be familiar for users of Outlook and other mail clients for desktop.

    On the left are your folders. By default, you will have Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk, and Trash. If you’ve created additional folders in webmail or from your desktop client using IMAP, you will see those listed.

    The middle column is your messages list. It may be sorted any number of ways by clicking the ⚙️ but by default is sorted by Arrival Time, Descending (ie newest first).

    And of course, the right column will show the currently selected message.

    Displaying Images

    A quick note about messages with images: those pesky spammers have gotten smart! They’ve started inserting a very small image into messages that is unnoticeable to any casual e-mail reader. The image will report back to the spammer’s server, reporting that the e-mail has been opened.

    In order to prevent your e-mail from being reported as legitimate to spammers, we have chosen to disable remote image display by default. Those messages displaying remote images will appear with a warning:

    You have a couple of options within webmail. You can click Display Images for the current message if you know that the sender is legitimate. If there is an embedded image reporting back to a server, then it will report at this time.

    Your next option is to always display images, no matter the sender. This can be found in Settings > Displaying Messages > Display remote inline images > always > Save:

    The last option (and what we recommend) is to select ‘from known senders,’ allowing you to see images from contacts in your address book and those that you’ve previously sent messages.

    Contacts

    If you created contacts in our old webmail that you’d like to carry over, the process is simple. Login to the old webmail (oldmail.eastex.net) using your Eastex username and password. Go to Contacts, select the contacts you wish to transfer, then click Export Contacts.

    Old Webmail Contacts Export

    A CSV file will download to your computer. Remember the location (ie, Downloads folder) for the next step.

    Go to webmail.eastex.net and login with your Eastex credentials.

    Go to Contacts:
    Contacts button

    Click Import:

    Import button

    Import from file, choose the CSV, select your options, and click Import.

    Import Contacts

    A message will show which contacts were imported. Click Done.

    Import successful

    Your contacts have now been transferred!

    Address book

    Quarantine

    Where is Quarantine?

    Quarantine is now accessed from the top bar.

    You can also go to our support page from here, or if you are deep within settings, click the logo to jump back to your inbox.

    What’s new in Quarantine?

    Not much, to be honest. All the same features from the old Webmail system are still there, just found in different spots with a little different color. Let’s look around.

    Old Webmail

    New Webmail

    The old webmail had quarantine embedded in the side bar. When you clicked it, all of the quarantined messages were displayed. Then, you could Delete & Purge, Empty, Release, or Release and Report as Legitimate.

    The new webmail has all of those same options:

    • Release Mail = Release messages
    • Release & Trust = Release and Report messages as Legitimate email
    • Delete & Block – This option is new. It deletes the spam and adds the sender to your blocklist, all in one step.
    • Delete Mail = Delete & Purge
    • Clear All = Delete & Purge without having to check boxes next to each message

    Trusted Senders / Block Lists

    Since your Blocked List and Trusted List are integral to how Quarantine works, it makes sense to have those options displayed within quarantine, without having to go to a separate menu system.

    Old Webmail

    New Webmail

    So now, instead of going to Settings > Email Filtering > Blocked Senders / Trusted Senders, you simply click one of the icons at the top of the page.

    Happy E-mailing!

    There are a ton of new features with the new Webmail, and we hope you’ll find one or two of them useful. If you ever have any feedback or simply have a question, fill out the Provide Feedback form and we’ll get back to you shortly.

  • WebMail Intended for Remote/Secondary Use Only - Not for Use at Primary Computer

    Eastex Net provides our Email Login (WebMail) system to enable customers to access their e-mail from any Internet-enabled computer so that you can use your Eastex Net e-mail when away from your primary computer (on vacation, while at work away from your primary computer at home, while at home away from your primary computer at work, etc.).  The WebMail system is not intended to be used as your method of sending and receiving e-mail while at your primary computer. While at your primary computer, you should use an e-mail client (such as Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or other) for normal e-mail sending and receiving.

    The WebMail system leaves all retained messages whether read or unread on the e-mail server. Leaving messages on the server will eventually consume all of your 1GB** of mail storage on our server and cause additional e-mail messages being sent to your e-mail address to bounce back to the sender. Leaving messages on the server (by exclusive use of the WebMail system) can also cause you to receive “over quota” messages from the e-mail server. If you receive an over quota message from the e-mail server, once you remove messages from the mail server (by retrieving them with an e-mail client, or by deleting them through WebMail), you will receive a message advising you are no longer exceeding your quota.

    **This does not include the Quarantine folder – Quarantined messages do not count towards your 1GB quota limit on the server.

  • WebMail Server Storage Time Limits

    The mail server is configured to retain messages in the WebMail mailbox for 120 days. If messages are left on the WebMail server for over 120 days, the mail server will automatically delete the messages from the server. As long as you retrieve your e-mail messages from the mail server with an e-mail client, you will always have your messages retained on your computer, and the automated deletion from the server after 120 days will not affect your saved e-mail messages.

  • Quarantine Procedures

    The Eastex Net Email Server retains messages that it automatically places into Quarantine for seven (7) days before automatically purging those messages. Due to the enormous amount of disk space consumed by retention of junk email messages for longer periods, this retention period cannot be lengthened.

    (Quarantined messages do not count towards your 1GB quota limit on the server.)

  • Repeat/Duplicate Email Messages in E-mail Client (such as Outlook Express)

    Sometimes very large messages can cause your e-mail retrieval to take a very long time, or you may receive a corrupt message into your inbox on the mail server that simply will not download properly using an e-mail client. Stopping the e-mail client in the middle of downloading will cause you to receive the same messages you have already received (up to the point where you abandoned downloading) the next time you attempt to download with your e-mail client. In these situations, the WebMail server should be used to view these messages and after viewing the message you can determine if you wish to attempt to later download the message to your e-mail client, or if you simply want to delete and purge the message from the server to allow you to download your other e-mail messages. If you delete and purge the message(s) using WebMail, then you can logoff of WebMail and open your e-mail client and your messages should then download properly. If you encounter the issue again, the problematic message is still in your inbox on the mail server and you will need to go back through the steps to delete and purge until you remove the problematic message.

  • Norton Anti-Virus

    There have been numerous issues determined to be caused by various versions of Norton Anti-Virus being set to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail messages. The most common complaint is that the “server” has unexpectedly terminated your connection. This error is incorrectly advising this to be a “server” issue, when it is actually the anti-virus scanning software causing the issue. If you encounter this error, or experience slowness in retrieving large e-mail messages, please review your Norton software references for details on how to disable scanning of incoming and outgoing e-mail.

    Note: As long as you have Norton configured to scan files/folders that are created, moved, etc., you are still protected from infections accidentally getting onto your computer.

  • Forwarding Attachments in WebMail

    Some attachments received on messages and viewed in WebMail may not forward when you attempt to forward the message from within WebMail. This is caused by the way the attachment was originally attached. In those instances, you must save the attachment to your computer, then re-attach the saved attachment upon forwarding the original message. This workaround is not necessary when using an e-mail client (such as Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or other).