C O V I S P . N E T

Covisp uses IMAP email exclusively. While most companies out there are still using POP3 for their customers because it is easier for them to setup and support, we made the decision many years ago that IMAP was simply better in all respects. You can read our original writeup on the differences between IMAP and POP3 here (Click IMAP/POP3 FAQ). The marked increase n the availability of Broadband always-on connections and the increase in mobile computing has on served to reinforce that we made the right choice.

Just to be clear, all email on covisp.net is IMAP email.

Once mail is accepted by the server, it is delivered to you, regardless of the content. Most spam is stopped before it is accepted, and most malicious attachments are also rejected, but once the mail is accepted on your behalf it is always delivered. If the server thinks the mail is spam, it is delivered to your SPAM IMAP folder (which is named either SPAM or Junk). You should see this folder in your IMAP client, but if you are using the webmail, you might have to subscribe to it specifically. Messages that are tagged as spam are delivered as attachments so that the exact original unaltered message is available for recovery.

Now, the server can make mistakes about what is and is not spam, so if there is mail that is put in your SPAM folder that is not actually spam, you need to move it out of your SPAM folder. You can put it in any of the following folders: notspam NOTSPAM ham or HAM (the case matters, NotSpam will not work).

Here’s how to properly recover a message from the SPAM folder. First, open the attachment and tell your mail client to save that message to one of the notspam/ham folders above, then save it again to what ever folder you want the message to be saved in. The copy in the notspam/ham folder will be seen by the server and reprocessed, then discarded. You will know this is working properly as messages will disappear from this folder (probably after a day or so). This is why it is important to save a second copy somewhere else. If you re using webmail you will have to copy the entire folder, as the webmail is not capable of copying just the attachment.

You do not need to delete the message out of the SPAM mailbox, those messages are automatically deleted after a few days.

Now, you should probably be noticing that the server is capable of sorting your mail. It sorts into two mailboxes, either the SPAM mailbox or the INBOX. However, you can create pretty much an unlimited number of folders, even nested folders, and setup rules in your mail client to sort mail automatically. And the best part is, since this is IMAP, the sorting that is done by one client applies to the mail on the server, so you see exactly the same folders and sorting on any client you use, even your iPhone.

For example, here is the folder hierarchy for my admin email

admin
   .2002
   .2003
   .2004
   .2005
   .2006
   .2007
   .2008
   .2009
      .2009-10
      .2009-11
      .2009-12
   .FLAG

The yearly folders contain the messages from those year that I am keeping (the monthly reports in my case), then I have the three most current months (all the server messages and logs) and then I have a special folder for any messages that are particularly important. My personal email account looks very different:

Family <various cousins and inlaws get sorted here
   Bro \
   Dad  \ I get a lot of mail from these, so they get a folder each
   Mom  /
   Sis /
Friends <friends I hear from rarely get sorted here
   Adam \
   Bart  \
   Cathy  \ again, lots of mail from these
   Homer  /
   Maggie/
   Lisa/
Facebook
School
Twitter

All my family email is sorted, email for the kids’ schools is sorted, my friends are sorted, and very little mail ends up in my INBOX.

I look at my INBOX as if it was the top of the desk in my office. I don’t want big stacks of unsorted papers on my desk because it makes it very hard, if not impossible, to get any work done. I want just a few things on my desk that require my immediate attention. When I am done with something on my desk, I need to move it. I can either throw it out, or I can file it. If I file it, it needs to be somewhere that makes sense to me so that I can find it. In the case of my admin account, a date based sorting makes the most sense, while in the case of my personal email it makes a lot more sense to sort by person or subject. I have another account that is just for mailing lists, and on that one I sort first by the list, and then by the date, so I will have a folder named freebsd-admins.2009-12, for example.

The important thing is to come up with some sort of sorting that makes sense to you and will make your life easier. Nothing is more frustrating that having to wade through an inbox of 8,000 messages trying to find just the right one.

One other thing to keep in mind is that while,e Squirrelmail is very nice and useful, it is not a replacement for a full email client unless your email needs are very light. if you get more than a few dozen emails a month, you are much better off using a real client instead of the webmail. use the webmail when you’re away from your computer or need to check something, but it is really not robust or fullfeatured enough for much more than that.