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WebMail User's Guide

What is WebMail?

WebMail is a web-browser-based e-mail program that can be used by anyone whose e-mail address ends in metnet.edu, METNET's domain. You can sort messages in various ways, categorize messages into separate mailboxes, do mass deletes, customize the interface to suit your tastes, make group lists, etc. WebMail utilizes the IMAP protocol to retrieve mail.

What's IMAP?

  • IMAP = Internet Message Access Protocol
  • An IMAP e-mail client stores all of your mail on a central server, giving you access to all your messages, old and new, anywhere a Web browser is available.

Sources of Trouble

If you use WebMail and at a later time use a POP3 based e-mail package to fetch your mail, some inconvenient things can happen.

  • IMAP stores mail and mailbox meta-information in a dummy e-mail message which it hides from you. Going back to POP3 will expose this sneaky message, which contains a dire looking warning "Do not delete this message", without much more explanation. This alarms some people and annoys others. Deleting the message may confuse IMAP based e-mail clients when you next use them, and the message will get re-created next time you fetch mail via IMAP.
  • If you create IMAP mailboxes (other than the main incoming mailbox that is common both to POP3 and IMAP) on the server and move any messages into them, these messages will be inaccessible to POP3 clients. Some people will think the messages have disappeared or been deleted.
  • After using an IMAP mailer, some POP clients will think everything in the inbox has become new (which, in a strict byte-for-byte sense, it has) and re-download everything.

Refer to the WebMail FAQ Page for additional information.

Getting Started

  1. Open your web browser and go to www.metnet.edu/email
  2. Click the link that says: E-mail Login
  3. Select your preferred version of WebMail: WebMail 2.0 or 3.0.
  4. Enter your METNET Internet ID (Username) and Password. WebMail will automatically fetch all new messages (and any old messages that you have not deleted) from the mail server and will list them for you in a typical in-box format.

WebMail 2.0 (Pro) Guide

WebMail 3.0 Guide