Using mail.umich.edu for E-Mail on the Web, continued

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U-M Information Technology Central Services * S4297 * July 2002

Using the Addressbook

The addressbook lets you maintain your own list of e-mail addresses. You may find the addressbook useful if you correspond frequently with people outside the University whose addresses are not in the U-M Online Directory. You can also use it to set nicknames for people that you can then use as short cuts for their addresses when sending them e-mail.

Individual entries only

Note that the mail.umich.edu addressbook can only include individual entries. To create e-mail groups, use the U-M Online Directory instead. For details, see Working With E-Mail Groups Using the U-M Online Directory On the Web (S4277).

Opening your addressbook

  1. In the icon bar at the top of the page, click the Addressbook icon.

    Screen shot of the Addressbook icon.

  2. Your addressbook will open. If you have not yet added any entries to your addressbook, the page will be blank.

    Screen shot of a blank addressbook. Shows that to get back to e-mail from your addressbook, you click the Mail icon at the far right of the icon bar.

    ATTENTION FORMER MY.UMICH USERS: If you created an addressbook in my.umich, your addressbook was automatically transferred to mail.umich.edu for you. Mail.umich.edu cannot recognize group entries, however, so if you had any group entries, those were not transferred.

Adding people to your addressbook

From within an e-mail message:

  1. Click the Addressbook icon next to an e-mail address to add that address to your addressbook.

    Screen shot showing the book-shaped icon to click to add a return address to your addressbook.

  2. You will see a confirmation message that the address has been added.

    Screen shot of confirmation message.

    If you want to add information, such as a nickname or postal address, to the new addressbook entry, you can edit the entry. Only the available information, such as e-mail address and possibly name, will be added for now.

From the addressbook:

  1. Open your addressbook by clicking the mail.umich.edu Addressbook icon in the icon bar at the top of the page.

  2. In the addressbook icon bar, click Add.

    Screen shot of the Add icon.

  3. Enter contact information for your entry. At a minimum, you should enter a name and e-mail address.

    Screen shot showing the addition of a person to the addressbook.

    The new entry will be added to your addressbook.

Opening an addressbook entry

  1. Open your addressbook by clicking the Addressbook icon in the my.umich.edu icon bar at the top of the page.

  2. Open an entry by clicking the person's name. (Do not click the e-mail address; that will open a new message addressed to the person whose address you clicked.)

    Screen shot showing where to click a name to open an addressbook entry.

Deleting people from your addressbook

  1. Open the addressbook entry that you want to delete.

  2. Click the Delete link.

    Screen shot of the Delete link.

    The entry will be deleted, and you will be returned to your addressbook.

Editing addressbook entries

  1. Open the addressbook entry that you want to edit.

  2. Click the Edit link.

    Scren shot of the Edit link.

  3. Make whatever changes you want to the entry.

  4. Click the Save button to save your changes.

Importing other addressbooks

You can import addressbooks from Pine or Mulberry. To do this, you must first get a copy onto your local computer of the addressbook you want to import. With Pine, you need to download a copy from IFS. With Mulberry, the addressbook is already stored on your local hard drive.

Downloading Your Pine Address Book

Use HostExplorer for Windows, Fetch for Macintosh, or another FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program of your choice to get a copy of the file in your IFS home directory called .addressbook. (HostExplorer and Fetch are included in the U-M Internet Access Kit.) For FTP instructions, see

Importing Pine and Mulberry Addressbooks

  1. Open your mail.umich.edu addressbook by clicking the Addressbook icon in the mail.umich.edu icon bar at the top of the page.

  2. In the addressbook icon bar at the top of the page, click the Import/Export icon.

    Screen shot of the Import/Export icon.

  3. Import your addressbook:

    1. From the Select the format to import from menu, select either Mulberry Addressbook or Pine Addressbook, whichever is appropriate.

    2. Click the Browse button to navigate among the files on your computer to find your addressbook file. Select it.

    3. Click Import.

    Screen shot showing the importing of an addessbook.

    The entries will be added to your addressbook.

Sending a message to someone in your address book

From the addressbook

  1. In your addressbook, click the address of the person to whom you want to send e-mail.

    Screen shot showing where to click an address to open a message addressed to that person.

  2. The Message Composition window will open, with the To field already filled in for you. Write your message and send it as usual.

While composing a message

  1. In the Message Composition window, click the Address Book icon.

    Screen shot showing where to type a nickname and click Expand Names.

  2. In the Contact List window,

    1. Select the person(s) to whom you want to send mail from the list on the left side of the window.

    2. Click the To>> button to enter the selected address(es) in the To field of your message. (Click Cc>> to enter the address(es) in the Cc field, and the Bcc>> button to enter them in the Bcc field. "Cc" stands for "carbon copy" and "Bcc" stands for "blind carbon copy.")

    3. Click OK.

    Screen shot of Addressbook icon in the Message Composition window.

    You will be returned to the Message Composition window, with the addresses filled in.

Using nicknames

  1. In the Message Composition window, type a nickname (that you have already entered in your addressbook) in the To field of the message.

  2. Click the Expand Names icon.

    Screen shot showing where to select a recipient, select the To (or Cc or Bcc) field, and click OK to send a message to someone in your addressbook.

    Mail.umich.edu will look in your addressbook for the nickname and then add the appropriate address to your message. If mail.umich.edu cannot find anything in your addressbook, it will search the U-M Online Directory next for information to use to expand the name into an address.

WARNING! You must click Expand Names to make nicknames work correctly. If you do not click Expand Names, mail.umich.edu will add @umich.edu to the nickname instead of using your addressbook.

Searching Your Addressbook and the U-M Online Directory

  1. From within your addressbook, click Search.

    Screen shot of Search icon within the addressbook.

  2. Select and enter your search criteria:

    1. From the From menu on the right, select whether you want to search your addressbook or the U-M Online Directory.

    2. From the Find menu, select whether you want to search by name, nickname, or e-mail address (if you are searching your addressbook), or search by name or uniqname (if you are searching the U-M Online Directory).

    3. In the Matching field, type the text you want to search for.

    4. Click the Search button at the far right.

      Screen shot showing where to enter your search query.

      Your search results will be displayed.

Log Out When You Are Finished

Be sure to log out when you are finished using mail.umich.edu. This is especially important if you are using a shared computer, where, if you do not log out, others could then access your e-mail mailbox. To log out, click the Logout icon at the top of any page.

Screen shot showing selection of a folder from the Folders pop-up menu.

Your E-Mail Quota

You can store 40 MB of e-mail messages -- your "quota" -- on the mail server machine. If you use more than this space, you go over your quota. If that happens, your incoming messages will be held until you delete enough of your existing messages from the server to make space for your new mail to be delivered. If you exceed your mailbox quota, you will get a message from "Godzilla the Quota Server" letting you know that you need to delete some of your messages.

To see how much space you have left in your mailbox, send an e-mail message to

quota@<x>.imap.itd.umich.edu
where you substitute the first letter of your uniqname for the x; do not type the angle brackets. For example, if your uniqname were bjensen, you would send the message to quota@b.imap.itd.umich.edu. You will get a message back (from postmaster on the machine where your mail is stored) telling you how much of your quota you are using.

CAUTION! If your mailbox is over quota for a week or more, Godzilla will begin returning to the senders any messages that have been held for seven days.

Additional Resources

Visit ITCS's Information System to obtain ITCS computer documentation and other resources. A list of relevant documents follows:

We welcome your comments; please send e-mail.

ITCS's Online Help Desk provides a variety of computing help resources.

For further help with e-mail, send e-mail or phone (734) 764-HELP.


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