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MIT WebMail: A Way to Get Your E-Mail on the Go

Jag Patel

[Now faculty can access their MIT e-mail account from any computer with a Web browser and an internet connection, explains Senior IT Consultant Jag Patel.]

In Spring 2002, Information Systems (IS) announced support for WebMail, which allows MIT users to access e-mail from a web browser. Since then, close to 9,000 MIT Community members have used it, including over 200 members of the MIT faculty. WebMail is available from http://web.mit.edu/webmail/, or log in directly at http://webmail.mit.edu.

WebMail is a convenient and secure way to access e-mail using almost any Web browser from just about anywhere in the world. IS introduced the service to meet the demand for ways to access MIT e-mail remotely, where remotely might be a research lab on-campus, or another country.

The MIT WebMail home page summarizes browser requirements and contains links to additional information, including instructions for use. IS continues to work on the program and will install updates periodically and post announcements about changes, problems and outages on the WebMail page. Help can be obtained and feedback provided by sending e-mail to webmail@mit.edu.

 

How WebMail Works

Using a recent version of a browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer on a computer connected to the Internet, members of the MIT community should be able to get to MIT WebMail, no matter where they are. The only requirements are a browser that supports SSL encryption, and has JavaScript enabled. An MIT CA certificate also will need to be installed on the computer; recent browsers will prompt the user for the installation. The MIT personal certificate is not necessary to access WebMail.

At this time WebMail works only with e-mail accounts ending with @mit.edu. It does not work with other MIT mail domains, such as @ai.mit.edu, or with e-mail forwarding accounts such as @sloan.mit.edu.

When the user logs in, WebMail displays a list of messages in the Inbox. Messages can be read, replied to, forwarded, deleted or selected and marked in various ways. The user can send new messages, create new folders and search the Inbox. When the user logs out from WebMail, messages and folders that have not been deleted will be available for downloading when the user next accesses e-mail in the usual way.

 

Benefits of Using WebMail

WebMail does not require users to install any software on a machine to check e-mail – only an internet-connected browser is needed. WebMail allows users to manipulate messages directly on the MIT post office servers, allowing users to leave mail there until they are deleted and purged, or downloaded to a local machine. WebMail also allows users to take advantage of a 100 MB mail quota, which is considerably higher than accounts offered by public webmail services, such as Yahoo or Hotmail.

WebMail does have some limitations: it is not intended for long-term, archival handling of e-mail, because of enforced quota limits for e-mail accounts on the post office server. Currently, WebMail does not provide an easy way to move messages from the post office server to a local computer or Athena home directory. Other features typical of desktop e-mail clients-such as keeping local copies of messages sent, providing an address book, filters, and long-term archiving-are unavailable.

 

IS Support

"Email Scenarios and Recommended Solutions" http://web.mit.edu/is/help/email/scenarios.html provides information about e-mail clients and protocols supported by IS that can help users take full advantage of WebMail. IS provides support for WebMail through the Computing Help Desk and online documentation, and it is covered in Quick Start classes about e-mail.

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