Journey of an Incoming Email Message

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IMAP Email Client

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Journey of an Incoming Email Message

Before you see an email message, that message travels through a complex system of hardware and software. The journey is summarized in an overview and illustration and then explained more fully. A final section suggests where to look for mail that seems to be lost.

• Overview
• Illustration
• How Does a Message Get from the Internet to Your Server Inbox?
  
• How Do You Get Your Messages from Your Server Inbox?
  
• How Can You Get Your Messages Anywhere, Anytime?
  
• Lost Messages?

Overview

The four steps below provide a brief overview of the journey.

1. Somebody composes an email message and hits the send button. The email message starts its journey through the internet.
   
   
2. Just before it arrives on campus, it is scanned for viruses and spam at the Message Center.
   
   
3. Unless quarantined and held by the Message Center, the message continues to Haverford's mail server, a server that collects all email sent to Haverford email accounts. This server collects your messages and stores them in your server inbox. This is sometimes referred to as your IMAP inbox or your server/IMAP inbox.
   
   
4. To see the message, you need an email client -- software that talks to the mail server and requests messages stored in your server inbox. Haverford's email server accepts requests from our designated web mail client (SquirrelMail) and from desktop mail clients (e.g. Thunderbird, Eudora, Outlook, Mac Mail). Desktop clients may be configured to access mail via the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) or the Post Office Protocol (POP). Whatever the client, as long as your message stays in your server inbox, you can access it from multiple computers.
   

The illustration below may help you to visualize this process.

How Does a Message Get from the Internet to Your Server Inbox?

Internet --> Mail Server --> Your Server Inbox

Like paper mail, electronic messages are sent through a series of mail stations where they are sorted and redirected to the equivalent of your local post office, called a mail server. In the case of Haverford email messages, that "local post office" is Haverford's mail server. The mail server takes incoming messages and distributes them into your personal mail server inbox, the electronic equivalent of a post office box at the local post office.

How Do You Get Your Messages from Your Server Inbox?

Your Server Inbox --> Mail Client --> You

After the message is sorted into your server inbox, your electronic mail stays at the mail server until a mail client comes to request those messages. A mail client is the software program that you use to read and send email. SquirrelMail, Thunderbird, Eudora, Outlook, and Mac Mail are all mail clients, and are named such because of how they interact with a mail server.

Web Mail Client

Haverford supports a few types of mail clients. One type of client is our web mail client, SquirrelMail. A web mail client works directly with your server inbox. It does the equivalent of walking to your local post office building, finding your post office box (your server inbox), and reading your mail at the post office. You can throw an envelope in the trash, or move it to a new space, or look at it and leave it where you found it (your server inbox). When you use SquirrelMail, email messages remain in your server inbox unless you take action to delete them or move them to another folder.

Desktop Clients

As you will see in the next sections, desktop email clients may be configured with either the POP or IMAP protocols. POP downloads (and removes) messages from your server inbox. However, desktop clients configured to use the IMAP protocol will sync your desktop mail client to match and even update SquirrelMail folders.

Desktop Mail Client Configured with POP

Historically, Haverford has supported the desktop mail client Eudora, configured with the Post Office Protocol (POP), to read email in your server inbox.

You can think of the POP client (e.g. Eudora) as walking up to your local post office building, finding all the messages in your server inbox (your post office box), taking them back to your personal computer, and placing them in your local inbox (e.g. the Eudora "in" mailbox).

You can also configure your desktop client to make copies of the messages which stay at that local post office building--or more accurately, your inbox on the server--for a certain length of time. Often called "leave mail on server," this feature is set via a configuration option in Eudora and other mail clients with POP.

Desktop Mail Client Configured with IMAP

In August 2008, Haverford initiated support for the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). IMAP provides a way for your mail client to interact directly with any folder in your IMAP space on Haverford's server. The IMAP space includes your server inbox, along with any other folders you create with an IMAP configured desktop client or via SquirrelMail. (We use the terms server inbox, IMAP inbox, and server/IMAP inbox interchangeably.)

Email messages you see via a desktop IMAP client in the "IMAP inbox" match those in your server inbox. Thus, as with SquirrelMail, unless you take action to delete them or move IMAP inbox messages to another folder, your inbox may grow too large and interfere with your ability to get new mail. See Manage Email with IMAP for important instructions on managing your IMAP email.

How Can You Get Your Messages Anywhere, Anytime?

Use SquirrelMail or a desktop client configured for IMAP such as Thunderbird. If you do, you can access messages in your IMAP folders from any properly configured mail client or through SquirrelMail anywhere you have an internet connection.

Regardless of how you access your mail, you must properly manage your messages in your email account, and especially those in your server inbox, to avoid login problems, sluggishness when reading new mail, and confusion over where messages are stored.

Lost Email?

Lost email is a common concern. The overview above provides four steps in the path of an email.

There are many ways a message can seem to get lost. Often the message is hiding somewhere in your mail program. Try using your mail program's search tool to locate it. If you use any desktop clients, the message could be stuck in a local folder, accessible only from that desktop system. Another possibility is that the message went into your Message Center quarantine.

The problem might be visible only at the sender's end. Did the sender receive a message from an electronic "postmaster" stating that the message could not be delivered? Did the sender address the email to someone else with a valid username similar to your own?

If you believe that you are not getting email messages sent to your Haverford account, please contact the Computing Help Desk (610-896-1480, helpdesk@haverford.edu). We will work with you to identify and resolve the issue.