Email Client Configuration

  Email Client Configuration -

Introduction to Email

• Email is abbreviated as electronic mail

• Email is used to exchange (i.e. send and receive) mails

across Internet.

• More plainly, e-mail is a message that may contain text,

files, images, or other attachments sent through a network

to a specified individual or group of individuals.

• From year 2000 onwards, electronic mail was a preferred

medium over postal mail.

• Productivity tools : Email is usually packaged with a

calendar, address book, IM (instant messaging) and more

for convenience and productivity.

• A valid Email is required to Access to web services from

shopping sites like Amazon, Flipkart. Email is also required

for social networking sites like Facebook.

• Easy mail management : Email service providers have

tools that allow you to file, label, prioritize, find, group, and

filter your emails for easy management. You can even easily

control spam, or junk email.

• Privacy : Your email is delivered to your own personal and

private account with a password required to access and

view emails.

• Accessible any where at any time : You don’t have to be

at home to get your mail. You can access it from any internet

enabled computer or mobile.

„ The image illustrates the advantages of Email over the

traditional mail system with reference to parameters like Time

for Delivery and the Contents in Delivery. To summarize, Email

is the most secure and fastest way for communication that is

promptly accepted in global communication.

Components of E-mail Service

The components required for proper functioning of Email

service are,

Email Server – It is either a Public Server or a Private

(Corporate) Server. The core difference is that public Email

server is administered and managed by Internet companies like

Google, Yahoo etc., while the Corporate or Private servers are

managed and administered by In-house Administrators’ Team.

The various protocols used for Email Service are:

• For Outgoing emails – SMTP (that is Simple Mail Transfer

Protocol)

• For Incoming Emails – POP3 (that is Post office Protocol

version 3) or IMAP4 (that is Internet mail access Protocols

version 4).

To access the emails stored on Email Server, the user has

2 options

Either the user can access emails by using Webmail

OR

The user can install Email Client Software based on the

Operating system used by User which can be Windows, Linux

or MAC based.

The image illustrates the flow of email messages between

the sender and Receiver, it is explained as below:

• The sender uses the SMTP to send email to corresponding

E-mail server.

• The sender based email server performs DNS (that is

Domain Name Service) Lookup and also uses the SMTP to

send sender’s email to the specified Destination E-mail

server.

• The destination E-mail server uses the protocols like POP3

or IMAP4 to send the email to the corresponding receiver.

Email Server

The Email server is explained in following sub-points,

• Architecture Type – The architecture of Email servers can

be either Public Server or Private (Corporate) Server. The

operating system installed on Email Server is either

Windows or Linux.

• For Private/Corporate Server with Windows environment,

Microsoft Exchange Server is the most preferred Email

Server Application. While Qmail and Postfix are the

preferred Email Server Applications for Linux/ Unix based

environments.

The Protocols used in Email Communication is based on

activities like,

For Sending Email - SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

is used

For Receiving Emails –

• Either POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3), or

• IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol version 4).

It is necessary to understand the difference to be able to decide when to use the particular protocol. If you have a POP configured, then it works by contacting your email service and downloading all of your new messages from Email Server. Once the messages are downloaded onto your PC or Mac, they are possibly deleted from the email server. So it becomes very important for Desktop Engineer to take regular backup of emails stored on your local machine (since the online messages on server is deleted).

This means, you will need the same computer always to access your old /new emails. 

• IMAP allows you to access your email wherever you are, from any device. When you read an email message using IMAP, you aren't actually downloading or storing it on your computer; instead, you're reading it from the email service. 

• IMAP allows you to access email from different devices. 

• POP3 is meant to be used if you own an individual device. • While IMAP is designed to be used on different devices.

How to access your emails?

There are 2 methods that can be used by user to Access

the Email

They are

• Webmail

• Email Client

Webmail is a Web-based email browser, the examples are

Gmail, Yahoo mail and AOL (that is America Online).

An Email client is a computer program (or an application)

used to access user’s email

The examples of Email client are Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla

Thunderbird and MAC based Airmail.

Comparing Webmail and Email

You may use Webmail, if you :

• Prefer to use a single and unified mail box

• Prefer using web-apps and plugins like Google calendar,

Online Storage

• As a precaution, you should not use webmail on a shared

computer as it may result in stealth of your important data.

You may use Email, if you :

• Have multiple email addresses with multiple domains

• Prefer integrating desktop apps like Dropbox, schedule

meeting.

• Have a personal or corporate device and accesses mails

offline too.

Microsoft Outlook 2016

• The most popular Windows based email client is Microsoft

Outlook 2016.

• Outlook 2016 is part of Microsoft Office 2016 Productivity

Suite.

• The table showing the hardware and software prerequisites

for Microsoft Outlook 2016.

• Outlook is also technically known as MAPI (Messaging

Application Programming Interface, is a Microsoft API that allows Windows applications to send and receive email.)

• Microsoft Outlook 2016 for MAC is available to be utilized as

an email client for Apple’s MAC devices.

• All email clients should be MIME compliant [i.e.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, MIME is a

standard format that allows the attachment and sending of

non-text files (e.g. compressed file, sound file, graphic file,

document file, or video file) in an e-mail message.

Mozilla Thunderbird

• Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform email client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy was modelled after the Mozilla Firefox web browser. 

• Present version of Mozilla Thunderbird is 45.0 

• Being cross-platform, Mozilla Thunderbird has packages available for Windows, Linux and MAC machines. •

   Email Client Installation and Configuration

Step by Step Email Client Setup

• Keep the checklist handy.

• Download the Email Client of your choice and based on

version of your Operating System.

• Perform Email Client Configuration step by step as per

checklist.

• Take a look at the various Email client software options that

you can use to install on user’s machine

 Steps to Configure MS Outlook 2016

• Step one was installation of Email Client, Microsoft Outlook

2016 is the preferred client.

• Once the installation of the email client is done, the next

step is to configure it.

• Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2016 on Windows 10 PC can

be done in following steps,