Migration Checklist for UW Deskmail

Server side configuration

Log in to manage your UWNetID Resources

Configure Forwarding
  1. Click on "UW EMail Forwarding"
  2. Click the "Forward to UW Deskmail" radio button.
    Make sure that you are not forwarding to your @chem.washington.edu email address.
    Note that future mail addressed to your @chem.washington.edu email address will be forwarded to your new account.--
    Please do not create a forwarding loop!
  3. Click the "OK" button near the bottom of page.

Maximize your UW disk quota
  1. Click on "Disk Services"
  2. If "UW Deskmail" shows "Allocated Space" of less than 5.0 GB, then click on "change"
  3. The the maximum no-cost "Storage Plan" is 5 GB. Select the "5 GB" radio button
    (or more if you have a UW budget number you wish to bill).

Configure Your Web Alpine webmail client
  1. Go to Web Alpine
  2. If you are not already logged in, you will be redirected to the UW NetID login screen.
  3. This takes you to the Web Alpine Welcome page. Click the button at the upper right to "Open [your] Inbox".
  4. Go to Settings->General Preferences->Sent Message Options.
  5. Enter the "Name of your Sent mail folder" to match your existing mail account, "Sent" in most cases.
  6. Go to Settings->Personal Preferences->Display Name.
  7. Enter the name you want your email recipients to see, usually your first and last name.
  8. Click on "Save Settings"

Configure Your Spam Filter
  1. Go to Junk Email Filter
  2. Turn on your Junk Email Filter, if it is off.
  3. Adjust spam filter settings if desired.
  4. Scroll to bottom of page and click "Update spam filter configuration".

Configure Your "From" Address (optional)
Your email address for your new UW Deskmail account will default to "Your_UWNetID@uw.edu".

If you prefer to continue using your existing chemistry email address,

  • log in to web alpine
  • go to Settings->Advanced Settings->Compose.
  • In Custom Headers, click "Add" and add "From : your_name@chem.washington.edu"
  • Click on "Save Settings"

If you will be using the auto-reply (a.k.a. "vacation message") feature, you will also need to configure your settings
  • in Configure Vacation/Auto-reply Messaging.
  • Click on "Extra Settings".
  • There replace your "From" address with your chem email address,
    • and also
  • check "Send vacation reply without requiring that my UW NetID appear in the To or Cc of incoming messages"
  • Click on "Update vacation configuration".

Test Your Deskmail Account
  1. Log in to Web Alpine and click the button to open your Inbox.
  2. Click Compose.
  3. Send yourself a message "To: Your_UWNetID@uw.edu".
  4. Your message should appear in your Web Alpine "Sent" folder.
  5. It should arrive in your Web Alpine Inbox within a minute.
  6. If you configured your "From:" address, the test message should show the "From:" address you configured.

Client configuration
You may access your new mail service from Web Alpine. You may also configure a mail client program on your desktop computer to give you a richer set of features. There are several choices available, depending upon your operating system. We recommend and support Thunderbird which is available for Windows, Apple, and linux OSs. Thunderbird allows you to create multiple email accounts. Create a new account for your new, UW deskmail service in Thunderbird, but leave your old chem email account configured in Thunderbird until your migration is completed. This will give you a side-by-side view of your old and new email accounts, so you can compare if you think anything is missing.

Follow instructions to configure your client for UW Deskmail, with the following additional notes and exceptions.

Configure server directory path
In "Advanced Account Settings, be sure to set "IMAP server directory" to "mail". Also, uncheck "Show only subscribed folders". Also clear the "Namespaces" fields and uncheck "Allow server to override these namespaces."

Set Email Address to (yourname)@chem.washington.edu
In Account Settings, replace the address "Your_UWNetID@uw.edu" shown in the "Email Address:" field with your @chem.washington.edu address that you are currently using, if you wish to continue using your established chemistry email address (recommended). Your email correspondents will continue sending to your existing chem address. Mail addressed to your chem address will be redirected to your new email server.

Configure Outbound Mail Server
Settings in "Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings" as shown

Disable any filters you have set up in your old account settings.
During migration, while your email folders are being transferred, you should not make any changes to those folders. You should disable any features in your old mail account settings that cause Thunderbird to automatically move mail between folders. In particular, disable checking for incoming mail while your Inbox is being copied, and disable any filters you have created, which cause messages to be moved between folders on the server.

Customize your new Thunderbird account settings.
You may have customized account settings in Thunderbird for your chem email account. In general, these settings will not carry over automatically. You will have to re-create them. After your account migration is finalized, we will disable your account on our departmental server. However, you may leave your old chem account configuration in Thunderbird so long as you may need to refer to it to duplicate your configuration settings.

Recent versions of Thunderbird enable message synchronization on all folders by default upon account creation. You may want to disable synchronization or selectively enable it only on certain folders. See this discussion of synchronization pros and cons and settings.

If you have created message filters in your Thunderbird configuration, you will need to recreate them in your new Thunderbird account. If you wish to filter messages into folders on the server, you now have a feature in Web Alpine that allows you to create server side filters. Find in web alpine the "Settings Menu" and click on "Message Filtering" to explore the options available.