Jump to: Overview

How to Configure Mozilla Mail

Table of Contents

Introduction

You can use Mozilla Mail to read email and newsgroups. This document explains how to configure Mozilla Mail for your university email.

If you use Mozilla Mail, your email address will remain the same whether you use another email program, but how you read and send email may change. Mozilla Mail utilizes IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), which is used at UNC-Chapel Hill. One of the advantages of using IMAP is that it allows you to store messages on the server. You can then access your mailbox from multiple locations. Mail is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Getting Started

Obtain an Email Account

Before you can access your university email with Mozilla Mail, you need to have an email account. See the document Creating an Onyen for information on obtaining an Onyen, which includes a free email account. Onyen is the name for UNC's campus-wide identifier that you can use to gain access to various electronic resources on campus. It's an acronym for the "Only name you'll ever need." The Onyen stands for the Only Name You'll Ever Need and is the first step in creating a campus-wide login name.

If you plan to use Mozilla Mail from home, you may want get an account with an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Refer to Internet Service Providers and Getting Web and Email from Home.

Downloading Mozilla Mail

Prior to Summer 2006, Mozilla Mail came installed on all new CCI laptops by default as part of the Mozilla Suite. You can download it from the Shareware page . After downloading the Mozilla Suite, double-click on the file to begin installing it. A wizard will guide you through the set up. It's best to accept the defaults and choose the Recommended set up.

ITS encourages users to switch to Mozilla Thunderbird (also available on Shareware) as the successor to the Mozilla Suite Mail program.

Configuring Mozilla Mail

The first time you run Mozilla Mail it will prompt you to create a new email or newsgroup account. Please refer the following table for information on the UNC email servers:

If you want modify settings and preferences after the wizard is finished, you can do so by clicking on Edit > Mail and Newsgroups Account Settings.

To edit Incoming Mail Server Settings, click on Server Settings.

To edit the Outgoing Mail Server Settings, click on Outgoing Server (SMTP).

Note on POP Email Clients

If you use an email program configured to use POP, the computer you use to read email with may remove all of your messages from your inbox on the server. This means that you will only be able to use that particular computer to read old messages, because they will be stored in local files on that computer and not on the email server. Although Mozilla Mail allows you to configure it to read email using POP, it is not recommended that you do so.

Getting Help For Mozilla Mail

For more information on how to use Mozilla Mail, you can click on and then You can also go there directly by going to http://www.mozilla.org/support/ .

About help.unc.edu