Webmail
Webmail is web browser orientated in terms of platform. Some examples of webmail platforms are the following. Emails are created, sent and read on a web browser. The user must be signed into their email account to utilize it.
Webmail Platforms
Outlook
Yahoo Mail
Gmail
Zimbra
Common Features of Webmail
Address books
Spam filters
Calendars
File storage
Email address aliases
Email encryption
Connecting a Mail Reader to Webmail
IMAP allows users to save outgoing emails to a mail server and save read incoming emails to the mail server, too. Email could be accessed from the Internet browser and a mail reader like Thunderbird. The correct mail server settings and security protocol settings must be set when setting up an account on a mail reader. Default security protocol settings often are valid and are automatically set by the mail reader itself. For Microsoft accounts, MAPI can be used as an alternative to IMAP. They both provide the same functionality.
Secure Email
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Secure email is important for organizations and people that require the need to send sensitive information by email in a secure form. Emails sent with sensitive information can be encrypted and decrypted upon need. An example of an organization which uses secure email is Royal Bank of Canada. It uses secure email accounts for transfer of bank forms to bank staff by account holders and other banking communications. Most banks do use secure email, in general. See the below link for more information.
Priority of Emails
The priority of an email represents the importance of an email to the recipient. In the Inbox, high and low priority emails are represented with a color coded symbol next to them in the listing of received emails. Normal priority emails do not have any indication of the priority level of them.
Priority Levels of Emails:
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Connected Accounts
Email accounts can be linked to each other in many cases. An example of an email service which permits email accounts to be linked to each other is Outlook. In Outlook, external email accounts and other Microsoft email accounts can be connected to the Outlook email account. Other email service providers like GMail and AOL provide the ability to link email accounts, too.
Aliases
An alias is a representation of an email address under another name. For example, sysadmin@techcentral.ca could be masking the email address of dave.watson@techcentral.ca. Emails sent to an alias of an email address go directly to the primary email address, the email address the alias is representing. The alias is only seen outside of the email account of the alias holder.
Forwarding
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A given email can be forwarded to a specified email address. This can be done by choosing the option to forward it. For more information on email forwarding, see the following link.
Email Grouping
Email messages can be sorted into various groups. By default, they are sorted by date. However, other sorting conditions can be used, too. On example is, displaying emails by, Subject. The order of email listings can also be cannot display latest emails upon opening the inbox first or vice-versa such that emails are displayed in ascending order or descending order by date. Emails can be ordered by size or whether or not they have file attachments, too. The major types of email groupings for ordering them are listed below.
Major Email Ordering Methods
By:
Date
Subject
Correspondent(s)
Priority
There are other ordering methods too, for email listings. Depending on the webmail platform, this may vary. Very often, by clicking on the column headings in mailbox folders, the order of email listings can be switched from ascending to descending and vice-versa. For convenience purposes, it is best to have the newest emails appear in the inbox when it is opened. Switching the order of emails in listings in email account folders can be useful when searching for specific emails. For example, if you are looking for High priority emails, you may want to temporarily alter the order of emails in the inbox to display the latest High priority emails at the top of the inbox. Filter can be used to order emails by using a combination of filtering terms.
Links
Address Books
Calendars
Email Attachments
Online Storage (documents)
Web Apps
Spam Filters
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