CITES Express Email FAQ

The CITES Express Email web interface is the easiest way to access your account since you only need a computer with an Internet connection and a web browser. You can also use a desktop email client. For more information, see Using a Desktop Email Client to Access Your CITES Express Email Account.

The browser must support HTTPS. Almost all recent browser versions have this capability.

Any desktop email program that can readily be configured to use the secure POP or IMAP email protocols can be used to read and send email on the CITES Express Email server. The CITES Help Desk supports recent versions of Microsoft Outlook , Eudora for the PC and Mac, and Apple Mail. See Using a Desktop Email Client to Access Your CITES Express Email Account for instructions.

Yes. For an email client to work with CITES Express Email, it must have the ability to establish a secure connection. Older versions of Eudora and Outlook may not be able to establish secure connections. Certain countries do not allow the use of the technology (secure socket layers) that establishes these secure connections.

Express Email does not have FTP access. Those who want to use telnet only to run Pine can access the Express Email server with PC-Pine, with the understanding that PC-Pine is not supported by CITES. It is recommended that you instead use the web interface or a supported POP/IMAP client such as Outlook 2002, Eudora 6, or Apple Mail.

Yes. Go to the Password Home Page to set up your CITES Express Email password.

You can use your Express Email account for as long as you are affiliated with campus. Students who graduate retain their account access for three months after graduation. Students who leave campus for reasons other than graduation have their account deactivated on the 10th day of the first non-summer academic term for which they do not register for classes. Faculty and staff members have their accounts deactivated 30 days after leaving campus. Retired faculty and staff members retain access to their Express Email accounts as long as they respond to an annual email asking if they wish to keep their account active. For more information, see Leaving the Urbana Campus.

Students are allocated 100 MB. Faculty and staff are allocated 150 MB.

As your account usage approaches quota, you have less room for incoming messages. If you receive a message that is larger than the space remaining in your account, the message will be returned to its sender instead of being delivered to you. This means it is very important that you keep your Express Email account under its quota. See Managing Your Quota for tips on keeping your account under its quota.

If you plan to delete messages to free up account space, be certain that you are not unintentionally deleting your only copy. If you use an IMAP-configured desktop email client to access your Express Email account, please note that messages deleted within the Express Email web interface are permanently deleted and will no longer appear within your desktop email client (unless you previously dragged them to a local folder). Similarly, if you delete messages in your desktop client from a server folder and then empty your trash, they are also permanently removed. This behavior is different from POP, which is often configured to pull a copy of a message--rather than the actual message--to your local computer. For further assistance with deleting messages, please contact the CITES Help Desk.

There are several reasons why your account might appear to be not getting new email.

First, make sure that you are using the Next and Previous buttons in the upper-right corner of the web page to navigate to the next screen of email messages. Also, click on the Date column heading to make sure the messages are sorted according to when they were received instead of by another method, such as alphabetically by sender. Finally, make sure that you did not set up a filter or a forwarding address in your Express Email account that moves all your email to another location.

If you do not see new email after trying both of these suggestions, contact the CITES Help Desk at (217) 244-7000 or (800) 531-2531.

Yes. Your Express Email account can send and receive emails up to 30 MB in size. Note: If you are using a desktop email client from home with your internet service provider's outgoing SMTP server, then you might have lower size limits for sending email.

Keep in mind that CITES NetFiles offers 500 MB of space (as the default quota) and can be a handy alternative to email attachments. Instead of sending a file by email, you can upload it to your NetFiles account. Then you only need to include the URL to allow your correspondents to view and save the file. For more information, see Using NetFiles Instead of Attachments.

As you view the message, click the "Open" link located along the top of the message. This will allow you to view the complete message, including all of the header information, in a new window. If you want to forward the message with full headers, copy the contents of the window and paste it into the compose window of a new message. For a complete description, including a screenshot, see the Viewing a Message's Full Headers tutorial.

If you are concerned about your privacy or the possibility of increased spam, then you might want to block images that are sent to you in messages. Some spammers use images to find out if an email address is working. If the image loads, the web server that hosts the image reports to the spammer that the email address is active and you might be sent even more spam.

You can prevent images from loading in messages by using a setting in the Web Preferences menu. Next to HTML Messages, select Block images until requested (view a tutorial with a screenshot of the Web Preferences menu). If you receive an email message with images from a trusted sender, such as newsletter to which you subscribe, then you can click Show Images at the top of the screen to view the images.

CITES NetFiles is a service that faculty, staff, and students can use for storing files and publishing web pages.

You can easily save attachments to your NetFiles account by using a WebDAV client. See the appropriate online documentation for your computer:

• Windows PC
• Mac
• Unix/Linux workstation

For further information or questions about how to use CITES Express Email, contact the CITES Help Desk.

CITES Help Desk (see homepage for hours and additional information)

• phone: (217) 244-7000, (800) 531-2531
• email: consult@uiuc.edu
• walk-in: 1211 Digital Computer Lab, 1304 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL 61801