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Using IMAP E-mail Clients

• Configuring an IMAP E-mail Client for use with BlitzMail
• Changing Your Account Password
• Additional Connection Information

Many popular e-mail client programs use a standard called Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for exchanging information. Computing Services provides full support only for BlitzMail, our Dartmouth-authored e-mail client. However, Computing Services supports the basic installation and use of Thunderbird, an IMAP compliant e-mail program by the Mozilla group. For more information on Thunderbird, see: Thunderbird for the Macintosh, Thunderbird for Windows.

Some users prefer other e-mail clients, such as Apple Mail, Outlook, Eudora, Netscape, etc., to read their Dartmouth e-mail. This document provides you with the general information and settings you need to configure other e-mail clients to access your e-mail account on the Dartmouth e-mail servers. It is important to note that the only IMAP clients that will work with the Dartmouth mail servers are those that allow Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections.

BlitzMail has already been configured and requires no setup.

Some Cautions:

• Some e-mail clients can be configured to use POP3 or IMAP settings. For these clients, we recommend you use the IMAP settings because IMAP keeps your messages on the server and your messages are automatically backed up. If you elect to use POP3, you need to make sure your client can be configured to use SSL with POP (SPOP). Unsecured POP3 connections to the Dartmouth e-mail servers will not be allowed.
• Also, you cannot set an Automatic Reply from your Dartmouth.edu account using third-party e-mail programs such as Thunderbird or Outlook. However, you can set an automatic reply (and do a host of other things relating to your Dartmouth.edu account) using the Dartmouth Directory Manager.

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Configuring an IMAP E-mail Client for use with BlitzMail

Each e-mail client software is slightly different, so refer to the Help Menu in your e-mail client for additional information. No matter which client you want to use, in order to retrieve e-mail from your Dartmouth account, you will need to enter the basic connection information provided below

• Name or User Name or Full Name: Enter your full name as it appears in the DND (for example, John Q. Public).
• Make sure you enable SSL for IMAP on the account.
• E-mail Address or Return Address: This is the address others will use to send you e-mail. Be sure to use your full Dartmouth address (for example, John.Q.Public@Dartmouth.edu); nicknames are not guaranteed to be unique.
• Host Name or Incoming Mail Server: Since Dartmouth has a number of mail servers, you will need to find out which server your mailbox is on. There are two ways to do this: see Locate Your BlitzMail Server or send a BlitzMail message to yourself. (You can use a public computer if you don't have BlitzMail installed on your computer.)
  
  If you choose the second option, open the message you sent to yourself. Select Verbose Header from the Option menu. Look for the line titled Message-ID. It will look similar to Message-ID: <24603114@newdasher.dartmouth.edu>. In this case, the Host or Incoming Mail Server is newdasher.Dartmouth.edu. (Please see the note below.) In addition, you may need to specify that the IMAP port is 993.  
• SMTP Server or Outgoing or SMTP Host: The host for all Dartmouth users is mailhub.dartmouth.edu. In addition, you may need to specify that the SMTP port to use is 465.
• Enable SSL for SMTP and specify that your outgoing server requires authentication or an encrypted connection. If you do not do this, you will need to start a VPN connection each time you send e-mail to Dartmouth accounts. If you do not use SSL for SMTP or you do not have a VPN connection, your e-mail might be flagged as spam and the recipient will not see it.
• Use password authentication.

You may also configure your IMAP e-mail client software to find e-mail addresses by looking at Dartmouth's LDAP server. This is similar to the Look up a Name feature in BlitzMail. See Additional Connection Information for details.

Note: Your account may be moved to another server without notice, as it may be necessary to reduce the mail load on a server for maintenance purposes. If you stop receiving mail, please check your server again.

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Changing Your Account Password

To change your password, see the Dartmouth Directory Manager

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Additional Connection Information

You can change the configuration on some IMAP clients to make switching back and forth between your e-mail client and the BlitzMail client easier. To do this, in your IMAP client, name the folder for deleted messages Trash; name the folder for messages that are sent from your account Sent Msgs.

In addition, some IMAP clients allow you to find e-mail addresses by looking at Dartmouth's LDAP server. This is similar to the Look up a Name feature in BlitzMail. If your client has this option, add the following information to the list of servers to search for network addresses:

Server: ldap.dartmouth.edu
Search Base: dc=dartmouth,dc=edu

Please note that if there is an option to limit the search scope, if you wish to do this, please select one level.

Eudora users must select Required, Alternate Port in the Secure Sockets when sending field in the Personality Properties window.

In order to use a certificate for authentication with some IMAP clients, you will need to install Dartmouth's root certificate. For information about using certificates and downloading Dartmouth's root certificate, see Import the Dartmouth Certificate Authority Root Certificate.

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