Articles in Category: Managing Email

Articles discussing how to manage email – from creating accounts, filing messages, and just generally using email effectively.

How Do I Find the IP Address of an Email’s Sender?

Determining the IP address of an email sender is difficult at best, and usually impossible. Sometimes you get lucky.

How Do I Tell If My Email Has Been Hacked?

It can be surprisingly hard to tell if an email account has been hacked, especially when hackers cover their tracks. I’ll show you a couple of possible signs.

How to Get Email with Attachments Delivered

Emailing attachments — particularly large files — is getting more and more difficult as ISPs limit size and scan for malware.

Why Are Pictures Not Showing in Email?

There are many reasons pictures don’t show up in email. I’ll review the complex world that is email, and some of the things that can go wrong.

Why Does Legitimate Email from PayPal Instruct Me to Click a Link?

The rule is, never click on links unless you are 100% certain that they are from who you think they are. The question is, how can you be certain?

Why Are There Vertical Bars on the Left of Some Emails I Send?

When replying to email, many programs include the original text with some indication that it is the original. We’ll look at configuring that.

Why Must I Re-enter my Email to Unsubscribe?

Occasionally, you’re asked to enter the email address you want to unsubscribe. With today’s technology, there’s no excuse for that.

Can I Tell If Email I Sent Has Been Read by the Recipient?

While there are settings and services that claim to know if an email has been opened, they are notoriously unreliable and pointless.

Out-of-Office Replies are Evil

Out-of-office replies can ricochet through email lists like spam and even put you in harm’s way. Are they evil?

How Do I Change the Default Mail Program in Windows?

The default mail program is used to send email at the request of other programs on your computer or links on web page. If you use a web interface, however, things get tricky.

Why Does My Email Sometimes Show Up with Funny Characters Like “=0D” In It?

Email can use complex methods to encode special (or even not-so-special) characters. Occasionally, those methods accidentally become visible.

How Do I Back Up My Outlook.com Email?

Outlook.com accounts are hacked into and lost every day. I’ll review a couple of techniques that ensure you won’t lose email or contacts if it happens to you.

How Do I Get an Email Address for Life?

Want an email address that won’t have to change for a long time? There’s really only one approach that’s completely in your control.

How Do I Get my Name, Title and Other Information to Show at the Bottom of Every Message I Send?

Signatures are a great way to make composing email easier by including standard information at the bottom. I’ll show you where the settings are in three popular email interfaces.

The Wrong Way to Change Your Email Address

Simply emailing your entire contact list with a notice that you’ve changed your email address is NOT the way to change your email address.

Why Am I Getting a “Delivery Status Notification (Delay)” on an Email I Sent?

Delays happen for many reasons; it’s the nature of the email infrastructure. If you get a “Delivery Status Notification (Delay)”, your options are limited.

Why Is an Email Address Sometimes in Angle Brackets?

Computers use email addresses to route email. Angle brackets are used when a more human-readable name is also included.

What’s the Difference Between an Email Domain, an Email Account, and an Email Address?

Email comes with its own set of somewhat confusing terminology. I’ll review the differences between an email address, email account, and email domain.

What is IMAP? And How Can it Help Me Manage My Email?

IMAP is a protocol that your email program may use to access your email. Among other features, it makes dealing with email on multiple devices much easier.

Why Does Email Disappear from My Phone?

When adding another device to access your email, it’s easy to run into a situation where email seems to disappear. I’ll look at the most common reason and what to do about it.

The Best Ways to Back Up Gmail

Relying on free email services can be an unnecessary risk. Fortunately it’s possible, even easy, to back up Gmail.

How do I Choose a Good Domain Name?

Registering your own domain is one way to keep an email address that you’ll never need to change. I’ll look at some of the issues in choosing a domain name, and choosing a registrar.

Why Am I Getting Email for Another Person in Another Country?

It can be unnerving to get email for someone else – that clearly isn’t spam – which appears to have been sent to your email address. If that person is in another country, look closer.

Why Am I Getting Email with the Right Email Address but the Wrong Name?

This sounds like a problem in your friend’s contact list or address book. To sort it out, first we need to understand where email names come from.

What’s this new anti-spam policy about, and how will it affect me?

At first blush the new policies look like a good thing… until they start hitting email discussion groups and creating all sorts of havoc! Bottom line: blame spammers.

How Do I Get a Recipient’s Email Address and Name to Show in the To: Line?

You have control over what recipients see in the “from” field when they receive email from you. But the “to” field when you’re receiving a message? Not so much.

Why Aren’t My Friends Getting My Email?

If your email service is on a blacklist it’s going to be pretty hard to get it removed. Let’s try a work-around and see if that helps.

What Email Program Should I Use After Outlook 2003?

There is an easy solution, and a not-so-easy solution. It’s going to depend on how much money you want to spend.

Why Does Email I Send to a Large Contact List Bounce so Often?

You’re not a spammer, I know that – but you’re acting like a spammer. And there’s your problem.

Is it OK to not click on the show images button in email?

Often images are used by newsletter providers to track how often emails are read. Yes it’s tracking… but is it something you need to worry about?

How Do I Access Email Stored in Outlook Express on Windows 8?

One of the problems with Outlook Express is difficulty in exporting data. Your best bet is to find a more recent software to help with the migration.

How Do I Deal with One Email Account on Two Machines?

There are various options to access one email account from multiple computers, and there are pros and cons to each.

Why do people I don’t know email me?

Of course it might be spam, but sometimes things like this are just bad luck.

Why Does Mail Hang Around in My Outbox Before Being Sent?

There are many steps between your email and it’s journey out of the “Outbox.” Any one of those steps could be slowing you down.

Why do some people get 60 copies of messages I forward?

We’ll try to isolate the reason your forwards are getting multiplied, and then look at the only way to really stop the problem once and for all!

Can I access the mail on my desktop from a networked machine?

There are several ways to share email accounts across computers. The best ones have to be set up before you need them.

Why am I not getting any email?

I get a lot of email every day, and when it suddenly stops, that means there’s something wrong. I’ll walk you through what happened to me, and how I – kind of – shot myself in the foot, with the aid of a hacker.

How Do I Get My New Email to Be the Default Email in Windows?

Figuring out what is what with emails and email accounts can be quite confusing. But when all is said and done, you only need to change a simple configuration.

How can I prove that I didn’t send a particular email?

So much information in email can be spoofed that it’s difficult to prove where an email came from unless you look at the headers.

Why Is a Message Stuck in My Outbox?

There are several reasons why an email might get stuck in an outbox. I’ll look at some of the more common ones.

Why Do I Get an Error When Viewing JPG Files?

Your email should be able to open image files if your Windows Explorer can. Fortunately, I have a few possible solutions to this problem.

Why is my picture showing up next to emails I send?

It’s really nothing to worry about; the recipient’s email program is likely grabbing information from your profile. There may be something you can do about it, if you care.

Why Can’t I Forward an Image in Email?

Sending and receiving images in email is incredibly complex, sometimes I’m amazed it works at all! But we’ll look at some common reasons why email images may fail to forward.

Can I Access One Email Account from Another?

It is often quite simple to set up one email address as your main address that picks up all your other email – depending on the services you use on various accounts. The trick is deciding which way you want to go.

What if the forwarding service goes away?

There is little that you or I can do when a website goes away except to use online tools to try to trace it, or find some other way to replicate the service.

How Do I Tell Someone They’re Entering Their Email Address Wrong?

Many websites ask you type your email address in twice for a reason: there’s a high percentage of people who cannot type their email address in correctly once.

Why is email I’m sending being received by someone I’m not sending to?

This is a frustrating situation that happens regularly to businesses running email lists. More than likely someone on your list is automatically forwarding. There is one way you may be able to track down the source.

Can I email myself a full length movie?

Emailing a movie file sounds like it is going to be easy, but you are certain to run across limitations set by your ISP – and it’s going to be slow! I’ll look at a couple of other ways to do it.

What Does It Mean When My Email Program Asks If It Should Compact My Email?

Compacting should be completely transparent. It makes files smaller and potentially makes access of email a little faster. There is one dramatic exception.