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HOWTO Documents > IMAP at CCIS > Configuring Outlook Express to use IMAP at CCIS
This document describes how to configure the Outlook Express mail client to use the IMAP services at the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science. To learn what IMAP is or why you might want to use it, see our general overview of IMAP at CCIS. For more information on how to use Outlook Express with IMAP, please see the Microsoft IE homepage and the program's on-line help.
Configuration Steps
These steps describe how to configure Windows version 6.0 of Outlook Express. The steps required to configure the Macintosh version are almost identical.
| 1. | Start Outlook Express. |
| 2. | Choose Accounts under the Tools menu. |
| 3. | Choose Mail... from the [Add >>] button menu. |
| 4. | Enter your first and last name when prompted for Display Name. Choose [Next]. |
| 5. | Enter your CCIS email address (username@ccs.neu.edu) when prompted for E-mail Address. Choose [Next]. |
| 6. | • Choose IMAP for "My incoming mail server is an [...] server." • Enter imap.ccs.neu.edu for "Incoming Mail (POP3, IMAP, HTTP) server" • Enter localhost for "Outgoing Mail (SMTP) server" (if using our recommended SSH tunneling method) • Enter your CCIS account name for "Account name:" • Leave the Password field empty and un-check the "Remember password?" box. • Choose [Next], then [Finish]. |
| 7. | Select the new IMAP account you just created and choose the [Properties] button. |
| 8. | Go to the Advanced tab. Check the "This server requires a secure connection (SSL)" box. This tab should now look like this: |
| 9. | Go to the IMAP tab. In the Root Folder Path field,
enter the name of the sub-directory in your CCIS home directory that you use
to store mail followed by a slash (/). If you leave this field blank, Outlook
Express may operate very slowly because it will attempt to treat all of the
files in your home directory as potential mailboxes/mailfolders. Mail/ or mail/ are a common defaults. Un-check the "Check for new messages in all folders" box. The tab should now look like this:  |
| 10. | • Choose [OK]. Answer Yes to the question "Would you like to download folders for the server you just added?" • If you wish any of your IMAP mail folders to always be present in the Outlook Express folders frame on the left side of the window, select those folders and choose [Show] for each. |
| 11. | Choose [OK] and you are done with the setup! |
IMAP with Outlook Express Tip:
When you delete messages in Outlook Express (and most IMAP mail programs), the messages are just flagged as deleted but aren't really removed from the server. Outlook Express indicates this by placing a line through the message entry in the headers window. To actually delete the message off the server, select the mailbox name and choose Purge deleted messages from the Edit menu.
If you have issues with the configuration steps presented in this document that are not resolved by the Microsoft IE homepage and Microsoft Support Center, please send mail to systems@ccs.neu.edu with as much information as possible about your problem. We will do what we can to help you resolve the problem, but please note: CCIS Systems does not have the resources to support non-CCIS machines, so we may have to refer you to other forms of support.