Journey of an Incoming Email Message

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Journey of an Incoming Email Message

Before you see an email message, it travels through a complex system of hardware and software. The journey is summarized in an overview and illustration, and then explained more fully. A final section suggests where to look for mail that seems to be lost.

• Overview
• Illustration
• How Does a Message Get from the Internet to Your Server Inbox?
  (Internet --> Mail Server --> Your Server Inbox)
• How Do You Get Your Messages from Your Server Inbox?
  (Your Server Inbox --> Mail Client --> You)
• How Can You Manage Your Mail So You Can Get Your Messages Anywhere, Anytime?
  (Email Message --> Multiple Mail Clients --> You)
• Lost Messages?

Overview

The four steps below provide a brief overview of the journey.

1. Somebody composes an email message and hits the send button. The email message starts its journey through the internet.
   
   
2. Just before it arrives on campus, it is scanned for viruses and spam at the MessageCenter.
   
   
3. Unless quarantined and held by the MessageCenter, the message continues to Haverford's mail server, a server that collects all email sent to Haverford email accounts. This server collects your messages and stores them for you in your server inbox.
   
   
4. To see the message, you need an email client--a software program that talks to the mail server and requests messages stored in your server inbox. Haverford's email server accepts requests from our designated web mail clients (SquirrelMail, EMUmail) and from POP mail clients (Eudora, Outlook, Mac Mail, etc). As long as your message stays on the server, you can access it from multiple computers. However, if you let your messages accumulate, you will need to clean your server inbox.
   

The illustration below may help you visualize this process.

Internet --> Mail Server --> Your Server Inbox

Like paper mail, electronic messages are sent through a series of mail stations where they are sorted and redirected to the equivalent of your local post office, called a mail server. In the case of Haverford email messages, that "local post office" is Haverford's mail server. The mail server takes incoming messages and distributes them into your personal mail server inbox.

Your Server Inbox --> Mail Client --> You

However, from here email messages get to your computer differently than paper mail gets to your home. Whereas a postal carrier delivers envelopes, packages, and other mail from the local post office directly to your doorstep, electronic mail stays at the mail server until a mail client comes to request those messages. A mail client is the software program that you use to read and send email. SquirrelMail, Eudora, Outlook, and Mac Mail are all mail clients, and are named such because of how they interact with a mail server. You cannot view any email without a mail client.

Web Mail Client

There are a couple of types of mail clients. One type of client is a web mail client, such as SquirrelMail. The web mail client works directly with your server inbox. It does the equivalent of walking to your local post office building, finding all mail in a box reserved for you in the post office building (your server inbox), and reading your mail at the post office. You can throw an envelope in the trash, or move it to a new space, or look at it and put it right back where you found it (your server inbox). When you use SquirrelMail, email messages remain in your server inbox, unless you take action to delete them or move them to another folder. Only those messages in the SquirrelMail folder named "inbox" are in your server inbox. Messages moved into other SquirrelMail folders must be accessed via the SquirrelMail program.

POP Mail Client

Another type of mail client is a POP mail client. POP (Post Office Protocol) is a particular protocol, or way of talking with the mail server, which downloads messages from your server inbox onto your personal computer.

You can think of the POP client (i.e. Eudora) as walking up to your local post office building, finding all the messages in that special space reserved for you (your server server inbox), picking up the messages, carrying them back to your personal computer, and placing those messages in its local inbox (i.e. the Eudora "in" mailbox). However, instead of just carrying messages, it can make copies of the messages which stay at that local post office building--or more accurately your inbox on the server. Often called "leave mail on server", this feature is set via a configuration option in Eudora and other POP mail clients.

Email Message --> Multiple Mail Clients --> You (Anywhere, Anytime)

As long as a message sits in your mail server inbox, the mail server will let you access it via our designated web mail clients as well as download it via POP mail clients. As a result, you can store the very same message on your dorm or office computer in Eudora and in your SquirrelMail account (access from any web browser).

In fact, as long as you manage your server inbox properly, you can read that same message anywhere, anytime. If you use email on multiple computers, we have specific recommendations for managing your server inbox. However, if you travel a lot, don't have your own computer, or have special email needs, you may prefer a different method for managing your server inbox.

Whether you follow our server inbox management strategy, or use a different strategy, we suggest that you do the following to best manage your email:

1. You MUST keep your server inbox clean. If you allow too many messages to accumulate in your inbox, your server inbox could grow too large and interfere with your ability to collect your mail. You may even reach the storage limit. To find out how to keep your server inbox from growing too large, read Clean Your Server Inbox.
   
   
2. We recommend that you avoid having email scattered among various computer systems. We suggest that you have one computer that acts as a central place for your email, so you can avoid misplaced messages. If you use Eudora (or another POP mail client) and download email to several personal computers, we recommend that you designate one machine as your primary computer and leave email in your server inbox long enough that you can download all messages onto your primary system.

Lost Email?

Lost email is a common concern. The overview above provides four steps in the path of an email.

There are many ways a message can seem to get lost. Often the message is hiding somewhere in your mail program. Try using your mail program's search tool to locate it. The message could also be in an alternate mail program, due to the mail scatter problem mentioned above. (See our recommendations for reading mail on multiple computers.) The message could be in your MessageCenter quarantine.

The problem might be visible only at the sender's end. Did the sender receive problem notification from an electronic "postmaster"? Did the sender address the email to someone else with a username similar to your own?

If you believe that you are not getting email messages sent to your Haverford account, please contact the Help Desk (610-896-1480, helpdesk@haverford.edu). We will work with you to identify and resolve the issue.