Managing Your ACCC Email

• Email Quotas
• What are quotas?
• Quotas: The Not So Simple Answer
• What happens when you go "over quota"?
• Quota, Download, and Delete Tool
• Quotas on icarus and tigger
• Quotas on mailserv
• Which email applies to your quota?
• -- POP vs. IMAP
• -- So, do you use POP or IMAP or both?
• -- So, now we can answer the important question; which email is on the server?
• Why might you go over quota and what should you do if you do? Three short answers.
• -- Before You Do Anything
• -- And After You're Done
• (1) Delete large, unneeded email messages, especially those with attachments.
• (2) Haven't checked your email in a while? Log in and take care of your new incoming email.
• (3) Consider downloading whole email mailboxes to your personal computer.
• How to delete mail and what to do if the short answers don't work.

The inevitability of email quotas is right up there with death and taxes. W disks are groaning under the load. We raise your quotas, they raise the spam. So it's practically inevitable that you'll bump up against your email quota sooner or later (before death and after taxes).

What's not inevitable is how email quotas are handled. Until recently, if your email account was on icarus or tigger and you "went over quota," enough of your oldest email messages were removed from your Inbox so that its size went back below your Inbox quota. The truncated messages were moved to "scratch space" and kept there for about seven days, on the theory that you'd have time to retrieve any messages you wanted to keep for the long run. We even had an Email Tools Web page that would retrieve your truncated email for you.

That looked good to us, in theory at least. We wouldn't actually delete your email without giving you a chance to get it back, and when we did, we would take the oldest messages that presumably you wouldn't want anymore.

The main problem with the scheme is that people didn't always expect this behavior. Getting a large attachment you didn't really want might put you over quota, and then some old mail you really did want would be truncated. In the end, mail truncation just doesn't seem to solve the problems of finite disk space any better than the method that we use on mailserv and that many commercial ISPs use -- rejecting new email if your quota is full.

So we've retired the icarus and tigger email truncator -- the Grim Reaper, remember him? In his stead, we'll use the same system on icarus and tigger that we use on mailserv.

That is, if you go over your Inbox quota on icarus or tigger, we'll return any new incoming email to its sender with a message saying that their message is being returned because your account is over quota. Your old mail won't be touched, but you won't receive any new mail until you decide which old mail you don't really need and remove that mail from your Inbox. Of course, we'll send you email warnings when you get close to your quota, so you can take action ahead of time.

Not getting new mail is bad, but at least the people who sent it to you will know that you didn't receive it. And we just can't put 50 pounds of electrons in a 10 pound sack.

Quotas, in detail, can be complicated, because different numbers apply to different parts of your disk storage, and in different ways. The details are in the next section, but the simple answer is that your Inbox can only grow to about:

• 7 Mb on icarus
• 25 Mb on mailserv
• 10 Mb on tigger

We should be able to expand those limits later on in the year, particularly on mailserv. In the meantime, these quotas will hold a great deal of text, though not tons of attachments.

Unfortunately, you will need to know a bit about more about how quotas work when the time comes that your email approaches your quota. So complicated or not, here goes.

ACCC server quotas come in pairs:

The soft quota is the smaller quota of the pair; it represents online disk storage space available to you for the long term. But you can go over your soft quota for a while -- seven days. That's why it's called the soft quota -- because you can exceed it for a while.

The hard quota is the larger of the pair. It represents the absolute maximum online storage available to your account. It's called the hard quota because the server won't allow you to go over it.

Because mailserv is an email-only server, it has only one pair of quotas, which applies to everything that you keep "on the server." On mailserv, that's mostly your email Inbox, which holds your incoming email, and, if you use IMAP, your other IMAP mailboxes.

Icarus and tigger, however, are general-purpose UNIX machines. They're used for email and also for personal Web pages and for other computing and programming tasks.

Because there are two types of tasks people do on icarus and tigger (email and other stuff), there are two pairs of quotas: one pair for the incoming email in your Inbox (and only in your Inbox) and one pair for all other the other files you have on the server, in your "home directory." This includes your personal Web pages and your other IMAP mailboxes.

(You shouldn't keep class-, department-, or unit-related Web pages in your personal disk space on icarus or tigger. If you do, let us know and we'll give you space for them in the departmental Web on www.uic.edu or www2.uic.edu. See "Disk Space for Official Web Pages": http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/webpub/overview.html#1 )

As the total size of all your stored files on mailserv or the size of your Inbox on icarus or tigger approaches and exceeds your soft quota, and again as it approaches your hard quota, you will receive warning email messages.

You must take these warning email messages seriously.

You don't have to wait until you get a warning email message from us to check how much mail you have on your email account; you can do that whenever you want, using the ACCC Mail Tools Quota, Download, and Delete Tool. Go to the ACCC home page (or any other ACCC Web page), click the purple Email button, select Email - Quota Tool. After you enter your netid and password, you'll see a screen similar to figure 1, if your account is on icarus or tigger or figure 2 if your account is on mailserv.

The icarus and tigger Inbox soft quota is the space available for your email Inbox, where your incoming email is kept, in the long term. Nothing bad will happen so long as the size of your Inbox on icarus or tigger stays below your Inbox soft quota. But if the size of your Inbox on icarus or tigger exceeds your Inbox soft quota and stays above it for more than seven days, new incoming email will be returned to its sender with an error message saying that your account is over quota.

The icarus and tigger Inbox hard quota is the absolute maximum online storage available for your email Inbox on icarus or tigger. Neither server will allow you to go over your Inbox hard quota. If the size of your Inbox on icarus or tigger ever reaches your Inbox hard quota, new incoming email will be returned to its sender with an error message saying that your account is over quota.

Icarus Inbox quotas:
Soft Quota: 7 MB; Hard Quota: 10 MB
Applies to all email in your Inbox on icarus.

Tigger Inbox quotas:
Soft Quota: 10 MB; Hard Quota: 15 MB
Applies to all email in your Inbox on tigger.

The icarus and tigger disk quotas: In addition to the Inbox quotas, icarus and tigger accounts also have another pair of soft and hard quotas that apply to the space taken up by all the other other files you keep on the server, including all your IMAP mailboxes other than your Inbox and the files in your personal Web pages.

Icarus disk quotas:
Soft Quota: 10 MB; Hard Quota: 15 MB
Applies to email in all IMAP/WebMail/pine mailboxes other than your Inbox and to all other files you have stored on icarus.

Tigger disk quotas:
Soft Quota: 20 MB; Hard Quota: 25 MB
Applies to email in all IMAP/WebMail/pine mailboxes other than your Inbox and to all other files you have stored on tigger.

For more information on disk quotas on icarus and tigger, see "ACCC Online Disk Space Policy": http://www.accc.uic.edu/policies/spacepol.html

Mailserv is an email-only machine used by faculty and staff members. Since all the disk storage on mailserv is email-related, there is only one pair of soft and hard quotas on mailserv, analogous to the tigger and icarus disk quotas. Mailserv does not have a separate quota for your Inbox.

The mailserv soft quota is the space available for your email Inbox, where your incoming email is kept, and for all the other email mailboxes and files you have on mailserv, in the long term. Nothing bad will happen so long as you keep your online storage on mailserv below your soft quota. But if the size of your email Inbox plus all your other mailboxes and files on mailserv exceeds your soft quota and stays above it for more than seven days, new incoming email will be returned to its sender with an error message saying that your account is over quota.

The mailserv hard quota is the absolute maximum online storage available for your email Inbox and for all the other email mailboxes and files you have on mailserv. Mailserv will not allow you to go over your hard quota. If the total size of your stored email reaches your hard quota, new incoming email will be returned to its sender with an error message saying that your account is over quota, and you won't be able to move email messages from one mailbox on mailserv to another. (You will, of course, be able to download them to your personal computer.)

Mailserv disk quotas:
Soft Quota: 25 MB; Hard Quota: 50 MB
Applies to the email in your Inbox and in all your other IMAP/WebMail mailboxes, and to all other files you have on mailserv.

Only email that is on the server -- on icarus, mailserv, or tigger -- applies to your quota(s). Exactly which email is on the server depends on how you do email-- do you use POP or IMAP or both?

POP and IMAP are two different ways that email programs manage email that's on a remote server such as icarus, mailserv, or tigger. POP is the older of the two protocols. POP was designed to be used when you always read your email from one computer, using one email program, and it is still the best choice if that is how you do email.

IMAP, on the other hand, was designed to be used when you want to read your email from multiple machines, perhaps using different programs. If this is how you want to do email, then you should use IMAP, and only IMAP. As long as you never use POP, it won't matter how many different programs or machines you use.

If you don't know whether your email program uses POP or IMAP, then you probably use POP -- that's the older method and the default for Eudora and most other personal computer email programs.

You will probably know if you use Eudora or Netscape or Outlook with IMAP, because you will have had to specifically set it up to do so.

Even if you normally only use POP, if you have ever used the ACCC's email-on-the-Web utility, WebMail, then you've used IMAP, too. WebMail uses IMAP. Likewise if you've used pine on icarus or tigger; it's IMAP-compatible.

If you've used pine, you've used IMAP.

If you use POP, the email in your local In mailbox that you've downloaded and deleted from the server isn't "on the server" and doesn't apply to any quota. But if you use Leave Mail on Server (don't -- the ACCC doesn't support it) or if you mix POP with IMAP, using POP to download a message may not result in its being deleted from the server. (See How to delete mail and what to do if the short answers don't work for more information.)

If you use a personal computer email program such as Eudora, Netscape, or Outlook, regardless of whether you use POP or IMAP, the email that's in your local mailboxes -- ones that live on your personal computer, including the In mailbox, the Out mailbox, and the local Trash mailbox -- isn't on the server and doesn't apply to your quotas. If you only use POP (and don't use WebMail), then you will only have local mailboxes.

If you use IMAP (with Eudora or another personal computer email program, or with pine or WebMail), opening a message from your Inbox or another IMAP mailbox to read it will not delete it from the server. And deleting a message from your Inbox or another mailbox on the server will also delete it from the copy of that mailbox on your personal computer, which won't do for email that you want to keep.

Specifically, if you use Eudora with IMAP, then the mailboxes at the top of the Mailbox tab -- the ones above <Dominant> -- are local mailboxes. (See figure 3.) The ones below <Dominant>, starting with your Inbox, are IMAP mailboxes that live on the server and all the mail in them applies to a server quota.

Figure 3: Local and IMAP mailboxes in Eudora The mailboxes in the blue box at the top, In, Out, Trash, family, and funstuff, are local mailboxes that live on your personal computer; the email in them doesn't apply to your server quotas. The mailboxes in the black box below the <Dominant> are IMAP mailboxes that live on the server. The space taken up by messages in these mailboxes does apply to your server quotas. The deleted and sent mail mailboxes were most likely created by WebMail.

Regardless of how you do email, to keep a message indefinitely without it applying to a server quota, you have to transfer it to a local mailbox -- one that lives on your personal computer; see figure 3.

Particularly before you download any email with attachments -- if you don’t have antivirus software with realtime file protection running, download and install Norton AntiVirus, NAV, now. Run LiveUpdate to get the latest virus definition files and make sure that NAV’s Realtime File Protection is running and that it's scanning all file types: http://www.accc.uic.edu/software/antivirus/
There are NAV installation instructions for both Macs and Windows in: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/software/nskit/uionline.pdf
See also Repeated Infections with a Particular Virus.

Use the ACCC Mail Tools Quota, Download, and Delete page to check your quota again after you download and delete to make sure you’re really back under quota.

The quota email warning messages that you receive have a link to pages that will list your ten largest email messages and for mailserv will tell you what mailbox they are in. Download these messages if you want to keep them, delete them from the server, and you should be OK.

If a message has an attachment, then if you know the person who sent you the attachment meant to send it to you (it's not at all obsessive to ask them) and only if you really want to keep the attachment, download the attachment(s) and then delete the message. Just downloading the attachment isn't good enough; that can still leave the attachment on the server. If you want to keep a copy of a message that came with an attachment, forward the message to yourself without the attachment.

Can't find the messages that your email warning message complained about? Want to keep a copy of a message that came with an attachment? There are URLs for Web pages with step-by-step instructions in How to delete mail and what to do if the short answers don't work.

People often have quota problems when they are away from work or school and don't check their email for an extended period of time. In this case, just logging in and taking care of your new incoming email -- downloading it and deleting it from the server -- might be enough to bring you back under your quota. There are step-by-step instructions in the Web pages listed in How to delete mail and what to do if the short answers don't work below.

If you don't have just a few really large messages or lots of new incoming email that you can delete from the server, then perhaps the easiest way to solve your quota problems is to download complete copies of email mailboxes -- including your Inbox -- to your personal computer or to a diskette, and then delete all or most of the messages in those mailboxes from the server.

The ACCC Mail Tools Quota, Download, and Delete Tool allows you to download or delete entire mailboxes from the server; see Figure 1 and Figure 2 and, for more information, see the "Using the ACCC Email Quota, Download, and Delete Tool" Web page: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/

Have you tried the short answers above, rechecked your quota, and find that you're still over your quota? Can't find your ten largest messages? Not sure what to do with attachments? Don't worry; the ACCC has a new set of Web pages that give step-by-step instructions on how to clear up quota problems.

Not surprisingly, what you need to do depends on (1) which server your account is on, (2) what program(s) you use when you read your mail, and (3) whether you use POP or IMAP or both.

You most likely know (1) and (2), and for the answer to (3), use the ACCC Mail Tools POP or IMAP page. (See Which email applies to your quota?.) It will tell you whether you've used POP or IMAP or both to read your email. And be sure to add IMAP if you've used pine; the POP or IMAP Web page can't tell whether you've used pine.

So now that you know the which, the what, and the whether, how do you fix your email quota problem?

Do you use POP properly (on only one computer, don't use WebMail, and don't use Leave Mail on Server)?

Then downloading your new incoming email should fix your problems. There's more in "How to fix icarus, mailserv, or tigger email quota problems with POP": http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/pop.inbox.html

Do you only use IMAP or IMAP-compatible email programs? That is, do you use Eudora or other personal computer email programs always with IMAP, or do you use WebMail or pine, or do you use any combination of these?

Then see the instructions for your email server and whichever IMAP email program you're most comfortable using, in "Fixing Email Quota Problems on ACCC mailserv Accounts":
http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/contents.mailserv.html
or in "Fixing Email Inbox Quota Problems on ACCC icarus or tigger Accounts": http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/contents.inbox.html.

Do you use both POP and IMAP, do you use POP with Leave Mail on Server (which the ACCC doesn't support), or would you like to use WebMail?

Then use IMAP to clear up your quota problems, and you should consider switching to using IMAP all the time.

If you want to use Eudora, or even if you use another personal computer email program, for icarus or tigger see: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/imap.inbox.html
or for mailserv: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/imap.mailserv.html
These pages have step-by-step instructions with links to pages that explain how to convert to using IMAP and that have hints on getting started using it.

Or you could use WebMail; with icarus or tigger accounts: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/webmail.inbox.html
or with mailserv accounts: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/webmail.mailserv.html

Or you could use pine on tigger or icarus: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/pine.inbox.html
You can even use pine on icarus or tigger for mailserv accounts: http://www.accc.uic.edu/ecomm/quota/pine.mailserv.html

Comments are welcome; please send them
to Judith Grobe Sachs, judygs@uic.edu