Table 1: A Visual Guide to Eudora Options

About this Table:

To accept all your changes and return to Eudora, click OK.

While the specific selections given here are the ones that I, a former Pine and CMS mail user, find most convenient, the notes in this table can be of benefit to anyone using Eudora.

The items in italics apply specifically to me; you'll have to change them, using your own name, netid, and so on.

The sections of this document are organized based on the Options windows in version 5.1; some of the options listed don't exist in older Eudoras and some are in other sections.

The SSL for incoming email options require Eudora for Windows 6.2; download it free from the Web.

• Getting Started
• Checking Mail
• Incoming Mail (Using IMAP) Windows Only
• Incoming Mail (Using POP) Windows Only
• Sending Mail
• SSL Mac Only
• Composing Mail
• Replying
• Attachments
• Viewing mail (Windows Only)
• -- Mailbox Display (Mac Only)
• Mailboxes
• Styled Text
• Auto-completion (Windows) and Nickname Expansion (Macs)
• Miscellaneous
• Fonts (Windows) and Display (Windows) and Fonts and Display (Macs)
• Spell Checking
• Date Display
• Ports
• Labels
• Getting Attention
• Junk Mail and Junk Mail Extras
• Content Concentrator
• Personalities and Personality Extras (Mac Only)

Windows Only:
If you select Automatic Fcc to original mailbox, when you reply to a message you've moved into an archive mailbox, Eudora will automatically save a copy of the reply in that mailbox. (See also (3) How to save copies of outgoing messages.)

Windows Only:
Quote only the selected text is also a nice option to use. With this turned on, you can highlight a section of the message you're replying to, then click Reply, and only the highlighted section of the original note will be included in your reply.

Mac Only:
Don't use Message Previews. Uncheck all of those options. It there is no point in opening spam or viruses, which together make up the majority of the mail that most people get these days. So previewing every message a waste of time. But you don't have to uncheck this if (1) you use antispam filtering, as is the default these days, and (2) you're careful about checking each mailbox's index list and delete all suspicious email messages before you begin reading your remaining email.

Windows Only:
I don't use the Label and Priority columns, so I turned them off. (But see also Labels.)

Windows Only: Allow drag-and-drop transfers Allow drag-select of messages
Windows Only: Close messages with mailboxes

These are options that have to do with what Eudora will do when you begin to type a nickname or email address in the To:, CC:, or BCC: fields. Take a look at the available options and select whichever you want. See also Note #16 in Miscellaneous.

The fonts are up to you.

Display graphics in messages Automatically download HTML graphics Animate animated GIF images

Don't view graphics in Eudora. If you want to see the graphics, you can use File -> Open in Browser

Up to you, but if you choose Age-sensitive and the default RECENT format, keep in mind that only the time will be displayed on today's messages. (In Windows, where you have a choice, I use %2 %1 for OLD format.)

You might not have a Ports option, and, you might not need it. If you use Required, alternate port for SSL for POP or SSL for IMAP and Required, alternate port for SSL for SMTP, Eudora will automatically switch to the correct ports for you, and will not change the display in the Ports Option. (It will be wrong.)

Windows Only: If you don't have the Ports option, move the file Esoteric.epi (which you'll find in your Eudora ExtraStuff folder) into your Eudora folder, then restart Eudora.

I don't use labels, but my husband, who has several POP accounts, uses them so he can tell which message in his In mailbox came from which account -- Eudora puts all new incoming email from every POP personality in its one local In mailbox. My husband has a Eudora filter that gives a specific label -- and therefore color -- to all the incoming messages that come from each account. You won't need that if you exclusively use IMAP, because each IMAP personality has its own individual Inbox.

Here I just checked Open mailbox; that seems to be least intrusive to me. If you unselect Play a sound, you can get rid of that annoying sound Eudora makes when you receive new mail. Or you can change it to a sound you like. See also Note #2.

Junk Mail is a new feature in Version 6. Eudora reads each incoming email message and assigns it a junk score of from 1 to 100. You tell Eudora to label email with a junk rating over a given number (the default is 50) as junk; it will automatically move junk mail into a junk mailbox. Eudora can automatically delete junk mail, and can not junk email messages from people in your address book, and you have the option of telling it that specific messages are junk or aren't junk, and it will learn from your instructions. See the Junk Mail and Junk Mail Extras options for other things you can do with Junk email.

Junk Mail is more useful is a very useful compliment to antispam filtering.

Content Concentrator is also new in Version 6. I thought it would be really spiffy, but ended up disappointing me. It allows Eudora to not display the entire email message either in the Preview Pane (which you shouldn't be using) or when you're sending a Message. What it does do is show the top of the messages, some dot-dot-dots and then the bottom of the message. It is good for replies to long messages. It gives some context, without forwarding the entire long message. But depending on where you put your reply, sometimes your reply will get chopped out too.

These Settings are very useful. They have all the options that define a personality. Use them if you want to modify something that has to do with one of your personalities.