Configuring Eudora for IMAP

The ACCC recommends that everyone use IMAP. And this means you, if you use Eudora on multiple machines and you want to be able to access the same email from multiple locations. If this applies to you, you should use the newer protocol called IMAP. For a complete discussion of the two protocols, including the advantages and disadvantages of each, see IMAP: What's New in Electronic Mail, from the A3C Connection newsletter.

This page explains how to set up Eudora to use IMAP, how to convert from POP to IMAP, and introduces a few of the quirks of using Eudora with IMAP.

However, if you only read email from one secure location, and have a reasonably fast Internet connection, and will never use WebMail to read your email when you are away from your one PC or Mac, then you can consider using POP, the older email protocol. Configuring Eudora for POP has instructions for configuring Eudora for POP.

0. Install the Latest Eudora

The first step is to upgrade to the latest Eudora; see Eudora for Windows, Eudora for Macs.

1. Open Eudora, and open the Eudora Settings/Options:

Windows:

Tools -> Options

Macs:

Special -> Settings

Click on the icons in the area on the left to open the related options on the screen on the right. We're using our fictional staff member, Ada Byron Lovelace, netid adabyron, email account on mailserv as an example. You replace Ada's details for your own.

When you're finished configuring Eudora, click the OK button on the bottom left.

2. Convert to IMAP

You need to tell Eudora that you're going to use -- or to switch to -- the IMAP protocol for your incoming mail. (And, if you wish, to manage saved email that you keep on the email server machine.)

The options that you're going to be changing are on the:

• Incoming Mail and the
• Checking Mail

options screens. How they are distributed depends on the version, so please do one and then the other, and check though the entire list below and see which option is on which screen.

(And keep in mind that Eudora likes to move options around so if you don't find one, you're probably using a newer or older version and it's somewhere else. If you can't find it, send email to consult@uic.edu and we'll see what we can do to help.)

1. Click the radio button beside IMAP.
   Leave the Authentication method with the radio button beside Passwords clicked.
   Do not check Save Passwords.
   
   
2. Enter your IMAP Mailbox Location Prefix for Windows: mail/
   Enter your IMAP Mailbox Location Prefix for Macs: ~/mail/
   Note that the Windows prefix is different than it used to be. The old prefix will still work -- and seems to be required on the Mac -- but if the new one works, it is more upwardly compatible.
   Make sure you include the trailing slash.
   
   
3. Now let's talk about Download Options. These options tell Eudora what to do when it first downloads a message and updates the mailbox index to tell you that you have new email. You have three options.
   • The whole message, regardless (Full message with attachments),
   • The whole message, with a size limit on the attachments, and if you make that size 0, then it's the whole message, without any attachments (Full messages except attachments over x K)
   • Only the email message's headers (Minimal headers only)
   Downloading the headers only makes for the fastest initial download and also means that you can pretty much totally avoid downloading spam messages; it's the one I use and the one that I recommend.
   If you want to download your messages up front, then please at least use the download only the message and no attachments option. You're safer that way and the download is faster.
   
   
4. Check for mail every x minutes
   Please make this 10 minutes or more. More often will be bad for all of us -- for you because it will interrupt you too much and for the rest of us because it will clog the mail server too much.
   
   
5. The rest of Eudora's set up is the same whether you use IMAP or POP, so set up Eudora and make the other option changes as described in Configuring Eudora.
   
   
6. Click OK to save your changes.

After you set Eudora up, be sure to look at Safe Email Viewing with Eudora to set the options you need to make your Eudora email safe from viruses and worms.

Deleting messages is a bit complicated when using Eudora with IMAP. See Deleting Email If You Use IMAP from Using IMAP. Note that the process of deleting IMAP messages is different on Macs and Windows and in both cases there are different ways you can choose, just to make things more complicated.

The "saved" copy of IMAP email is kept on the server. When you read an IMAP email message, you will download a local copy, but if you delete the server copy of that message, then the local copy will be deleted also. But sometimes -- often -- you'll want to archive older email that you don't need to have available everywhere anymore, but you do want to keep a copy of on your PC or Mac. See Saving Local Copies of Incoming Email from Using IMAP.

With Version 6.2, the Eudora Junk filtering works with IMAP -- just create a Junk mailbox on the server. (And don't forget to empty it now and then!) See Using Eudora's SpamWatch and Junk Feature in Configuring Eudora.

• See Configuring Eudora for more information about setting Eudora up.
  
  
• See Using Eudora for a quick guide to using Eudora.
  
  
• For more information on using IMAP with Eudora for the Mac, see Qualcomm's IMAP FAQ for Macintosh.
  
  
• See For More Information for a collection of useful links for Eudora.
• Eudora manuals
  • A full set of Eudora 6.0 manuals, including quick start guides, for both Windows and Macs, on the Qualcomm Eudora Web site: Outstanding Documentation Web page :-)
  • See also the Online Tutorials link on that page.