FAQ - Email: Using Eudora

Table of Contents Getting and Installing Eudora How can I get Eudora? How can I update it? How do I install and set Eudora up? Should I use IMAP or POP? How should I decide which options I want or need in the Eudora settings? I installed Eudora and it's acting like it's the free version not the paid version. How can I fix this? Documentation and Newsgroups: More About Eudora Where can I find Eudora documentation that is local to UIC problems and configurations? Where can I find information and documentation on Eudora from Qualcomm (the makers of Eudora) or other useful sites? Are there Eudora Newsgroups to which I can post questions? How Do I...? How can I convert Nicknames (an addressbook) from one format to another? E.g., from UNIX Pine format to Eudora format? I have a laptop that I use both at home and at work. How do I get Eudora to use my commercial ISP's SMTP server at home and the UIC SMTP servers at work? I have three email accounts. Can I use Eudora to read them all at once? How do I tell Eudora to put a copy of the message that I'm looking at into a particular mailbox? How do I tell if a message is one I've sent or one I've received? How do I tell if I've actually sent a particular message? How do I tell Eudora to check for incoming mail? How do I delete a message, remove a mailbox, rename a folder, or do just about anything else I'd want to do? How do I send a file with Eudora? How do I use Eudora filters to sort my email? How do I save my work in Eudora Tools? How do I get the toolbar back? Eudora with POP: Error Messages and How do I...? I use Eudora with POP, but want to do my email on two different machines. How do I do that? MAILDROP LOCK When I try to check my mail, I receive an error something like this: "MAILDROP LOCK". I use Eudora with POP and suddenly all the mail I'm downloading gone (or so it appears). What can I do? Help! I use Eudora with POP and suddenly all the old mail in my In mailbox is gone. What can I do? What about those messages that I receive with the subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE--FOLDER INTERNAL DATA? Eudora with IMAP: Error Messages and How do I...? I use Eudora on a Mac. Can I use IMAP? If you use Eudora with IMAP, a Most important note: Not all mailboxes are IMAP mailboxes. How do I tell which mailboxes and folders are local (stored on my PC) and which are IMAP mailboxes (stored on an email server, such as mailserv)? How does Eudora use the local In mailbox and the server Inbox with with IMAP? How do I refresh a mailbox or folder index? How do I customize the toolbar, and how do I Remove Deleted Messages (or undelete them) the easy way? How should I deal with attachments using IMAP? I was trying to delete messages from the IMAP server and I got the following error message: IMAP command failed: Invalid IMAP mailbox name: 'Trash'. I was trying to exit Eudora and I got the following error message: IMAP command failed: Invalid IMAP mailbox name: 'Trash'. Other Eudora Problems and Error Messages Eudora crashes when I try to open it. Help! Sending an email message takes 10 to 30 seconds. How do I fix this? (I just installed the Windows XP SP2 Upgrade or some firewall or other.) When I try to send mail I get a "restricted" error message. Eudora is suddenly asking me for a password, although I've checked mail many times before and it has never asked then. I don't know my password; what do I do? When I try to check my mail, Eudora says that the password supplied was incorrect, although I know what my password is. Every time I open Eudora it tells me that the TOC of my In mailbox is Corrupted and asks me whether I want to rebuild it. If I say yes, then my Inbox is empty. Help? When does Eudora automatically compact mailboxes?

Question 1.1 How can I get Eudora? How can I update it?

• Eudora can be downloaded from E-Sales.
• See Eudora for Macs and Eudora for Windows for instructions on downloading Eudora.

Question 1.2 How do I install and set Eudora up? Should I use IMAP or POP?

• First, decide whether you should use IMAP or POP;
  • If you only read your email with Eudora and always only on one machine, then you can use POP.
  • If you will regularly use the ACCC's Web-based WebMail mail system -- which is the easiest and safest way to do email when you're away from your home or office -- or if you regularly read your email from different locations, then use IMAP.
• The ACCC recommends using IMAP. For more information on IMAP and POP and how to choose between them, see What's New in Electronic Mail.
• See Configuring Eudora and then Configuring Eudora for POP or Configuring Eudora for IMAP explain how to proceed.

Question 1.3 How should I decide which options I want or need in the Eudora settings?

• There is an online visual guide to options that are available in Eudora, from setting up how Eudora handles your incoming mail to which sound file it plays when new mail arrives.

Question 1.4 I installed Eudora and it's acting like it's the free version not the paid version. How can I fix this?

• You have to enter the University of Illinois name and Registration Code; for instructions, see: Eudora Registration Code.
• When accessed off-campus, you will have to login with Bluestem to see that page.

Question 2.1 Where can I find Eudora documentation that is local to UIC problems and configurations?

• Eudora Email for Macs and Windows
• For More Information

Question 2.2 Where can I find information and documentation on Eudora from Qualcomm (the makers of Eudora) or other useful sites?

• See "Eudora For More Information", Eudora Manuals and Outside References

Question 2.3 Are there Eudora Newsgroups to which I can post questions?

• Yes; see comp.mail.eudora.ms-windows or comp.mail.eudora.mac

Question 3.1 How can I convert Nicknames (an addressbook) from one format to another? E.g., from UNIX Pine format to Eudora format?

• See the ACCC Email Addressbook Conversion Utility.
• If that doesn't have way you need, see InterGuru's E-Mail Address Book Conversions page.

Question 3.2 I have a laptop that I use both at home and at work. How do I get Eudora to use my commercial ISP's SMTP server at home and the UIC SMTP servers at work?

• The easiest way is to use the ACCC's authenticated SMTP server, mail.uic.edu, which works both on- and off-campus.
• Another way is to use an alternate personality; see Using Alternate Personalities in Eudora.
  
  
• A third way is to have set up two instances of Eudora up on your laptop; one for home and one for work. That means you'll have two eudora.ini files, which you'll have to keep in sync by hand.

  Here's how:

  1. First create a copy of your EUDORA.INI file in your Eudora folder. Call it, say, eudoraini.isp
  2. Use a text editor to change the line that reads "SMTPServer=smtpserv1.cc.uic.edu" to use your ISP's SMTP server value.
  3. Then, create a new desktop shortcut named Eudora/Your ISP: Right click on blank part of your desktop, click New, then Shortcut, and make the command line look like this:

     "C:\Program Files\UICNSKit\Eudora\Eudora.exe" eudoraini.isp

Question 3.3 I have three email accounts. Can I use Eudora to read them all at once?

• Yes, you can. See Using Alternate Personalities in Eudora.

Question 3.4 How do I tell Eudora to put a copy of the message that I'm looking at into a particular mailbox?

• Right-click anywhere in the body or header of the message, select Fcc from the menu, then select the mailbox you want.

Question 3.5 How do I tell if a message is one I've sent or one I've received?

• Eudora uses an italic font in its mailbox indexes for the "messages summaries" of outgoing messages (even if they haven't been sent yet; see the next question). This is different from Pine on UNIX, which uses its "Who" column (to use Eudora's term) to indicate whether a stored message is one you sent or received.

Question 3.6 How do I tell if I've actually sent a particular message?

• Eudora lets you Save outgoing messages without sending them, which is a good thing; but Eudora also has the philosophy, "once an outgoing message, always an outgoing message," so it displays outgoing messages that you've already sent in the same window that you use to compose new outgoing messages (the Send button is grayed out, but that's easy to miss). So how can you tell whether you've actually sent an outgoing message? In addition to the italicized message summary (see the previous question), an outgoing message that has been sent has a checkmark in the status column in the mailbox index.

Question 3.7 How do I tell Eudora to check for incoming mail?

• There are three ways to do this:
  1. automatically (the Checking Mail options window; see table 1).
  2. by clicking on the Check Mail icon (it looks like an envelope being put into a box), and
  3. going to File -> Check Mail.

Question 3.8 How do I delete a message, remove a mailbox, rename a folder, or do just about anything else I'd want to do?

• This one is Windows only -- Eudora for the Mac doesn't do Option-Clicking yet: When in doubt, right-click. As is generally true in Windows, if you right-click on a name, in a window, or even on the toolbar or status bar, Eudora will display a menu of tasks related to that item or window. To delete or rename a mailbox, for example, right-click on its name in the Mailboxes tab.

Question 3.9 How do I send a file with Eudora?

• Eudora is MIME-aware, so you can attach any type of file to a Eudora message. The process is very similar on the Mac and in Windows.
• Let's use Eudora on the Mac as an example. Create, address, and type the body of the note as usual. To attach a file, select "Attach Document..." from the "Message" menu. This opens a standard file dialog. Select the document to be included and double-click on its name to attach it or click the Attach button.
• You need to choose a format for the attached file. The best choice is MIME (Windows) or Apple Double (Macs; it's the same as MIME).
• When you receive a note with an attachment, unless you chose "Automatically save attachments" to in the "Configuration" dialog, Eudora will automatically open a standard file dialog box, allowing you to choose a name and location for the downloaded attachment.

Question 3.10 How do I use Eudora filters to sort my email?

• See Using Eudora Email Filters.

Question 3.11 How do I save my work in Eudora Tools?

• Unlike most current Windows programs, a number of the Eudora Tools windows don't have buttons to click to save your work and exit the window. Generally, using File -> Save (if you want to keep the changes you've made) and then File -> Close will take care of that. However, even if you have made changes that you want to keep, you could try clicking on the close window button (in the upper right corner of the tool's window). Eudora will open a dialog box asking whether you want to save your changes before it actually closes the window.

Question 3.12 How do I get the toolbar back?

• Accidentally lost your toolbar? To get it back, right-click the status bar (at the bottom of the Eudora window, to the left of the spinning yin-yang), and select Toolbar from the menu.

Question 4.1 I use Eudora with POP, but want to do my email on two different machines. How do I do that?

• You shouldn't; use Eudora with IMAP instead.

Question 4.2 MAILDROP LOCK
When I try to check my mail, I receive an error something like this: "MAILDROP LOCK".

• How does Eudora work with a POP server? explains how this happens. Visit the Email Tools page to actually fix the problem so that you can check your mail again.

Question 4.3 I use Eudora with POP and suddenly all the mail I'm downloading gone (or so it appears). What can I do?

• You can read why this happens in How does Eudora work with a POP server?, but you should visit the Email Tools page to actually fix the problem so that you can check your mail again.

Question 4.4 Help! I use Eudora with POP and suddenly all the old mail in my In mailbox is gone. What can I do?

• This is a problem for people who use Eudora with Windows with Norton AntiVirus or Symantec AntiVirus (which are both the same thing) with its Realtime File Protection feature turned on. It is a good and right thing to use NAV or SAV, this is just a glitch that can be fixed permanently.
• The problem is that there has been a change in the way the virus definitions that Norton AntiVirus / Symantec AntiVirus work; they now can find viruses and worms while they are still encoded as email attachments.
• This has lead to NAV and SAV to quarantining entire mailboxes; in particular, people's In mailboxes. When the mailbox is quarantined, it's moved away from your Eudora directory, so Eudora can't see it and the mail doesn't appear to be there.
• So long as you don't actually delete your quarantined In.mbx file, your mail isn't really lost. So don't panic.
• For an explanation, instructions on how to get your mail back, and instructions on how to prevent this from happening again or for the first time, see Restoring Quarantined Mailboxes (SAV and Eudora for Windows).

Question 4.5 What about those messages that I receive with the subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE--FOLDER INTERNAL DATA?

• As the text of these messages say, they aren't really email messages. You get them whenever you read your email with a program that uses the IMAP email protocol to handle your inbox and other email folders. IMAP creates these messages, which it uses for internal record keeping.
• You shouldn't see the messages when you read your email with an email program that's set up to use IMAP. WebMail and pine only use IMAP. You can also set Eudora, Netscape, and Outlook up to use IMAP rather than POP.
• You will see these messages when you use an email program that is set up to use IMAP along with one that's set up to use POP. Say, for example, WebMail with Eudora with POP or Eudora with IMAP with Eudora with POP.
• If you change your personal computer email program to use IMAP (these days, they just about all can, including Eudora, Netscape, and Outlook), then you should never see these messages again.
• If you don't want to do that, then we're sorry if they are annoying, but the best advice is just ignore them.
• Configuring Eudora for IMAP explains how to set Eudora up for IMAP.

Question 5.1 I use Eudora on a Mac. Can I use IMAP?

• Yes, newer versions of Eudora for the Mac support IMAP.
• Note: when the articles about IMAP that appeared in the ACCC's newsletter, A3C Connection were written, Eudora for Macs did not support IMAP. It does now.
• Upgrade to the most recent ACCC-supported version of Eudora for Macs before you convert to IMAP.

Question 5.2 If you use Eudora with IMAP, a Most important note: Not all mailboxes are IMAP mailboxes.

• Only the mailboxes that you keep on the email server are IMAP mailboxes, and IMAP's advantages (listed in IMAP: What's New in Electronic Mail) apply only to these mailboxes. This includes, in particular, the "access from anywhere" advantage. (Note: when those A3C Connection articles were written, Eudora for Macs did not support IMAP. It does now. So Mac users can now use all the advantages that IMAP brings.)

Question 5.3 How do I tell which mailboxes and folders are local (stored on my PC) and which are IMAP mailboxes (stored on an email server, such as mailserv)?

• All the local folders/messages are at the top of the Mailboxes tab, under the title Eudora Mail. The ones that are on the server are at the bottom, under <Dominant>.

Question 5.4 How does Eudora use the local In mailbox and the server Inbox with with IMAP?

• When you use IMAP, the Inbox under <Dominant> is your maildrop on the server. If you use only IMAP (and if you don't have any filters that involve the In mailbox), you probably won't ever use Eudora's local In mailbox. However, you will use the local In mailbox if you have alternate personalities that use POP; Eudora will put all incoming mail from all of your POP personalities into your local In mailbox.

Question 5.5 How do I refresh a mailbox or folder index?

• With IMAP, you can keep your mailboxes and folders on the email server, allowing you to access and change them behind Eudora's back. Whenever you do this, you have to refresh the mailbox or folder's index in Eudora.
• In Windows, this is a right-click function (see the previous section): In the Mailboxes tab, right-click on the folder or mailbox name, then select Refresh Mailbox List for folders or Resynchronize Mailbox for mailboxes.
• On Macs:
  1. If the Mailboxes window isn't already open: Window -> Mailboxes.
  2. Click on the mailbox you want to resynchronize to highlight it.
  3. Click on the last of the four icons at the bottom of the window; it looks like a mailbox standing on a pedistool. Or with some wires coming out of it.
  4. Select Resynchronize Mailbox from the menu. (This is the way you refresh mailbox lists and so on as well.)

Question 5.6 How do I customize the toolbar, and how do I Remove Deleted Messages (or undelete them) the easy way?

• There is a toolbar icon that removes the IMAP deletion mark (the red X in the server status column) and another that does Messages -> Remove Deleted Messages, each with just one click, and it's easy to add them to your toolbar.
• Customizing the toolbar is different for Windows and Macs; instructions are in Using Eudora.
• Like the other Eudora toolbar icons, they'll be grayed out except when you can actually use them.

Question 5.7 How should I deal with attachments using IMAP?

• Be careful if you choose to download only the headers of IMAP messages or not to automatically download larger attachments. Don't Purge (see the previous section) any messages that you might want to read or that have attachments you might want to keep from your Inbox until you've actually read them or downloaded them. (To download an attachment, open the message it's attached to and double-click on its icon.)

Question 5.8 I was trying to delete messages from the IMAP server and I got the following error message:
IMAP command failed: Invalid IMAP mailbox name: 'Trash'.

• Either: Select Tools -> Options -> Incoming Mail -> Mark as Deleted and click OK. Then when you delete a message, it is marked with a red X, but stays in its original mailbox. To actually delete the messages you've marked for deletion, use Message -> Purge Messages in that mailbox, and the messages will be deleted.
• Or: to use a Trash mailbox on the IMAP server:
  1. Tools -> Options -> Incoming Mail -> When I delete a message move it to trash -> Click OK.
  2. If necessary to turn the Mailboxes window on, go to Tools -> Mailboxes. Right click on , and Refresh your mailboxes.
  3. If the Trash mailbox does not appear under the IMAP mailboxes, right click <Dominant>, select New, and create a new mailbox and name it: Trash
  4. Go to Tools -> Options -> Incoming Mail -> When I delete a message move it to trash -> and select your new Trash mailbox (<Dominant>/Trash) from the pulldown list.
  In this case, you would have to delete the messages again from the Trash mailbox to actually delete them. Using the Eudora Delete Messages from Trash won't delete messages from a Trash mailbox on the server in Windows. (It will in Eudora for the Mac.)

Question 5.9 I was trying to exit Eudora and I got the following error message:
IMAP command failed: Invalid IMAP mailbox name: 'Trash'.

• I have seen this cryptic error message in all versions of Eudora 6. It goes away when you uncheck:
  Tools -> Options -> Attachments -> Delete attachments when emptying Trash
• That's also why it appears when you're quitting Eudora - you likely have checked Empty Trash when exiting under Miscellaneous.
• But for Eudora for Windows that emptying (unfortunately) only works on the local Trash mailbox anyway, so there's really no reason why Eudora would want access your IMAP server. Nevertheless, it does.
• As that function has never worked anyway, it's just as well to uncheck that box as well. Well, it may work for others, but for me it has never worked (for security reasons, my attachments folder does not the default name "attach"). A bug in Eudora since the beginning.

Question 6.1 Eudora crashes when I try to open it. Help!

• The Eudora Crashes When Opening technical support page has 12 things that you can do. If the first doesn't fix your problem, go on to the second, and so on.
• Often the problem will be a bad message; steps 4 and 5 target that problem.
• If you have to reinstall Eudora, you have to do it without your old Eudora interfering, so the instructions include renaming a number of Eudora files.

Question 6.2 Sending an email message takes 10 to 30 seconds. How do I fix this? (I just installed the Windows XP SP2 Upgrade or some firewall or other.)

• The problem is that when email message is sent, the ACCC SMTP servers attempt to contact your machine via identd. Normally your machine would simply reject the connection and things go quickly. When a firewall is installed, the identd connection is blocked so the SMTP server's attempted connection has to time out, which is where the delay comes from.
• See Since I installed the Windows SP2 upgrade or some other Firewall on my computer, sending an email message now takes 10 to 30 seconds. How do I fix this?" in the Email FAQ.
• The instructions there are specificially for Windows XP, but the data can be used for any firewall.

Question 6.3 When I try to send mail I get a "restricted" error message.

• If you try to send email outside of UIC with the wrong SMTP server setting, it will be rejected. Check to make sure that your SMTP server settings are correct as specified in the appropriate configuration section of Eudora Email for Macs and Windows.

Question 6.4 Eudora is suddenly asking me for a password, although I've checked mail many times before and it has never asked then. I don't know my password; what do I do?

• When your Eudora was originally set up, your entered your password and told Eudora to save it. Now Eudora, for a variety of possible reasons, has forgotten the password and needs to be told it again.
• If you no longer know what your password is, then you must come to the CSO, a lab monitor, or the BGRC machine room, in person, with a photo ID to have it changed for you. See the Help page on the ACCC home page for locations and hours.

Question 6.5 When I try to check my mail, Eudora says that the password supplied was incorrect, although I know what my password is.

• This is usually due to Eudora being misconfigured. Double check your configuration against the appropriate configuration section in Eudora Email for Macs and Windows.
• NOTE: A common error is typing your netid in the wrong case. Your netid should be in all lower case letters, regardless of what your email address is. For example, if your netid is "adabyron", then you must use adabyron -- in all lower case -- when you configure Eudora.

Question 6.6 Every time I open Eudora it tells me that the TOC of my In mailbox is Corrupted and asks me whether I want to rebuild it. If I say yes, then my Inbox is empty. Help?

• If this is an IMAP inbox, the easiest way to fix it tends to be to shut down Eudora, delete the local copy completely (everything under <mail folder>/IMAP/<personality name>/INBOX/ ), then fire up Eudora and have it check mail.
• If it's a POP mailbox, and you're using LMOS, shut Eudora down, move the IN.mbx and IN.toc files out of your Eudora folder, then launch Eudora and check mail. And turn off LMOS and if you really want to leave your email on the server turn IMAP on:
  http://www.accc.uic.edu/software/eudora/eudora.imap.html
• If it's a POP mailbox without server backup and the file is really 0 bytes (i.e. totally empty when opened in Wordpad or UltraEdit, NOT in Notepad!!!), you better look for a recent backup copy. Ran Scandisk etc. yet? This is likely not Eudora-caused corruption.
• When a Eudora mailbox TOC gets corrupted (and it's almost never the mailbox that gets corrupted, only the TOC), that means Eudora lost track of where messages start and end and which messages are marked for deletion. Rebuilding the TOC will cause already "deleted" messages to reappear with a "recovered" status (designated by a question mark) - if you want to delete them for real, you need to compact the mailbox after deleting them again.
• Refusing to rebuild a TOC when Eudora asks you to and then working with the mailbox as if nothing had happened can lead to actual corruption of the .mbx file, so that's not a good idea! If your mailbox is large, it might take Eudora some time to rebuild the TOC. Let it take whatever time it needs.
• Only compacting actually deletes content from the .mbx file, so don't do this when your TOC shows no messages in the mailbox -- that will wipe the .mbx file clean! Better to first analyze the .mbx file in Wordpad. Note that a .mbx file can in very rare cases get so corrupted during the download phase that building a proper TOC is impossible; deleting the offending message via WordPad, removing the .toc file, launching Eudora and trying again should help in those cases.
• Eudora loads the In, Out, and Trash mailboxes into memory when it starts. So if they get really big, your chances of data corruption increases.
• It is a good practice to routinely Empty Trash and to transfer old messages from the In and Out boxes to other mailboxes in Eudora. Even better is a setup where incoming mail goes into many different mailboxes via filters rather than cluttering the In or Out mailboxes. Heed Qualcomm's warning: the In, Out, and Trash mailboxes are always in memory, so they MUST be kept small and lean at all cost. Mailboxes of 1000 or more messages are asking for trouble big time.
• For more information, see: Missing Mail / Corrupt Mailboxes (Windows) from Eudora's support.
• It is also a good idea to Compact Mailboxes once a day. (Or see the following Question.)

Question 6.7 When does Eudora automatically compact mailboxes?

• The default is when %50 of your mailbox or 5% of your harddrive is taken up by wasted space, so that might be something you want to change.
• See Eudora's Auto compacting of mailboxes for instructions.

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