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  1. Email
    1. FAQ
      1. Address Books
      2. Mail Accounts
      3. Receiving Mail
      4. Sending Mail
      5. Quota
    2. Mail Client Tutorials
    3. Spam
    4. Special Folders
    5. Viruses
    6. Webmail
    7. Usage Agreement

    1. What is IMAP?
    2. What is POP?
    3. Why can't I see my folders?
    4. How do I download my email?
    5. How can I forward my riseup email to another account?
    6. Why is email to me being blocked as "Spam"?

    What is IMAP?

    IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is newer than POP and more advanced, but only works well for computers which are always connected to the internet.

    When you check your mail via IMAP, this happens:

    1. Your mail client connects to the IMAP server
      and downloads a list of the message headers only.
      It does not download the message bodies (usually).
    2. Your mail client updates is own local list of message headers based on what the server said. You might get new messages in your INBOX or you might have some message deleted if the server says they are gone.
    When you click on a message, this happens:

    1. Your mail client connects to the IMAP server and
      downloads the message body. This does not happen until now.
    When you delete a message, this happens:

    1. Your mail client tells the IMAP server to mark the message as deleted.
    2. The message stays there, marked as deleted, until you tell it to 'expunge' deleted. You might not see it if your client is configured to hide deleted messages, but it is still there.
    3. Depending on how your mail client is configured, it might also put a copy of the deleted message in your local Trash folder.
    See our mail clients page for more information.

    What is POP?

    POP stands for Post Office Protocol. It is how your mail client communicates with a mail server storing your mail.

    Typically, the way POP works is like this:

    1. Your mail client connects to a POP server.
    2. All the new messages are downloaded onto your local machine.
    3. All the messages on the server are removed. Now they only exist on your machine.
    4. The connection is closed.
    Alternately, you can configure your mail client to leave messages on the server after they are downloaded. This can be useful if you want to check your mail from multiple clients. If you do this, make sure to also set it so that when you delete a message locally, the copy on the server is also deleted. Otherwise, your disk usage on the mail server will climb rapidly, you will exceed your quota, and then you will not get any new messages.

    See our mail clients page for more information.

    Why can't I see my folders?

    When using POP, you will not be able to see the server-based folders which you see if you use IMAP or web mail.

    POP only has local folders which are stored on you local machine.

    If you are using IMAP and you cannot see your server-based folders, then you may need to "subscribe" to these folders in order to see them. In Thunderbird you do this by right-clicking on the Inbox. Otherwise, consult your mail client's documentation for how to do this.

    How do I download my email?

    Both webmail and IMAP mail clients leave your messages on the server until you specifically delete them. To free up quota but keep your messages, you need to copy your messages from a server-based folder to a local folder. Don't worry if your quota is not updated right away: when you delete messages, your quota usage information is not updated until you receive more email.

    The process varies depending on the interface of you mail client. If you are using Thunderbird follow these steps:

    • In the left pane, you will see a heading for Local Folders. Anything stored under this section is stored on your computer and not on the riseup.net server.
    • To create a new local folder, choose the menu item File > New > Folder.... Choose to create your folder as a sub-folder of Local Folders.
    • Go back to your riseup.net Inbox. From there, hilight some or all of the messages in your Inbox. You can use the search function and then select all, or just manually choose a selection.
    • Choose the menu item Messages > Move > Local Folders > Folder Name, where Folder Name is the name of the new folder you just created. Alternately, you can use the mouse to drag the selected messages to the new folder.
    If you do not use Thunderbird, check your email client's documentation for details.

    UPDATE: it used to be the case that you could download and archive your mail using squirrelmail. The plugin that made this possible is not longer being supported by the author and does not work with the current version of squirrelmail.

    Alternately, you can also use squirrelmail to download an archive of your mail:

    • Login at mail.riseup.net, using the squirrelmail login form.
    • Configure the format of the archive be choosing Options > Archive Settings.
    • Go back to the folder where the messages are that you wish to download.
    • Download an archive by clicking the Archive button at the bottom right of the message list.
    • This will create an archive of all the currently visible messages. If you want to archive all of your messages, you may want to first click Show All.
    • Note that you cannot archive too many messages at once: the server script will run out of memory and fail.
    • Archiving messages with squirrelmail does not delete them: you must still delete the messages in order to save space.

    How can I forward my riseup email to another account?

    • Login at user.riseup.net
    • Click on "email"
    • Enter the address which you would like your riseup mail forwarded to in the field marked "Forward" towards the bottom of the page
    • Click on "Save Changes"
    • note: you may get a strange red exclamation mark at the top of the screen. this is a bug, but as long as your forwarding email address appears on the screen, your email is being forwarded.

    Why is email to me being blocked as "Spam"?

    A recent study has shown that over 95% of the email traffic on the internet is spam! Yes, 95%! For you and me, it is just a nuisance, but for riseup's poor servers, it's a huge hassle. Riseup has deployed a number of tools to combat spam and sometimes a legitimate user's email will be incorrectly identified as spam. Before contacting us, please review the steps listed here to see if you can resolve the problem.

    First, let's identify the problem. If your mail is being bounced by riseup, our servers will give a reason for the bounce. Look at the bounce message and compare it to our sample messages below. If you find a match, try the steps listed before contacting us.

    Spamassassin

    host lists.riseup.net (204.13.164.55) said: 550 5.7.1 Blocked by SpamAssassin (in reply to end of DATA command)

    Riseup uses Spamassassin to help us fight spam. There are a number of rules that Spamassassin uses to determine if incoming mail is spam. Check this page to see if the person sending you mail, or their ISP, can resolve the issue before you contact us to report this issue.

    My mail server has "bad MX records"

    Connected to 204.13.164.19 but sender was rejected. Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Sender address (EXAMPLE@EXAMPLE.NET) blocked using bogusmx.rfc-ignorant.org; Domain has demonstrably bogus MX records

    MX records define servers that are authorized to send mail. Some ISPs do not configure their DNS records correctly, and this leads to lots of problems. In fact, this is a common practice for spammers - so riseup does not accept mail with bogus mx records. If the person who is sending you mail is receiving this error, please have them contact their ISP (or their IT department if it's a business) and tell them to look at this page.
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