UPDATE 1/10/2012: These instructions are for the University’s old RoyalMail system, which has been superseded by Microsoft Live@Edu. You can find updated instructions in our January 2012 post on Email Migration for Gmail Users.
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DISCLAIMER : There are important security and policy issues in regards to storing University of Scranton data on non-University of Scranton hardware. For more information, please see the end of this document
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If you’re like me, you’re an email pack-rat. Who knows when something might be useful? You like to hang on to emails and save them, archive them in folders, and squirrel them away until…. you fill up your email quota and go through all your emails, purging pictures and documents from years ago, shedding a few tears for each one. In this post, I’m going to walk you through what, in my opinion, is your best option: migrating everything into your Gmail account.
Why Gmail? Other than its ubiquity (you probably already have a Gmail account!), the email quota itself is worth the switch. Your email quota on RoyalMail is 200 MB, thoughpower users can increase this quota by request. Gmail’s current quota? 7498MB. That’s about 37 times more storage space, AND it keeps increasing. (Need more than that? You can get it, but Google will charge you a couple bucks a month.)
This FAQ will step you through using Gmail for all your University of Scranton email. Other options exist, of course. For example, you can set up email forwarding in RoyalMail (go to settings, mail, choose “enable mail forwarding,” and provide an address). Thunderbird is also an option, but that leaves the mail locally on your computer. Gmail is a web-based program and accessible from anywhere you can get an internet connection, and it will fetch your email is exactly the same manner as Thunderbird will.
So here’s the ever important question: How can I set up my RoyalMail in Gmail?
- First, get a Gmail account. It’s free, quick, and easy.
- Next, once you log in, click “Settings” in the upper right hand corner.
- Go to “Accounts and Import” and click the button to “Add a POP3 email account”.
- A window will pop up asking for the email address that you would like to check. For me, it’s sepinskyj2@scranton.edu
- This will open a new window. Type in your password (don’t worry, it’s secure. Just make sure it says “https” in the address bar, and your browser shows you a closed padlock).
- Now you have to check some things and set up a couple of options (click “Learn More” in the Gmail window to get even more info). First, make sure the “POP Server” is set to “royalmail.scranton.edu” Port “110”. Gmail is usually smart enough to set this one automatically.
- “Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server” : Normally, Gmail will download the mail locally and then delete from RoyalMail. Your mail will be in your Gmail account, but that is the only place where it is stored. If you would like to access your mail via royalmail.scranton.edu as well as Gmail, click this box. Be warned though, you will still have to worry about your RoyalMail quota!
- “Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.”: The University’s servers do not appear to support SSL. Make sure this box is unchecked.
- “Label incoming messages”: You have the option to automatically put a label on all the mail coming in from this account. Labels in Gmail are like folders in other mail applications. This will help you keep your “work email” separate from your personal email, if you want to make this distinction.
- “Archive incoming messages”: Gmail allows you the option to simply not put the messages in your main inbox. Chances are, you don’t want this button checked.
- Click “Add Account” and you should be set to check your mail! It will attempt to access the account and give you an error if you cannot.
- Next, you want to make sure that you can send email as your Scranton self, as opposed to your Gmail self. I definitely recommend this, as it looks much more professional. Starting from the same page: Settings -> Accounts and Import, under “send mail as”, click on the button to “send mail from another account”.
- Type in your name if it’s not already there, and add your Scranton email address. Click Next Step.
- Now you have an option:
- “Send through Gmail (easier to set up)” : This is easier. BUT, it just looks like the mail is sent from you. It’s doesn’t actually get sent through the university servers. The only place you’ll see a difference is in the email header. If you use this method, it’ll say something like sent by you@scranton.edu, but the actual electronic breadcrumbs will be myaccount@gmail.com. If you’re ok with that, go ahead and click there. They’ll send you a verification email, click the link, and you’re good to go.
- “Send through yahoo.com SMTP servers (recommended for professional domains)” : This will make sure that it’s not Gmail that’s sending your mail. Gmail will connect to the University’s web server, and literally tell the University’s server to send the mail – so your mail will literally be coming from the University’s computers. When you select this, you’ll be given a set up other options to type in. Simply set: SMTP Server to royalpo.scranton.edu, Port: 465, and make sure you type in your username and password. (Here, you can select SSL if you would like). Click Next, and you’ll get a confirmation e-mail that you’ll need to click. Once you get it, and follow the instructions there, you’re good to go!
Did you try it? Did it work? Let us know in the comment section below!
P.S. Anyone have any tips and tricks for how they manage their mail in Gmail?
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Follow-up from Anthony Maszeroski, Information Security Manager at The University of Scranton:
Regarding your most recent post about using Google to read your
university mail:
a.) We really should emphasize that individuals shouldn’t, in general,
be storing their University my.scranton credentials on external systems.
Some institutions have gone as far as writing this into policy.
b.) There are HUGE potential issues with storing University email on
external systems that end users need to be aware of (FERPA,
Court-ordered eDiscovery, Business continuity (access to separated
employee’s email accounts), International legal jurisdiction, PATRIOT
act requests, etc.) See attached draft.
I know that your intentions were good in publishing this article, but it
isn’t sound advice to do this for University-provided email accounts
that are used to conduct official business.
Draft of Potential Security Issues
