What are the Delivery Method settings?

The "Delivery Method" page in Options allows you to change your Default Delivery Method and decide how often and where you want to receive New Message Alerts.

What does "delivery method" mean?

The delivery method lets you choose where messages sent to your Mailshell addresses will go: you can have them saved in different folders, forwarded to an outside address, or deleted. Delivery methods are set in three ways: for individual email addresses, for new approved email addresses, and for pending addresses.
• To change the delivery method for an individual email address, use the drop-down menus in the "Manage Domain" section of My Mailshell to make your selection, then click the "Save Settings" button.



• To change the default delivery method for all new approved email addresses, go to the Options page and click the "Delivery Method" link. Use the drop-down menu to make your selection, then click the "Save Settings" button.



• To change the default delivery method for pending addresses, you can either go to the Options page and click the "Default Delivery Method" link or go to the Approve Pending Addresses page and make your selection there.

How do I change the default delivery method?

You can choose whether you want incoming mail for new approved addresses or pending addresses saved on Mailshell, forwarded to an outside address, or deleted. When you first sign up for a Mailshell account, the default delivery method is set to forward to the email address you used to sign up. To change these settings, go to the Options page and click the "Delivery Method" link. On the "Delivery Method" settings page, use the drop-down menus within the "Default Delivery Method" section to make your selections. Click the "Save Settings" button when you are done.

What is a new message alert?

If you are saving your messages on Mailshell rather than forwarding them to another address, you can receive regular notices of how many new messages you have received. To activate these alerts, click the "Delivery Method" link on the Options page. On this page, you can use the drop-down menus in the "New Message Alerts" section to set how frequently you wish to receive notices (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or never) and which forwarding address you wish receive them at. When you're done, click the "Save Settings" button.

What is the Virus Protection feature?

This feature protects you from email-borne viruses, tracking devices, unwanted images, and other security problems. When this feature is turned on, Mailshell will remove all images, attachments, java, and javascript from messages that are forwarded to you through Mailshell. If you receive a message with an attachment, you will still be able to see the name and file-type of the attachment; if you open the attachment, however, all you will see is a message saying that Mailshell has stripped the file.

A copy of the full message will also be saved in your Junk folder. If you wish to retrieve the attachment, you can do so by signing into your account and viewing the message there. (These messages do count toward your storage quota.) Please note that you should never download unexpected attachments, especially ones from unknown senders.

You can change the Virus Protection setting for an individual email address using the Address Options. You can also change the default setting for all new approved addresses and pending addresses by going to the Options page and clicking the "Virus and Spam Protection" link. On the "Virus and Spam Protection" settings page, use the radio button to turn this feature on or off and click the "Save Settings" button when you're done.

Virus Protection is available only to Premium users, although basic users will have a free 30-day trial of the feature when they first sign up. Once that period has expired, you can upgrade to the Premium Service to continue using it.

What is the Block Spam setting?

Mailshell's advanced spam-filtering technology rates incoming mail based on its potential to be spam, determining what is and isn't spam using unique spam-filtering technology in addition to standard anti-spam techniques. Each piece of mail is checked against known good commercial senders, known black-listed spammers, common spam signatures, and users' responses to compute the likelihood that it is spam.

The Block Spam setting lets you choose the level of filtering Mailshell uses on your addresses; each level offers a different trade-off between the likelihood that spam messages will be caught and the likelihood of also catching non-spam messages. There are five different levels.

• "None" blocks no spam.



• "Lenient" blocks only known spam. This level will let some spam messages get through, but will catch very few non-spam messages.



• "Moderate" blocks likely spam. This level will let fewer spam messages through, but may catch a few non-spam messages as well.



• "Aggressive" blocks possible spam. This level will let the least number of spam messages through, but will also catch more non-spam messages.



• "Only allow the following senders" blocks all messages except those coming from the specific email addresses or domains that you have listed.

These levels are set for each email address in the "Address Options" page (the default setting is "Lenient"; you can change the default setting in the Virus and Spam Protection options). Messages that are identified as spam will not be sent to your forwarding address; they will instead remain saved on Mailshell in the Junk folder.

To set the level from the "Address Options" page, select the radio button for the level of protection you want to use for that email address. If you select "Only allow the following senders," type the email addresses or domains you want to allow in the entry box, separating each address or domain with a return or a comma. (For example, you could enter "editor@joe.com" to allow only that specific email address to send you messages, or you could enter "joe.com" to allow any email address @joe.com to send you messages.) You can enter any combination of email addresses and domains, but note that if you enter a specific email address and the domain for that address--e.g., you enter "editor@joe.com" and "joe.com"--the specific email address will be ignored. All messages except those coming from the specified senders will be considered spam and sent to the Junk folder. Click the "Save Address Options" button when you are finished.

What are the Compose Options?

The "Compose Options" page in Options allows you to change settings related to composing messages. You can choose whether to save outgoing messages in the Sent folder by default; whether to use Restrict Addresses, the Email Provider Hider, and Email Address Redirection when composing messages outside of Mailshell using your disposable email addresses; whether to track messages by default; and whether to send an email confirmation when tracked messages have been opened.

What does "Restrict Addresses for Remote Compose" mean?

This feature applies to composing messages outside of Mailshell using your Mailshell addresses. By turning this feature on, only email addresses listed on your "Forwarding Addresses" page can send messages from your Mailshell addresses. If you are concerned about unauthorized use of your addresses, you should turn this feature on. To learn more about composing messages outside of Mailshell, click here.

You can change the "Restrict Addresses for Remote Compose" setting by going to the Options page and clicking the "Remote Compose" link. On the "Remote Compose" settings page, use the radio button to turn this feature on or off and click the "Save Settings" button when you're done.

What is the Email Provider Hider?

If you are a Hotmail user and want to further protect your identity, this feature allows you to send messages from your Hotmail account through any of your disposable addresses without revealing your provider: in addition to the standard email address protection, Mailshell will strip out the tags that Hotmail appends to their outgoing mail.

This feature applies only to messages sent from your Hotmail account through Mailshell. There are two ways to use it:

• Reply to a message forwarded to your Hotmail account from Mailshell. For example, if you are signed up for a discussion list and have messages forwarded, you can safely reply to those message from your Hotmail account without revealing that you use Hotmail.



• Compose a message at your Hotmail account using one of your disposable addresses. Click here to learn how to do this.

You can change the Email Provider Hider setting by going to the Options page and clicking the "Compose Options" link. On the "Compose Options" settings page, use the radio button to turn this feature on or off and click the "Save Settings" button when you're done.

The Email Provider Hider is available only to Premium users, although basic users will have a free 30-day trial of the feature when they first sign up. Once that period has expired, you can upgrade to the Premium Service to continue using it.

What does "Email Address Redirection" mean?

Email Address Redirection is the method Mailshell uses to protect your private email address from being revealed when you reply to email messages that have been forwarded through your disposable Mailshell addresses to an outside email address. For example, if you receive an email at your Yahoo account that has been forwarded through a disposable Mailshell address and then reply to that email, the recipient will see the message as coming from the disposable Mailshell address rather than the Yahoo address.

By default, this feature is turned on; only Premium users have the option of turning it off. You change the "Email Address Redirection" setting by going to the Options page and clicking the "Compose Options" link. On the "Compose Options" page, use the radio buttons to turn this feature on or off. Click the "Save Settings" button when you're done.

What are the Tracking Delivery Options?

The Tracking Delivery Options, located in "Compose Options" on the Options page, let you choose whether to track outgoing messages by default and whether to receive an email confirmation when messages are first opened:


• If you want to track most of your messages, use the radio button to set "Apply Tracking to Outgoing Email" to "On". When you compose, the "Track Delivery" box will be pre-checked.



• If you want to receive an email confirmation when tracked messages have been opened, use the radio button to set "Send Me an Email Confirmation" to "On". (Confirmations are sent to the disposable Mailshell address used to send the tracked message.)

Click the "Save Settings" button when you are done.

What are the display options and how do I change them?

The display options allow you to customize the appearance of your Mailshell account by setting the number of messages displayed per page, how messages are sorted, how folders are sorted, the screen width for viewing messages, and whether links in emails are framed. To change any of these settings, click the "Display Options" link on the Options page, then make changes using the appropriate drop-down menu and radio buttons. When you're done, click the "Save Settings" button.

Can I use Mailshell to download or filter my other email accounts?

Premium users can use Mailshell to download messages automatically filter messages from up to three other email accounts. There are several advantages to doing this: in addition to being able to read all your messages in one place, Mailshell's Intelligent Email system will filter the messages, letting you easily clean junk email from your existing email account.

To do so, go to the Options page, click the "Clean Existing Email Addresses" link, and enter the requested information:



• Email Address is the email address you wish to download messages from.



• Login Name is the login name for the email account you wish to download messages from (this is often, although not always, the part of your email address before the "@" symbol--e.g., if you wanted to check the email address "joe@yahoo.com," your login name would be "joe").



• Password is the password you use to check that account. (Please note that if you edit accounts, the password will not be displayed for security reasons. You do not need to re-enter the password unless it has changed.)
  
  
• Mail Server Name is the server used to receive email for that account. If you have specified the server type as Hotmail, you do not need to specify a server name; if you have a different account and are not sure what this server is, contact your email provider.
  
  
• Mail Server Type is the type of server used to receive email for that account. If you are not sure which type of server it is, leave the selection as "POP" (this is the most common type of mail server). If you are downloading from a Hotmail account, be sure to select that server type.



• Deliver To sets which address you want to use to download the message: downloaded messages are treated exactly as though they were sent to this address (i.e., all settings and filters for this address are applied to the downloaded messages).
  
  If you are downloading messages to Mailshell because you wish to discontinue using that account, check the "Automatically notify senders of this address" box. Everyone who sends a message to this address will be notified that the "Deliver To" address is your new email address and that they should send messages there instead. This feature helps you make the transition from your old email address to a Mailshell address.
  
  

Click the "Save Settings" button when you are done. If you wish to remove an external account, simply delete the entries you made (Account Name and Mail Server Name) and click the "Save Settings" button. If you wish to temporarily disable an account without removing it entirely, set the radio buttons in the gray title bar for that account to "Off" and click the "Save Settings" button.

Messages will be automatically downloaded from the accounts you set up; in addition, you can download messages whenever you want by clicking the "Check External Email" link in the Manage Domain or Folders sections of My Mailshell. (Because some time is involved in applying the appropriate filters to downloaded messages, it may take a few minutes for messages to be delivered to the appropriate folder or forwarding address, depending on the settings for the address you have specified to receive the messages.)

Please note: Some email providers (for example, Yahoo) may require you to activate POP access for your account before you can download messages using this feature. Please check with your provider to find out if you need to do so.

How do I remove external email accounts I've set up?

If you wish to remove an external account, simply delete the entries you made (Account Name and Mail Server Name) and click the "Save Settings" button. If you wish to temporarily disable an account without removing it entirely, set the radio buttons in the gray title bar for that account to "Off" and click the "Save Settings" button.

What are forwarding addresses?

Forwarding addresses are outside email addresses where you can have messages forwarded from Mailshell; they are managed from the Address Book section of My Mailshell.

How do I block unwanted senders?

You can block mail from unwanted senders by clicking the "Blocked/Allowed Addresses" link on the gray navigation bar in the Address Book section of My Mailshell.