University of Minnesota
Computer Science & Engineering Help Pages
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Email Clients

The following is a list of e-mail clients available for CSE Labs and CS&E accounts.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is an e-mail client currently available on all Linux, Solaris, Windows, and Mac machines. For more information, visit the Mozilla Thunderbird home page.

Mutt

Mutt is another text based e-mail client. Type mutt at your UNIX prompt to use it.

For more information see the Mutt E-Mail Client home page.

Alpine (Successor to Pine)

Alpine is an easy-to-use, popular text based mail program. Type pine at your UNIX prompt to use it.

i - Check inbox.
s - Set options. (main menu)
c - Start a new mail message.
r - Reply to mail
s - Save mail. (when a folder is open)

See the University of Washington’s Alpine Information Center for everything you ever wanted to know about Alpine.

Client Configuration

The following provides step by step instructions for configuring GUI based e-mail clients. For information on the general parameters that need to be set, see the Basic E-mail Configuration page.

Thunderbird

In general the following information is what you will need to set up an email client:

Account Name Your account name on the CS Unix computers
Server Name mail.cs.umn.edu (inbound server)
Connection Security (incoming) SSL/TLS, Port 993
Authentication Method Normal Password
Outgoing SMTP Server mail.cs.umn.edu
Connection Security (outgoing) SSL/TLS, Port 465
IMAP server directory Box should be blank

As an example, here is how to create a new account in Thunderbird:

Start Thunderbird and click on "Create a new account".

Screen shot for the account creation window

Next enter your CS Unix username, your CS email address, and your CS Unix password.

Make sure the "Remember Password" box is unchecked.

Click "Continue".

Screen shot for entering username, email, and password

This should setup Thunderbird to have all the correct setting, which are the following:

Incoming: mail.cs.umn.edu IMAP 993 SSL/TLS
Outgoing: mail.cs.umn.edu SMTP 465 SSL/TLS

If you have the correct settings, click "Creat Account" and you're done.

If you see incorrect settings like below, click "Manual Setup".

Screen shot for an  account with the incorrect settings

Set the "Connection security" to SSL/TLS and make sure the "Port" is 993.

Then select "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" then click "OK".

Screen shot for entering the correct value for connection_security

Select "Edit".

Screen shot for entering outgoing server settings

Set the "Connection security" to SSL/TSL and make sure the "Port" is 465, then click "OK".

Screen shot for entering SMTP server settings

Lastly, click on "Server Setting" and then click "Advanced".

Screen shot for getting to Advanced Account settings

Make sure your "IMAP server directory" is blank. If it isn't, please delete whatever is in the box.

Also, please uncheck "Show only subscribed folders", if it is checked.

Screen shot for entering Advanced Account settings

If you're still having problems, please call 5-0867 or email operator [at] cs [dot] umn [dot] edu from another email account.

Contact: 1-213 Keller Hall, 200 Union St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455   Phone: (612) 625-0876   Email: operator@cs.umn.edu