Apple Mail
Apple Mail tends to be more prone to problems in our environment than other email clients, especially if you check your mail from more than one machine or have large folders (including Trash and your sent-mail folder). While Apple Mail generally works, if you are willing to, we encourage you to use the more reliable Thunderbird instead.
Prerequisites
- A CSAIL IMAP Account which will be configured into your mail app
- Knowing your IMAP password
Instructions
Apple mail does not honor the IMAP auto-discovery protocol like most email clients. Therefore, we have created a downloadable configuration file for easy setup:
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Download and open the CSAIL IMAP Apple Mail configuration.
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At the prompts, click continue to install the profile
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Enter the Following:
- Email Address:
Your CSAIL Email Address - Full Name:
Your full name as you want it to appear to others - Incoming User Name:
Your CSAIL username (not your entire email address) - Outgoing User Name:
Your CSAIL username (not your entire email address) - Password:
Your CSAIL IMAP Password (this is unique from your CSAIL Kerberos password)
- Email Address:
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By default, Apple Mail will save sent items to “Sent Messages” and Trash to “Deleted Messages”. To share the standard name of these folders, as used by Thunderbird and other IMAP clients:
- In the folder list (you may need to click “Show” in the top left), navigate underneath “CSAIL.MIT.EDU” to select “Sent”.
- In the Mailbox menu, choose Use This Mailbox For > Sent. The folder will disappear, becoming “Sent” under “MAILBOXES” further up.
- Repeat for Trash.
- The folders “Sent Messages” and “Deleted Items” will appear below; after checking for contents you may delete them.
You are now ready to use Apple Mail
Optional steps
User database auto-completion: See LDAP Directory Lookup
Shared folders: To see mail folders shared by other users, go to Mail Preferences Advanced IMAP Path Prefix and change “INBOX” to "” (blank). Your own mail folders will now show underneath Mailboxes Inbox, while shared folders will show underneath “CSAIL IMAP”. If Mail suggests reverting the prefix to “INBOX”, tell it “Don’t Change.”