Team Wikis:MailSetup

Setting up your Freecycle.org mailbox

Using your Freecycle.org email address helps identify you and helps differentiate you from other mods. The Freecycle.org email address tells the GOAs and other teams that you have official business on more than one group; if you were using a personal email address on more than one group that would be against the guidelines of only modding one group. Use this address only on Freecycle.org business, not for any other purposes. Continue to use your personal email address on your local group, FIOD, leadership groups, etc.

Our "official" email service for all support mod groups can be found here http://webmail.freecycle.org.

All team members have 48 hours to reply to emails (holidays and weekends excluded). If you are unable to meet that deadline, please let your Team Leader or Coordinator know so that someone can cover the mailbox if you need to be gone for an extended period.

Please do not delete emails from your Freecycle.org mailbox. Exception: routine FAQ-type queries from members for which a followup response is not necessary.

Password

You may be given a specific password to use. If you change your password, you will need to provide your new password to your Team Leader, so do keep personal information separate. Your email account may be monitored, and someone may need to access your account when you are unavailable.

Password requirements:

• Passwords must be at least 12 characters in length and contain at least one capital letter, one lower case letter, one number and one symbol.
• Do not use same password on other Freecycle.org mailboxes.
• Do not use the same password that you use for your personal email.

Helpful links:

• https://passwordsgenerator.net/ A random password generator with helpful tips on PW protection.
• http://www.passwordmeter.com/ Even though nothing is 100% secure, a high ranking helps!
• https://howsecureismypassword.net/ runs an algorithm to let you know how long a computer would take to hack your PW. Computers can try 8 million attempts per second!

Tips

• If you have multiple mailboxes to keep track of, a password manager can be very helpful. Google "best password manager" for reviews of current products. Many are free.
• Password changes must be made on Webmail first, then on an email client. Click here for more information on changing your password in Thunderbird.

Signature block

You have a number of options you can choose in setting up your account. It's only the first section for your signature block that must include your title and our trademarked name.

Here is an example you can use if you wish. Please use the current year in your signature block.

Your name, Freecycle.org title
Copyright (c) 2019, The Freecycle Network. All rights reserved. The
Freecycle.org logo is a registered trademark of The Freecycle Network in
the United States and/or other countries. CTM Reg. No. 5722723 


Notice: The information contained in this message and any attachments is privileged and confidential 
and protected from disclosure. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is 
strictly prohibited. 

Note: Please do not add your other responsibilities to your sig line so that it is not misconstrued that you are speaking on behalf of your team.

Folders

Please file emails into folders rather than keeping them in the inbox or deleting them. It may become necessary to refer to them from time to time so we need to keep them.

To set up folders on your mailbox, click on NEW FOLDER from along the left of the screen. Follow the directions on the page. Set up folders at the root level rather than as subsets of the inbox.

To move emails into a folder, select the emails from the inbox by clicking the box to the left of the email (you can move more than one email at a time). Just above the list of emails is a "MOVE/COPY". Select the folder you wish to move the email into from the dropdown. Click MOVE.

If you find your box is getting too slow, this is usually because you have too many emails in your inbox. There is NO limit to emails you can have in folders, but there is limited space for our in-boxes. Not only does it slow things down for you, but it will slow down all other mailboxes since we all share the same space.

Email Do's and Don'ts

• Do use your Freecycle.org email address for official TFN business and not for personal reasons.
• Please use your personal email on your team group so that we know to whom it belongs.
• Please do not forward your email to another account: use webmail.freecycle.org, Thunderbird or Outlook if you have more than one account.
• Please help keep our mail servers working at optimum speed by logging out when you are done reading your mail and filing emails as soon as you are finished with them.
• Please don't delete emails except for routine questions from members not requiring a followup response.

Web-based Email

RoundCube

http://webmail.freecycle.org/ RoundCube] is the primary webmail provider for The Freecycle.org Network(R). Click here for more information on using RoundCube

Email Clients

For Advanced Users

Thunderbird is for advanced users only. If you decide to use Thunderbird, Outlook or another mail client, please remember that tech support is not available. If you are already proficient at using such a program for your other email accounts, it is a simple matter to add your Freecycle.org account.

Most email clients support two different methods: POP3 and IMAP. Freecycle.org does NOT support POP3 for the following reasons:

• POP3 Usually downloads all your mail, and then removes it from the server. This creates a problem for shared-user mailboxes.
• If your machine fails, you lose the mail on it. IMAP keeps a copy on the server.
• IMAP means that the PC and Web folder lists are the same.

Once your account has been created, there are a variety of methods available to access it. Detailed instructions for some common clients can be found below.

Thunderbird

• For a guide on how to configure Thunderbird, please click Here

Microsoft Outlook

• For a guide on how to configure your email account in Microsoft Outlook, please click Here

Server settings

Inbound (IMAP) Server Settings

Setting	Value
Protocol	IMAP
Host	mail.freecycle.org
Port	143 or 587 or 993
Security	STARTTLS
Authentication Required	Normal password
Login	youremailaddress@freecycle.org
Password	yourpassword

Outbound Server (SMTP) Settings

Setting	Value
Protocol	SMTP
Host	mail.freecycle.org
Port	465 or 587
Security	SSL/TLS with port 465, STARTTLS with 587
Authentication Required	Normal password
Login	youremailaddress@freecycle.org
Password	yourpassword