As a support representative at Indra’s Net, one of the more frequent calls that I take has to do with customers who are having trouble accessing their mail with us.  Some of the time, this can be due to a temporary period of high load on our mail server, but often these problems arise because the customer has their email program set up in a way that will reduce efficiency.  We have recently made upgrades to our mail server that will help prevent the server from getting overloaded.  but there are a couple of changes that you can make to the settings in your email program that may also help improve your email performance.

(please note that this information is mainly for people that have their email programs set up for POP access…not IMAP).

1. A lot of people have their mail program set to check our mail server every minute for new mail.  If you adjust the settings in your mail program to automatically check our server every 5 minutes or longer, it will help reduce the server load and improve the efficiency of your mail checks.  You can always manually click your “Send / Receive” or “Get Mail” button between automatic checks if you need to.
2. Have your email program take the mail off of our server once it is checked.  A lot of the load on the server comes from people not knowing that they are storing mail on our server.  The only reason that most people need to store mail on the server for a period of time after their email program checks is if they have multiple computers or devices (Blackberry, iPhone) that also need to receive a copy of the mail.  Even if you do have multiple devices, we recommend having your email program remove the mail after 3-7 days (whatever you are comfortable with).  If you do not have more than one device checking mail on the server, then you can set your email program to remove the copy of the mail after a check is complete.  This will only remove the mail on our server.  It does not effect the mail that you store locally on your computer.

Here is how you get to the settings in question on the most popular email programs:

- Outlook 2000 – 2007: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Tools, Email Accounts, View or change existing, then Change on your account.  Go to More Settings, then look in the Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Tools, Send / Receive, Send / Receive Settings, Define Send / Receive groups.  Adjust the automatic check settings under the All Accounts area.

- Outlook Express: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Tools, Accounts, Properties on your account, then look in the Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Tools, Options, and the setting is under the General tab.

- Mac Mail: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Mail menu, Properties, Accounts area, Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Mail menu, Properties, and the General area.

- Mozilla Thunderbird: Both relevant settings are located in the Tools, Account Settings, then Server Settings area in the left column.

If you need further assistance making these changes, please feel free to call one of our support representatives at 303-546-9151.