Webmail Help Guide

Email Help

Email Tab Overview

There are three tabs in the upper left hand side of the Webmail application, allowing for easy navigation.

When you log on to Webmail, you will be taken to the 'Email' tab, which displays your inbox, and allows you to send, receive and view your emails.

mailmenuhelp1.png

The menu bar has the following buttons:

Button Description
new.png Click on the Pencil icon to open the Compose tab so you can compose a new email. Click on the dropdown menu arrow to see 'New Email' and 'New Contact' options. 'New Email' also opens the Compose tab. 'New Contact' opens the Contacts tab. (For more information on Contacts, refer to the Contacts Help section)
getmail.png Clicking on this button will immediately refresh your inbox - it's a good idea to use it if you are waiting on an important email.
reply.png If you have selected an email in your inbox, clicking on this button will allow you to reply to the sender of the email. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out.
replyall.png If you have selected an email in your inbox, clicking on this button will allow you to reply to everyone that email was sent to. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out.
forward.png If you have selected an email in your inbox, clicking on this button will allow you to forward that email to another recipient. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out.
trash.png If you have selected an email in your inbox, clicking on this button will allow you to send the email to the Trash folder. It will then be permanently deleted after 7 days. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out
report_spam.png If you have selected an email in your inbox, clicking on this button will allow you to move the email to Spam folder. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out.
not_spam.png If you have selected an email in your spam, clicking on this button will allow you to move the email to Inbox folder. If no email is selected, this button will be greyed out.
empty_spam.png Clicking on this button under Spam folder will delete all emails in your spam folder.
more.png More Menu. The first two options listed in the 'More' drop down menu allow you to select or deselect all mail in your current view. If any mail is selected you have extra options that can change the selected messages in the following ways; Flag, Remove Flag, Mark as Read, Mark as Unread.
two_or_three_panes.png This button set gives you the option of viewing your email interface through either '2 Pane view', '3 Pane view' or 'Accessibility view'. Accessibility view is designed for vision impaired users of Webmail

Above the menu bar you will notice the following:

search.png The 'Search' field allows you to search for an email within the folder you are currently accessing
helpsignout.png This dropdown menu provides three menu options, the first is Settings. For more information on Settings, refer to the Settings Help section
The 'Help' option, which will direct you to this page
The 'Sign Out' button, which allows you to log out of Webmail

Creating an email

  1. Make sure you are on the 'Email' tab
  2. Click the 'Pencil' icon
  3. A new 'Compose' tab will appear. You can now start drafting your email - you may like to take advantage of the formatting options presented to you. These include changing the colour of your font and underlining sections of your text.

Adding attachments

  1. Scroll to the bottom of your email
  2. Click on the 'Attach from Computer' button
  3. Select the relevant document from your computer
  4. Select 'Open'
  5. A copy of the document will now appear in the 'Files' field of your email

'Cc' and 'Bcc' recipients

Click on the 'More' dropdown menu within your email - the 'Cc' and 'Bcc' fields will now appear.

Requesting a 'read receipt'

Click on the 'Read Receipt' button within your email - the confirmation message 'A read receipt will be requested for this email'. To cancel Read Receipt, simply click on the 'Read Receipt' button again. The following confirmation message will be displayed 'A read receipt will not be requested for this email.

Saving a draft email

  1. Scroll to the bottom of your email
  2. Click on the 'Save as Draft' button

    3. Note: The 'Settings' tab provides the option of automatically saving email drafts every 2 minutes.

Replying to emails

There are a few methods, depending on how you are viewing the email:

  1. Select the email from the list of emails in your Inbox by clicking on the checkbox that appears next to it. Click the 'Reply' or 'Reply All' button in the menu bar
  2. Click on the email from the list of emails in your Inbox and open it. Under the message subject and From address click on the Reply button.
  3. From the list of emails in your Inbox use 'Right Click' to select a message. You will see a menu of options. Click the 'Reply' or 'Reply All' option

Drag and Drop messages

  • Move messages into folders by clicking and dragging them to the desired folder.
  • You can delete emails by dragging them to the Trash or save important emails in your archive folders without clicking through multiple menus.
  • Also refer to the 'Folder Manager Help' section for the complete folder management tool

Searching emails

For a quick search:

  1. Click in the field with the text 'Search Mail...', that appears on the upper right hand side of the 'Email' tab.
  2. Enter the word/s you'd like to search on
  3. Click 'Enter' on your keyboard
  4. A new 'Search' tab will appear, displaying the search results.

To conduct a more advanced search:

  1. Locate the field with the text 'Search Mail...', that appears on the upper right hand side of the 'Email' tab.
  2. Click the arrow that appears on the left hand side of this field.
  3. Select the relevant options, and add text as required
  4. Click the 'Search' button
  5. A new 'Search' tab will appear, displaying the search results.

Please note: Searches are conducted on emails in the folder you are currently accessing only

Sorting emails

Emails in any folder can be sorted based on:

  • sender (or, in the case of the 'Sent' folder, recipients)
  • subject
  • date
  • whether an attachment is included
  • size

    • To sort your emails, click on the desired heading, appearing between the menu bar, and your emails

Setting up your desired 'email view'

There are two options for viewing your emails within Webmail - you can select the best one for you by clicking on the relevant icon on the far right hand side of the menu bar.

Note: You can also change views via the 'Settings' tab

2 Pane view

This will give you visibility of:

  1. the 'Folder' pane, and
  2. the list of emails that appear in the currently selected folder.

    3. When using this view, you are unable to preview the contents of any of your emails - to read an email, you must click on it. A new tab will then appear, displaying the contents of the selected email.

3 Pane view

This gives you visibility of

  1. the 'Folder' pane, and
  2. the list of emails that appear in the currently selected folder.
  3. the contents of the currently selected email.

    4. The benefit of this view is that the third pane provides a preview of the selected email's contents - there's no need to open the email.

Email configuration for Apple devices

If you have an Apple device running iOS 4 or 5, you can opt to automatically configure it to access your Webmail account.

  1. Access Webmail via http://webmail.optusnet.com.au/mail/ from your Apple device to download a profile
  2. Log in to your Webmail account
  3. Your device will automatically prompt you to install the profile - accept this prompt.
  4. Re-enter your Webmail log in details if required
  5. Once your Webmail profile is installed, you will be able to access your Webmail account via your device.

Contacts Help

The 'Contacts' tab - Overview

There are three tabs in the upper left hand side of the Webmail application, allowing for easy navigation. The second one is 'Contacts' - this is used to manage your email address book, or 'contacts'. The menu bar has the following buttons:

Button Description
newcontact.png Clicking on this button will allow you to add a new contact to your contact list
newgroup.png This button will allow you to set up your own group of contacts - for example, 'Footy friends'.
editcontact.png Clicking on this button will give you the opportunity to edit the details of an existing contact
trash.png Clicking on this button will allow you to delete a selected contact/contacts. If no contacts are selected, this button will be greyed out
contact-mail.png If this button is clicked when a contact/s is selected, a new email will be generated, addressed to the contacts
import.png Clicking this button allows you to import contacts from an existing address book in Vcard. See vCard section for further explanation on this format
export.png Clicking this button allows you to export your Webmail contacts to an existing address book in Vcard format. See vCard section for further explanation on this format.
more.png The More button has the following menu options: Select All - select all contacts in a group, Deselect - uncheck all selected contacts, Export All - instant contact group export

Built-In Contact Groups

Your Contacts already has some helpful groups; Personal, Remembered and Favourites. You will find your own email address in the Personal list right from the start.

contactgroups.png

Personal

Your own email address is visible here. All contacts you personally create are available in your Personal Group. Contacts can be created via the New Contact button or saved from the Remembered Group. Your Personal Group will always show all your stored contacts even those in your other groups (excluding Remembered unless you have specifically saved them)

You can drag contact details from the Personal group to other groups you have created but the Personal group will always show all your contacts.

Remembered

Every time you send a mail from webmail to any new email addresses, they will be automatically added to your Remembered group. You can easily add any contacts found in Remembered to your Personal group or any other group you create.

Favourites

This group shows the contacts you have used to send an email via the Contacts tab Mail button. You can use your contacts to send a mail with the Mail button. You can just checkbox any of your contacts and click the Mail button and this will start you off with Compose Email. Whenever you use the Contact's Mail button to send an email the selected contacts will be automatically added to your Favourites group with the most frequently used contacts at the top of the list.

Setting up contacts

  1. Make sure you are on the 'Contacts' tab
  2. Click the 'New Contact' button
  3. Enter the contact's name
  4. Add information into available fields as required - please note, the only compulsory field is 'Email Address'
  5. If you would like additional fields for phone numbers, email addresses and/or physical addresses, click the '+' icon next to the relevant field
  6. If you would like to add more detailed information, such as the contact's date of birth or employment details, click on the 'More Information' option, and add information as required
  7. To add a photo of your contact, click on the field with '?' in it, next to the contact's name. Select a picture from your computer, then click 'Open'.
  8. Finally, click the 'Save Contact' button

Editing contact details

  1. Select the relevant contact from your 'Contacts' list, by clicking on the checkbox that appears next to it
  2. Click on the 'Edit' button
  3. Modify details as required
  4. Click the 'Save Contact' button

Deleting a contact

  1. Select the relevant contact from your 'Contacts' list, by clicking on the checkbox that appears next to it
  2. Click the 'Delete' button
  3. The contact will be deleted - please note, you will not receive a confirmation message asking if you are sure you'd like to delete the contact, so be careful with the 'Delete' icon!

Contacts auto cleaning

Contacts details of webmail accounts which are inactive(not logged into webmail) for more than an year will be cleaned automatically.

Emailing direct from Contacts

  1. To email a small number of contacts, select the relevant contact/s from your 'Contacts' list, by clicking on the checkbox that appears next to it. If you are selecting a contact group, click on the group, then click on the 'More' button on the menu bar and select 'Select All'
  2. Click on the 'Mail' button on the menu bar. A new mail 'Compose' tab will appear. The contacts' primary email addresses will automatically appear in the 'To' field.

Set up a Contact Group

Setting up a contact group Contact groups allow you to email a whole group of your contacts at once.

  1. Click the 'New Group' button OR use the '+' button at the bottom of the group pane
  2. A new listing will appear on the left hand side of the tab, the same way it would if you were creating a folder in your email inbox.
  3. Type the name you'd like for the contact group (e.g. 'Sales Team', 'Footy Club' etc.) then press 'Enter'
  4. From your 'Contacts' list, select the contacts you'd like to appear in this group.
  5. Once all of the desired contacts have been selected, drag and drop them into your new contact group's folder.

Deleting a contact group

  1. Click on the contact group you'd like to delete.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of group pane
  3. Click the '-' button that appears on the left hand side
  4. A message will appear 'Are you sure you want to delete (name of contact group)?
  5. Click 'OK'

Importing/Exporting contacts

vCard

Contacts can be imported into Webmail and exported from Webmail using a 'vCard' format.

vCard is short for "Virtual Business Card". vCard is an electronic method of exchanging personal information often found on a traditional business card. It is used in many applications such as internet mail, web browsers, mobile devices, telephony and smart cards.

If a Vcard file is saved on your computer, it can be typically identified as a file with .vcf name extension.

Importing contacts

  1. Ensure that the contacts you wish to import are in a vCard format. (see Microsoft Outlook tip)
  2. Click the 'Import' button on the menu bar of the Webmail 'Contacts' tab.
  3. Select your desired vCard file from the relevant location on your current computer/device
  4. Click 'Open' - the vCard will then be imported into your Webmail contacts

Exporting contacts

  1. Select desired contact/s from the Webmail 'Contacts' tab (Under the More menu there is an Export All option)
  2. Click the 'Export' button on the menu bar.
  3. Click 'Save', to save the vCard to your computer/device
  4. The vCard will appear on your desktop - you can now keep for backup or use it in other applications.

Microsoft Outlook and vCard

In Microsoft Outlook you can use the following steps to create a vCard:

  1. In a Contact folder, click to select the contact for which you want a vCard.
  2. On the File menu, click Save As.
  3. In the Save file as type box, click to select VCARD Files (*.vcf).
  4. In the Save In box, select the folder where you want to save the vCard file, and then click Save.

Adding and deleting folders and sub folders

Adding new email folders

  1. Go to the left hand pane in Email view and down to the FOLDERS menu
  2. Click the '+' icon on the right hand side
  3. A new folder appears - type the name you'd like for this folder, in the field provided
  4. Press 'Enter' on your keyboard

Adding new email subfolders

  1. Click on the folder in which you'd like to add a subfolder
  2. Go to the left hand pane in Email view and down to the FOLDERS menu
  3. Click the '+' icon on the right hand side
  4. A new folder appears - type the name you'd like for this folder, in the field provided
  5. Press 'Enter' on your keyboard

Removing email folders

  1. Click on the folder you'd like to delete
  2. Go to the left hand pane in Email view and down to the FOLDERS menu
  3. Click the '-' icon that appears on the right hand side
  4. A message will appear 'Are you sure you want to delete (name of folder)?
  5. Click 'OK'

Folder Manager Help

For easy folder management use the 'Folder Manager' tool.

  • Go to the left hand pane in Email view and down to the FOLDERS menu and click the cogwheel icon. The 'Folders' tab is shown.
  • This is a complete dashboard for folder information and management
  • There are 'System Folders' and 'User Folders'. 'System Folders' are permanent and cannot be edited. 'User Folders' are the folders you have created.
  • Use the 'User Folders' section to add, edit or empty your personally created folders and subfolders.
  • The 'System Folders' and the 'User Folders' tables also provide useful information on each folder; unread/total messages, quota and folder options

Automatic Filter Folders

Automatic Filter Folders will display emails received in the past six months that meet specific criteria:

Filter Description
unread.png The 'Unread' folder will search for all email marked as 'Unread' and display these
purchases.png The 'Purchases' folder will contain any emails that contain the key words 'purchase', 'invoice', 'payment', or 'receipt', in the text of its body
friends.png The 'Friends' folder will contain any emails from senders who are both in your personal address book and marked as a favourite
newsletters.png The 'Newsletters' folder will contain any email that has the key word 'list-unsubscribe' in the text of its body.
notifications.png The 'Notifications' folder will contain any email that contains the key words 'ebay.com', 'linkedin.com', 'twitter.com' and 'facebookmail.com'
flagged.png The 'Flagged' folder will contain any email that has been marked with a flag

Settings Help

The 'Settings' tab - overview

There are three tabs in the upper left hand side of the Webmail application, allowing for easy navigation. The third one is 'Settings' - this tab has all the options for changing your webmail settings.

Your webmailbox settings are shown in a list of options, buttons and fields as described below:

Mailbox Account Settings

The first two 'settings' are about your mailbox (Account Name and Quota). The rest are configuration settings for your email address

Setting Description Default Setting
Account Name This is an information only field to show the email address of your mailbox and your From: email address Your email address
Quota This is an information only field to show the storage usage of your mailbox Your mailbox quota shown in Megabytes
Real Name This name will appear in the 'Sender' field of emails you send, before your email address. Not set by default but can be set to your desired 'Real Name'
Reply To This allows you to nominate a different email address, to the one you are currently using, to receive replies to your emails. Not set by default but can be set to a different address
From Note: Please contact Optus Customer Service on 13 39 37 to have this setting activated. Hidden Field

Webmail Behavior Settings

This section contains settings that control the behaviour of Webmail actions when you use Webmail

Display Main Tabs Text The Main Tabs in Webmail have text labels like: Mail, Contacts and Settings. Switch this setting to Off and the text labels are changed to icons. This saves space across the Tabs row that may be used for other Tab items On
Display Email Images Display external images in email messages. This is relevant for HTML mail messages you receive that include external image references. You may wish to disable such content for HTML messages sent to you On
Convert Plain Text Links to Urls Email messages that contain hypertext links are converted to clickable links. Note that mailto: links will also be converted. Clicking on a mailto: email address link will automatically open the mail compose window with the 'To' address populated with the email address On
Automatic Draft Save This setting will provide automatic saving of email drafts, every 2 minutes. On
Notifications If Notifications Enabled is ON then webmail will automatically check for new email in the currently selected folder and notify you as soon as emails are delivered. Note: You must activate either of Audio and/or Favicon options to receive your notification. On
Delete Trash on Logout Automatic deletion of emails in the 'Trash' folder wil occur when you log out of Webmail. (Note: If this option is not chosen, 'trashed' emails will automatically delete after 7 days in the 'Trash' folder) Off
Trash Button Action You can control what happens when you click the Trash button. The message can be moved to the Trash folder for later cleanup OR it can be deleted permanently straight away. Move selected mail to Trash

Webmail View Settings

This section contains settings that control various view features in Webmail

Default View This allows you to select whether you would like to view your Mailbox interface via 2 pane view or 3 pane view. This can also be controlled from the 'Email' tab menu. Please refer to the 'Email Help' section of this document for more information 3 Pane view
Enable accessibility Webmail now has a special mode for vision impaired access. This mode is very different from the conventional Webmail display. It presents a simplified view of your Mailboxes, folders and message lists more suitable for access by vision impaired customers. Off
Enable message preview This allows you to preview the first line of an email, from the second pane, when using 3 pane view On
Enable extra address fields When this settings is enabled it shows Cc and Bcc Address fields by default when composing your emails. Normally the To: Address field is only shown. If you regularly use Cc and/or Bcc then switch this on. Off
Interface Language Change the language used for all Webail Interface labels, menu options, tabs, buttons etc. English
Date display This relates to the date that appears next to your sent and drafted emails. There are three options:
  1. Time since delivery: Show the time in seconds, minutes, hours and days since the message was delilvered
  2. DD/MM/YY: Format the email delivery dates as day then month
  3. MM/DD/YY: Format the email delivery dates as month then day
 DD/MM/YY
Messages per page This determines the number of emails that will appear per page. The options are: 10, 25, 50, 100, 200 25
Signature You can design an 'auto-signature' that will be attached to every email you send. Blank

You can change your settings at any time, by simply selecting your desired setting, then clicking the 'Save Settings' button.

Spam Help

Manage 'Spam' in Optus Mail

Getting unwanted emails or spam is frustrating. While most spam should be caught by our spam filters, Optus use industry best AntiSpam solution for all incoming emails, and majority are blocked based on scoring mechanism, occasionally some can fall through. If that happen it is important to mark the email as spam. It allows our system learn that messages from a specific place are bad and helps us make Optus Mail even better at percieving future spam emails.

Mark emails as Spam

  1. Go to Inbox or any Folder except Spam.
  2. Select one or more emails.
  3. In the upper left hand side of Webmail application, Click on 'Report Spam' button.

Unmark an email as Spam

  1. Go to Spam Folder.
  2. Select one or more emails.
  3. In the upper left hand side of Webmail application, Click on 'Not Spam' button.

Delete one or more emails in Spam

  1. Go to Spam Folder.
  2. Select one or more emails.
  3. In the upper left hand side of Webmail application, Click on 'Trash' button.

Empty emails in Spam

  1. Go to Spam Folder.
  2. In the upper left hand side of Webmail application, Click on 'Empty Spam Folder' button to delete all the emails in Spam Folder.

TIPS on Spam

  1. Do not open or respond to emails that look suspicious
  2. Do not open an attachment you were not expecting (i.e. Invoices, Faxes etc.)
  3. Do not click on a link in an email unless you are 100% sure it is safe to do so.
  4. Never reply to a spam message.
  5. Never give out or post your email address publicly

Note: Spam folder messages older than 30 days are automatically deleted monthly.