Mailboxes and Mailbox Locations

A mailbox is a location where email is stored. It is the electronic equivalent of a post office box. In order to receive email you need to have a mailbox.

When you sign up for an email account you are assigned a mailbox and normally an email address. The email address and mailbox are linked such that any email sent to the email address will be placed in the mailbox.

Every mailbox has an email address and can have more than one address linked to it.- see email addresses for more details.

Mailbox Access Methods

Mailbox Access using POP3

The mailbox is physically located on the mail providers email server, and so in order to access the mail in the mailbox you need to physically connect to this server.

The most common method of accessing a mailbox is using the POP3 protocol (Post office protocol version 3 ) which is built into all the popular email clients ( outlook express, IncrediMail etc).

The default behaviour of the POP3 protocol is to move the email from the mailbox on the email server (on the Internet) to a mailbox on your local PC.

Because the email is moved the only copy that now exists is stored on your local PC. These default behaviour can be changed see- leaving email on the Internet for details.

This does mean that you have, in effect, two mailboxes a mailbox on the email server and a mailbox on your email client.

Mailbox Access using a Browser

Popular providers like Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail require you to access your email using a web browser. In this form of access the email is left on the server and there is no local mailbox.

Hotmail also allows access via email clients like Outlook Express and Incredimail.  These clients behave differently  than the standard browser access and with Incredimail the mail will again be moved from the email server to the local PC (default configuration). See accessing Hotmail using Outlook Express and accessing hotmail with Incredimail for details.

Mailbox and Inbox

You can logically divide your mailbox into sections (folders). All email clients automatically create 4 default folders... inbox, outbox, sent items, deleted items . These folders are part of your mailbox. You can create addition ones to better organise your email ( See Outlook Express Folders).

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• Access Email From Another Location
• Leaving the email on the Internet
• Web based Email
• Access  POP3 Email/Multiple Accounts Using Yahoo Webmail