Managing email accounts
Within the Service Centre you can manage e-mail accounts connected to your hosting package. This overview shows different possibilities. Account admins have more options than normal e-mail users.
Contents
- Managing email accounts as administrator
- Basic email forwards
- Advanced email forwards and aliases
- Out of Office/Auto reply
- Spam filter configuration
Managing email accounts as administrator
To create, manage and remove e-mail accounts, log into the Service Centre with your administrator account. Under the 'Hosting' tab select 'Mailbox/Users' in the bottom left-hand pane.
Select the right domain name
To see the desired e-mail accounts, first select the right domain name from the drop down menu in the upper left-hand pane. Sometimes it is necessary to reload the page after selecting another domain name.
Manage an existing email account
To change settings or change the password of an email account, click the pencil icon left to the respective email address within the 'Overview' tab, then make the changes and save. You may be required to fill in your own administrator-password again to make changes to e.g. your user's password.
Create an email account
Under the 'Overview tab' you can see all existing e-mail accounts for the selected domain name. To create an new email account click the blue button '+Add User…' or navigate to the tab 'New user/e-mailbox'. Then navigate the sub tabs 'General', 'E-Mail' and 'Spam' to fill in the details which you require, and click 'Create'. Below, the compulsory fields are explained:
Uid
As the user ID fill in the part that should come before the @. If you want to create the email address 'example@yourdomain.com', fill in 'example'.
Full name
The full name will be displayed when sending email from the web mail.
New password
Fill in the password for the account you are creating, or set a new password for an account that already exists. The password should be at least 8 characters long and consist of at least one capital letter, one lower case letter and one number or special character. Never use an existing password. It is advisable for account holders to regularly change their password themselves.
Remove an existing email account
When logged in as administrator you can remove an email account by clicking the bin icon situated left of the email address within the 'Overview' tab. Another way to delete an email account is to click the pencil icon left of an email address in the overview and then click the tab 'Delete user'. The Administrator account cannot be deleted, as you will need it to log into the Service Centre. 
Basic email forwards
'Email forwarding' means that your incoming email will automatically be forwarded to another email address. Use the following manual to set an (internal or external) forwarding email address.
Note to Zimbra/Digital Office package users: You can only set email forwards within your Zimbra environment.
Basic email forwards in the Service Centre
To be able to configure basic email forwarding, log into the Service Centre using either the email credentials or the administrator credentials.
Log in as email user
As email user you can log in to the Service Centre using your email credentials and click the 'E-Mail' tab to configure forwarding of your email.
Log in as administrator user
If you log into the Service Centre using your Administrator credentials, you have access to the settings of all the email accounts associated with your domain names. Under the 'Hosting' tab select the right domain name, in the bottom left-hand menu click 'E-mail accounts' and click the pen icon next to the email address you want to change. Under the 'E-mail' sub tab you can configure forwarding of the email for the respective address, in the same way that the email user can.
Set an email forward
To configure forwarding to an email address fill in the appropriate fields under 'E-mail Forward' and save. To set basic email forwarding the following options are given:
Forward E-mail
Tick the box to turn on the automatic forwarding of your email according to the settings which you provided.
Keep a copy
Tick the box to keep a copy of the forwarded email in the original email inbox
Forward address
Add one or more email addresses to forward the email to. If you want to add multiple addresses, separate the addresses by commas.
Advanced email forwards and aliases
Advanced forwarding is a useful tool to create email forwards or aliases. When you want to use several different email addresses, but only have one email address with an actual mailbox, then you can forward those other email aliases to the email address with the mailbox. Permanently forwarding email to other (external) domains can also be done through email forwarding. These functions are only accessible to the administrator user.
Email forwards in the Service Centre
To create, manage and remove email forwards and aliases, log into the Service Centre as administrator. Under the 'Hosting' tab click 'E-mail forwards' in the bottom left-hand pane.
Add an email alias or forward
To add a new email alias or forward, click the blue '+New' button. In the window that appears, fill in the details of your alias or forward and then click 'Create'. To add a new email alias or forward in the Service Centre the following options are given:
'Local part'
As local part fill in the part of the email address before the '@'. The local part is either an alias or an existing mailbox of which the emails will be redirected.
'Destination'
As destination you can fill in a local or external email address. You can easily select a local email address when clicking the button with the envelope icon. Click the '+' button on the right to add another destination.
Change an existing alias or forward
To change an existing email alias or forward select the field which you would like to change. The changes that can be made are the same as when adding a new email alias or forward.
Remove an existing alias or forward
When logged in as administrator you can remove an email alias or forward altogether by clicking the bin icon left of the email alias or forward. You can only remove email forwards which you added. The default forwards can only be removed by removing the respective email accounts under 'E-mail accounts' in the bottom left-hand menu.
Please note that if an email forward was in place, and you want to start receiving emails in the mentioned inbox, you will need to change the destination back to the full email address.
Turn off email
Email is turned on by default. To turn off email for the selected domain name use the slide at the top to toggle it off.
Out of Office/Auto reply
Sometimes it can be useful to configure an automatic reply. At Greenhost this can be set up as 'Out of office/Vacation message' in the Service Centre.
Finding the Out of Office message
Setting up as e-mail user
If you are logging in to the Service Centre as e-mail user you will see a basic version of the Service Centre. There you can see at your left hand side 'General', 'E-Mail' and 'Spam'. There you click on 'E-Mail' and then you find the settings of the 'Out of Office/Vacation message'.
Setting up as administrator
If you are logging in to the Service Centre as administrator you see at your left hand side 'select domain name'. Select the domain name of the e-mail address on which you want to set up an Out of Office message. For example with e-mail address isabel@green.tld the domain is green.tld. Then go under 'Hosting' to 'User/mailbox'. With the pencil icon near the e-mail account you arrive at tab 'Edit'. There you click on 'E-Mail' and then you find the settings of the 'Out of Office/Vacation message'.
Changing the settings
'Enabling automatic reply'
You can enable and disable the automatic reply under heading 'Out of Office/Vacation message' and you can configure it further using the two text fields. As soon as button Save is clicked, the displayed message is set.
Text field 'Your e-mail addresses'
The text field where you can enter e-mail addresses is useful if you have configured an e-mail forward in the Service Centre to this e-mail address. For example, with the e-mail forward feature mail to info@green.tld is redirected to isabel@green.tld. If this text field is empty, mail that is sent to info@green.tld does not cause an automatic reply. But if you enter in this text field info@green.tld, mail to info@green.tld will then return the away message that is set below. Just like mail to isabel@green.tld.
If you have multiple e-mail forwards to isabel@green.tld in the Service Centre, for example to contact@green.tld as well, then you can fill in contact@green.tld, info@green.tld so that mail to contact@green.tld returns the away message that was set. This is comma separated.
This text field has a second function, which is to avoid automatic loops of automated messages. If you encounter that, you can fill in the specific external e-mail address here in order to stop the repeating messages, or comma separate multiple external addresses.
Text field 'Away message'
In the text field at the bottom you can set up your message. It is plain text. Advanced formatting options are not provided.
Spam filter configuration
Greenhost automatically scans your email for 'spam' messages using the program 'Spam Assassin'. This program assigns a spam score to every email. These scores are then interpreted by the spam filter of your email account. You can adjust the sensitivity of your spam filter in the Service Centre.
Spam filter settings in the Service Centre
To be able to change the spam filter settings for an email account, log into the Service Centre either using the email credentials or the administrator credentials.
Log in as email user
If you log into the Service Centre using your email address and password, you will immediately be able to change its settings. You can then select the 'Spam' sub tab.
Log in as administrator user
If you log into the Service Centre using your administrator credentials, you have access to the settings of all the email accounts associated with your domain names. Under the 'Hosting' tab, select the domain name and click 'E-mail accounts' in the bottom left-hand menu. Here you can click the pencil icon next to the email address you want to edit and select the 'Spam' sub tab.
Adjusting the spam filter
The spam filter is enabled automatically and configured with the default settings. If you experience irregularities in the management of the spam on your account, then you could consider tweaking your spam filter. When you have made the desired changes to your spam filter click 'Save'.
Enable spam filter
Remove the tick to disable spam filtering for this email address. We recommend keeping the spam filter enabled. If some legitimate email gets caught in the spam filter to often, then you can use the allow list to add an exception instead of disabling the filter altogether.
Spam level 'mail to Junk folder'
The default score over which email is put in the 'junk' or 'spam' folder is 5. The lower the number, the stricter the filter. If you are getting to much spam in your inbox, then you can set this score lower. If too many legitimate emails are redirected to the 'junk' or 'spam' folder, then you can set this score higher.
Spam allow list
There might be some legitimate email addresses that you want to exempt from the spam filter. These email addresses can be added to the 'spam allow list' and will then reach your inbox regardless of the spam score. To allow every email address from a certain domain, just fill in the domain name and click 'Add'. An email address or domain can be removed from the allow list by clicking the red 'x' behind it.
Tips to prevent spam
When leaving your email address online
Spammers usually collect email addresses from websites and forums or buy them from other parties. Therefore, do not leave your email address publicly visible on a website or forum. If you still choose to do so, then post an image of the email address or write it down in a convoluted way, such as: 'john A1 yourdomain dotcom'. Be careful when writing things like 'john[at]yourdomain.com' as many programs understand the trick of substituting the '@' with '[at]' nowadays.
When registering for an online service
Do not use your main email address to register for an online account or online services. Instead create one or more separate email addresses to register, and consider using free temporary email addresses for these purposes.
When receiving spam
Try not to open spam emails if your email client is set to automatically load external content, which is often the default setting. In addition to that, do never click on any elements in a spam message. When you load images or other content in an email or when you click on a link, a spammer will receive a notification that your email address is active. Also, do never reply to a spam email.
Report a spammer
You could consider reporting a certain spammer at spamcop.net. This organisation analyses the spam message and sends a complaint to the ISP who can then take steps towards the spammer.