Users

This settings page is only available to domain administrators.

The Users section is where a domain administrator can manage the user accounts on their domain. This document explains the actions that can be taken on user accounts, including the ability to import users, improve the search functionality for a user by reindexing their account, force a resync of a user's devices, and more. Behind the scenes, this grid is powered by a dedicated account search API, so filtering and sorting on large domains (thousands of mailboxes) stays responsive without having to page through the entire user list client-side.

More information is available for adding new users as well as Managing Users.

When initially going to the Accounts area of a domain, the Users tab will load by default. Here, you'll see a list of users already set up for the domain. You can also edit users, add new users, delete users, and much more on this tab.

When viewing the Users tab, the following information is listed:

Account - The username, or name that appears to the left of the "@" symbol in the email address. An icon next to the account denotes accounts that authenticate against Active Directory, LDAP, or another authentication provider rather than SmarterMail itself.
Name - The Display Name set for the user.
Type - The "Role" of the user: User, Domain Admin or Primary Admin. For example, a company's IT contact would typically be set as Domain Admin so they can manage every mailbox on the domain, while a Primary Admin is the single account that "owns" the domain and can never be deleted or demoted by another domain admin.
Enabled - Whether the user is allowed to send/receive email (Enabled) or not.
Accepted Policy - When an Acceptable Use Policy is in place, this optional column shows whether the user has accepted it.
Last Login - The last date and time the user logged in to SmarterMail and the protocol used to log in.

Note: It is possible that when an account uses webmail exclusively and SmarterMail's Chat is enabled for the account, their Last Login shows (XMPP) as the protocol. This is because XMPP is the last protocol to connect once a user logs in to webmail. If Chat is disabled, the protocol listed will be (Webmail) as XMPP is not used.

Disk Usage - A bar showing the total amount of disk space being used versus the user's limit. Mousing over this indicator displays a pop up showing the total disk usage, split by Primary and Secondary storage. For example, a user with a 5 GB quota who has 4.5 GB of mail plus 1 GB of file storage synced through the File Storage feature would show usage split across those two categories in the pop up, even though the bar itself reflects the combined total against the quota.

Beyond the grid itself, a domain administrator can also drop a user's active protocol connections or forcibly end their webmail session — useful when a compromised account needs to be locked out immediately while an investigation is underway, without waiting for the user's session or IMAP/POP connection to time out on its own.

The Actions (⋮) menu provides you with a number of different ways to interact with the domain users. This includes:

Impersonate User - As the system administrator, or if domain administrators have permission to impersonate users, when a user is selected and this action is taken, the administrator will log in to SmarterMail as that user and be able to see their entire account.
Enable - Enables the account, allowing the user to access their mailbox and send/receive email.
Disable - Disables the account. This, essentially, locks the user out of their account. However, the confirmation dialog includes an "Allow incoming messages" option, so mail can still be received even though the user is unable to log in — ideal when someone leaves the company but their mail stream needs to continue.
Expire Password - Force a user to change their password on their next webmail login.
Reindex - Regenerates the search index for the selected users to fix search problems.
Reclassify - When email classifications are enabled for the domain (i.e., the SpamFoo classification engine is licensed), this re-runs classification on the selected users' mailboxes. If email classification isn't licensed for the environment, this option won't be available.
Recalculate Disk Usage - Recalculate the disk usage for one or more user accounts.
Resync Devices - This forces a resync of all clients and all protocols for the selected user(s). (This option appears when the EAS or MAPI/EWS add-ons are licensed.)
Import from CSV - Import new user accounts from a CSV file.
Import from Authentication Provider - When enabled, this allows a domain administrator to import new user accounts from Microsoft's Active Directory or via LDAP.
Export All to CSV - Export a CSV file of all users on the domain.
Delete - Permanently removes the selected user account(s), including all of their mail, folders, and settings. This action also works on aliases selected in the same grid. Because deletion is immediate and irreversible from within the interface, it's worth confirming with the user (or checking recent activity) before removing an account — especially on a domain where Message Archiving is not enabled, since there's no built-in way to recover a deleted mailbox's content afterward.
Attach User (System admin only) - Select this option to attach a user that is on disk but not in the domain. In other words, to restore the entire account.

Note: The user's folder needs to be correctly placed in the domain folder on the server prior to performing this action.

Attach Folder (System admin only) - Select this option to attach a folder that is on disk but not in the user's folders list. In other words, to restore a user's email folder.
Rebuild Folder (System admin only) - Select this option to copy .grp files or .eml files into an existing user's folder and have SmarterMail re-build that folder to include the new .grp and .eml files. In other words, to restore a user's emails.

Note: When rebuilding folders, there could be a UID conflict issue if you restore .grp files into an existing folder with existing .grp files. If you are only restoring email messages, it is recommended that you create a new folder within the SmarterMail interface and copy the .grp and/or .eml files to that new folder. Then use the Rebuild Folder function. This issue would not occur when restoring .eml files into an existing folder with existing email.

Detach User (System admin only) - This allows you to essentially remove the user from the domain without affecting any of the user's data. Their data remains on disk, but it's not part of the domain. For example, if a user leaves but the domain admin (or the business) wants to retain the user's data for legal or regulatory reasons. When needed, the user can be re-attached to the domain and the information accessed.

Note: As a safeguard, you can't delete your own account or the primary domain administrator from this grid.

A few additional per-account actions aren't found in the bulk Actions menu described above, but instead live on the individual account's edit screen (opened by clicking a user's name in the grid). These include renaming a user, revealing or resetting a user's password, and disabling two-factor authentication for a user who has lost access to their authenticator app. See Managing Users for details on those options.

Expire Password

This option can be used to expire the password of one or more users, forcing the user(s) to change their password the next time they log into the webmail interface. To expire the password of one or multiple users, checkmark the desired user accounts, click on the Actions (⋮) button, then click on Expire Password.

Note: If password changes were disabled for a user, expiring the user's password will automatically enable password changes and expire their password. They will be required to set a new password next time they log in. In addition, accounts set to Active Directory or LDAP authentication cannot be expired, as their passwords are managed by the directory service.

Reindex

If a user reports errors or a lack of results when performing a search, it may be necessary to reindex their user account, which will regenerate the mailbox index file. To reindex one or multiple users, checkmark the desired user accounts, click on the Actions (⋮) button, then click on Reindex.

Recalculate Disk Usage

This option can be used to recalculate the disk usage for the selected user(s). If you find discrepancies in the user's disk usage display throughout the various areas of the interface (in the email section, reports, or Users grid), use this option to recalculate and correct that display. Please note that there may be no visual effect if the disk usage numbers shown were already correct. To refresh the disk usage for one or multiple users, checkmark the desired user accounts, click on the Actions (⋮) button, then click on Recalculate Disk Usage.

Resync Devices

This option can be used by either a domain administrator or a system administrator to help potentially resolve an issue that's seen by a user who is using a particular client. (I.e., Microsoft Outlook, eM Client, etc.) For example, a user can see an issue receiving new emails in Outlook for Windows, which uses the MAPI protocol. The issue they're seeing may be the result of something hung in a different client: iOS Mail that uses EAS, eM Client that uses EWS, Gmail that is using IMAP. To help resolve this issue, an administrator can force a resynchronization of all clients across all protocols, thereby clearing up any issue regardless of which protocol is affected.

An administrator (domain or system) can use this tool on up to 25 individual accounts, on a single domain, at a time. Because a resync forces the users' data to be pushed from the server to all of their connected devices, a confirmation appears first, noting that the operation may take a significant amount of time. Once started, a toast notification lets you know the resync has begun, and further updates — including completion and any users that could not be resynced — are provided via notifications.

All resyncs are captured in the Administrative logs.

Important Note: Resyncing user protocols can cause an increase in server resources, so it is restricted to 25 users at a time to mitigate impact on a server. When resyncing ALL users (in batches of 25) administrators will want to closely monitor CPU and memory usage to ensure the server can handle the additional load.

Import from CSV

To add new SmarterMail users via a CSV spreadsheet, click on the Actions (⋮) button then click on Import from CSV. Upload (or drag and drop) the CSV file that contains the user information and click Next. The next page of the import modal allows you to map each Uploaded Field (your CSV column headers) to the appropriate Mapped Field within SmarterMail. For example, if your CSV contained a column header for "user name", you can select the "Username" mapping. Columns you don't need can be set to "Ignore". Beyond username and password, you can map profile details like names, phone numbers, addresses, company information, and a recovery email address.

At minimum, the CSV file must contain a column mapped to "Username". All remaining configuration options will mimic the domain's User Defaults template. If no "Password" column is mapped, the import modal will prompt you to create a temporary password for the user(s) being imported. Those users will be prompted to change their password the next time they log into the webmail interface.

Note: Bulk imports can take several minutes, and a warning appears if the file contains more accounts than the system or domain user limits allow.

Import Users From Authentication Provider

This feature is only available to domain administrators using SmarterMail Enterprise.

By default, SmarterMail uses a standard username/password authentication method. However, some organizations rely on Windows-based authentication methods like Active Directory or LDAP. SmarterMail can certainly interact with either of these authentication methods.

Active Directory (AD) is just what the name implies: a directory of users that are part of an organizational unit. AD stores the users and their information, including login information and passwords. SmarterMail can integrate with AD rather easily, but it can only read AD information; it cannot write or otherwise change AD credentials or user information.

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is, as its name implies, a lightweight client-server protocol that email servers, software and network appliances can use to connect to, and look up information from, a directory service. For example, LDAP can be used to look up information from Microsoft Active Directory.

Just as with Active Directory, SmarterMail acts as an LDAP client. That means LDAP can be used to integrate SmarterMail with Microsoft Active Directory as a lookup service for users, finding the accounts within aliases, and finding mailing list subscribers, as well as an authentication method for users. The LDAP integration between SmarterMail and AD via LDAP is, therefore, one-way: SmarterMail can look up information within Active Directory, but it can't send information TO Active Directory.

Therefore, when either LDAP or Active Directory are used as an authentication method for users, if the user changes their password, display name or other information in SmarterMail, that change is NOT synced back to Active Directory, either directly or via LDAP. However, if that same information is changed in AD, it will sync back to SmarterMail.

It's also worth noting that LDAP integration will only function if SmarterMail is on the same domain as the LDAP server you are trying to connect to.

Export All to CSV

To export a list of all user accounts on the domain, click on the Actions (⋮) button then click on Export All to CSV. The CSV file will contain a variety of details about the user accounts, including their username, display name, authentication method, home and work address, disk usage, and more. This export also makes a handy starting point when migrating users or auditing account details in a spreadsheet.