Community Knowledge Base

Composing Email Messages

It's very easy to create new messages in SmarterMail as well as reply to existing messages or forward messages on to other individuals or groups. Below you'll find a brief walkthrough of each scenario.

Creating a New Message

To create a new message, click the New button at the top of the All Messages view. This will pop-out the new message compose window. Having a pop-out allows you to reference other areas of SmarterMail or easily navigate to other browser tabs if you're using other websites for information to include in your new message.

The following fields will appear in the header of the message you're creating:

  • Send From - If you have more than one SMTP Account set up, or if one or more Domain Aliases is set up, you have the ability to select the email address from which the message will be sent. Otherwise, this field will not be displayed as the message is sent from the one account you have set up.
  • Signature - If you have more than one Signature set up, or if the Domain Administrator has set up a default signature for you, you have the ability to select the signature used for the message. Note: If the domain administrator has disabled the ability to override domain-level signatures, you will not be able to choose an alternative signature.
  • To - Type the email address for each primary recipient you want to receive your email. Multiple addresses can be used, simply separate each with a comma or semi-colon. When entering addresses into the To, Cc, and Bcc fields, SmarterMail will auto-complete addresses by referencing your contacts list, mailing lists, your Auto-complete list, aliases or the Global Address List.
  • Cc - Carbon Copy (Cc) recipients are those who should be included as part of the conversation, but are not necessarily primary recipients.
  • Bcc - Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc) recipients are hidden from those people listed in the To and Cc fields. In addition, in a Reply All scenario, Bcc users do NOT receive a copy of the reply. For this reason, it is common practice to use the Bcc field when addressing a very long list of recipients or a list of recipients that should not (necessarily) know each other.
  • Subject - Type a descriptive subject or title of the email.

Below the Subject line is a complete HTML editor that you can use to write and format your message. A number of formatting options are available, from selecting a font color to inserting multimedia elements to a message.

Email Actions

The following actions are available for a new message:

  • Send - Sends your message to the designated recipients.
  • Cancel - Cancels your message. However, SmarterMail has an auto-save setting, so it's possible that a draft of your message will be saved automatically. If this happens, you'll see a number appear next to your Drafts folder. Clicking Cancel will display a window asking whether you want to save a draft of the message.
  • Save Draft - Saves the message in its current state to the Drafts folder wihtout actually sending it. This is useful if you need to continue writing the message at a later time. Note: By default, SmarterMail has an auto-save frequency of 2 minutes.
  • Attach - Allows you to attach one or more files to the message. See below for more information.
  • Actions dropdown:
    • Message Priority - Set to High, Normal or Low. Specifies the importance of the message. By default, messages have a normal level of priority.
    • Request Read Receipt - Sends an email confirmation back to the sender when the recipient opens the message.
    • Request Delivery Receipt - Sends an email confirmation back to the sender when the message is successfully delivered to the recipient.
    • Flag - Marks the message for follow-up. For more information, see Marking Email for Follow-ups .
    • Link File - Uses SmarterMail's File Storage feature to insert a link to a file saved on the mail server or to a file located in a connected file storage account, such as Dropbox or OneDrive. Either way, the links can be sent to recipients who can then download the linked file(s). Note: Linking to a private file in File Storage will enable public access on that file with no set expiration date.

Attaching Files

In addition to using the Attach button when composing a message, you have the ability to drag-and-drop files to be attached to your message. When files are attached to an outgoing message, a file manager will display at the bottom of the new message window. The file manager will display the name, size, and upload status of the file. Attachments must reach an upload status of 100% before the item is actually attached to the message. Note: To remove an attached file prior to sending the message, just click the X in the top, right corner of the file.

To display an image within your message body, use the Insert Image button from the toolbar editor.

Replying to Email Messages

SmarterMail gives users two options for replying to a message:

  • Reply - Addresses a response to the sender only.
  • Reply All - Addresses a response to the sender and everyone else who received the message. This includes all email addresses listed in the To and Cc fields, except your own email address.

When replying to a message, SmarterMail automatically fills in the address fields with the email addresses of the recipients from the original message, the subject field with the subject from the original message preceded by "Re" (which means "regarding" or "in regards to"), and the text box with the text from the original message. It is possible to edit any of these pre-filled fields, however, as needed. All other message options are the same as when composing a new message.

Forwarding Email Messages

You may also want to simply forward a message to a third-party or to someone not already copied on the original message. This is very easy to do:

  • Forward - Allows you to send the message to a third-party, or to an address that is not in the To or Cc fields.

Messages can be forwarded individually or in bulk. When forwarding multiple messages, the EML file of the email will be attached to a new compose window. SmarterMail automatically fills in the subject field with the subject from the original message preceded by "Fwd" (which means "Forward"), and the text box with the text from the original message. It is possible to edit any of these pre-filled fields, however, as needed. All other message options are the same as when composing a new message.

In addition, SmarterMail has an auto-forward option, which can be found in a user's Account Settings, that will forward a copy of all messages sent to a user's Inbox (as well as messages routed to other email folders via content filters or plus addressing).

Forwarding Multiple Messages

On occasion, users may want to forward multiple messages to someone. Instead of forwarding each message individually, SmarterMail allows users to forward multiple messages at once and includes them as attachments to a single message.

Follow these steps to forward multiple emails at once:

  1. Log into SmarterMail as a user.
  2. Click the Email icon.
  3. In the navigation pane, click the folder containing the messages you wish to forward. The messages in the folder will load in the content pane.
  4. Select the desired messages. This can be done by selecting them individually, using the Sort button to look for messages with attachments, etc., it can be done by doing a search and then selecting all of the search results, etc.
  5. Click the arrow next to the Reply button.
  6. Select Forward in the drop down. (This should be the only Reply option available to you.) This will open a new message window that you will use to compose a message to the desired recipients. The messages that you wanted to forward will be attached as .eml files to the new message.
  7. Compose the message and click Send.