Google Mail / Rackspace Email Resources
Rackspace Email and Google Apps / Google Mail
Rackspace Email and Google Apps are hosted mail services that let you operate email at your own domain name.
Google Apps is just like using Gmail, except instead of using an @gmail.com address, you get email addresses like joe@mydomain.com.
Rackspace Email
Click on a heading below to learn more.
Rackspace Links
Access your mail in a browser (webmail)
There are several different links you can use to access your email:
| mail.yourdomain.com | Login with just your username |
| mail.google.com | Login with your full username@yourdomain.com |
Note: some clients may have been set up to use webmail.yourdomain.com instead of mail.yourdomain.com.
Google Mail
Click on a heading below to learn more.
Access your mail in a browser (webmail)
There are several different links you can use to access your email:
| mail.yourdomain.com | Login with just your username |
| mail.google.com | Login with your full username@yourdomain.com |
Note: some clients may have been set up to use webmail.yourdomain.com instead of mail.yourdomain.com.
Configure your mail reader – Outlook, Apple Mail & others
Unlock your mail account
Using Mail, Calendar and Docs
Accessing your Services
To access Mail, Calendar and Docs services, use the following links (changing “yourdomain.com” to your own domain name) from any web browsers;
- Mail: http://mail.yourdomain.com (or sometimes http://webmail.yourdomain.com)
- Calendar: http://calendar.yourdomain.com
- Docs: http://docs.yourdomain.com
Notice there is no “www” in the URLs to access these services – if you add www, you won’t be able to access them.
Learning Resources
Learn about Google Apps: Google Apps Learning Centre
Moving to Webmail: Using Gmail instead of Outlook (PDF)
Accounts, Nicknames, Groups and Forwarding
User Accounts
Your Google Apps account comes with a number of user accounts. The free Google Apps accounts support up to 10 user accounts (older Google Apps users may have 50 or 100). A user account has its own mailbox and has an email address (like you@yourdomain.com).
Nicknames
If your name is Geoffrey but people also call you Geoff, you might setup your email address as geoffrey@yourdomain.com and then update the user to add a nickname for geoff. Emails sent to geoffrey@yourdomain.com or geoff@yourdomain.com will both come through to the same mailbox. Nicknames create new email addresses but don’t count towards your account limit.
Groups
You can create a mail group with its own email address. Sending an email to the group address means the email gets delivered to all members of the group. You might set up an email group for info@yourdomain.com and place several email addresses into that group. Any email sent to info@yourdomain.com gets sent to everyone on the list.
You can set permissions on who can send email to the mailing list. If you want to receive email from your website contact form, you’ll need to set permissions to Public.
A Group doesn’t have a mailbox, it is a list of usernames. So a Group creates a new email address, but doesn’t count towards your account limit.
Forwarding
Email forwarding is set up for an account, and forwards email received at that address to another email address. To set this up, log in to the webmail for the account, and use the Mail Settings link (under the gears icon at the top right of mail box). Use Mail Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP to set up the forwarding. There are two steps to complete:
- Step 1: Add the forwarding email address. This will send a verification email to that email address. The verification link has to be clicked before you can proceed to step 2.
- Step 2: Activate the forwarding. Once you have clicked the verification link, you will be able to activate the email forwarding. You can chose to leave a copy of the forwarded email in the account, or delete it once it has been forwarded
Administering a Google Apps Account
Administration
If you are an account administrator for your Google Apps account, you can add, change and delete user accounts.
You can access the account Control Panel in two ways:
- clicking the ‘Manage this Domain’ link at the top right of your inbox
- using this address (with your domain name): google.com/a/yourdomain.com
Google Help Page: Google Apps Administration Help
Advanced
Charts and Maps
Enter data in a Google Docs spreadsheet and create charts and graphs, then embed the charts/graphs in your website: Integrating Charts using Google Docs
Set up
All about Setting up and using a Google Apps account.
Recovering from the 2011 Google Apps Transition
Common Email Tasks
Suspicious Emails
Check for emails caught in your spam filter
Check for Emails Filtered as Spam
Both Rackspace Email and Google Apps will automatically scan incoming emails and filter out spam.
If you only read your email via a mail reader such as Outlook or Apple Mail that downloads mail from your mail server, you won’t see the emails filtered as spam.
So you should check periodically to make sure there aren’t important emails being filtered by Google as spam.
To do this, login to your email account using the Webmail procedure (above).
In Google Apps, to the left of your mailbox are a set of labels that give you access to your Inbox, Sent Mail and so on. If you cannot see the Spam label, click the gears icon at the top right of your mailbox and go to Mail Settings, Labels and turn on the Spam label.
Google Apps Mail Settings for Spam Label (click to enlarge)
Review emails that have been filtered as spam, and if necessary click the Not Spam button to release emails from spam. Google will learn from your tagging.
