Kalamazoo College Information Services Help Desk : If you must use webmail

The The EMU webmail interface is one of many ways you can access your Kalamazoo College email account. When EMU webmail was first implemented, it was intended for occasional use by college community members traveling off campus. The system can handle a load of about 20 concurrent user sessions before losing stability. At some point, this interface grew much more popular than anyone had intended and the system has been overtaxed since.

Before you continue, please remember that there are other, more reliable ways you can access your Kalamazoo College email account. If you must use the EMU webmail interface, here are a few tips for minimizing the hassle involved.

  • Keep your inbox as empty as possible. If you need to keep messages for later reference, keep them in a folder. You can create new folders by clicking on "Folder Manager" at the left side of the EMU webmail screen. You can move messages into folders by marking the check box for each message in the index you wish to move, then selecting a folder from the list in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, then clicking the "Save Selected in" button.
  • Keep the number of folders you have at or below 20.
  • Do not attempt to send more than 4MB of attached files per session. If you need to send more than one large file as an email attachment, logout and back in to EMU webmail after each one. The logout process clears a cache of your temporary files that, when full, can cause you to receive an Internal Server Error. (If you're not sure how large your file is, you can find out by doing the following: in Windows, right-click the file and choose "Properties." In Mac OS, click the file once to highlight it, then click your "File" menu and choose "Get Info." The file's size will be likely be listed in KB or MB. 1024 KB are equal to 1 MB.
  • Logout when you are finished. As mentioned above, logging out tells the server you're done for now. This allows the server to immediately discard any temporary files being retained for your use within an EMU webmail session.