If you are receiving an “Incorrect password” error in the e-mail program on your local device (computer, phone, tablet, etc.), but you are sure that you have entered the correct password, please check your e-mail username as well.

The username that you should use in your e-mail program must be YOUR FULL EMAIL ADDRESS, and not only the part before the @ sign. For example, if your mailbox is johnsmith@example.com, then the username must be johnsmith@example.com, and not just “johnsmith”. If you use just “johnsmith”, then you might see an “incorrect password” error.

Also, please make sure that there are no whitespace characters entered before or after the password in your e-mail program.

Full instructions on configuring the most popular email programs can be found in the Configuring an e-mail program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc.) section of the FAQ.

You can find detailed instructions on how to create an e-mail account in the Creating email accounts article from our online documentation.

You can access your e-mail in a web browser or in an e-mail program installed on your computer.

To access the Webmail interface in your web browser, check the following article:

Logging into webmail

To access your e-mail in an e-mail program, you need to follow the configuration instructions at:

Configuring an e-mail program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc)

We support both POP and IMAP e-mail access. You can find a short comparison on both protocols at:

Differences between POP and IMAP

If you are using a mail client such as Outlook, or Thunderbird please configure it in the following way:

Incoming and outgoing (SMTP) mail server:mail.your_server.comYou can find your server’s host name listed in the upper left corner of your Control Panel.

For SMTP/Outgoing mail server you can also use the one provided by your ISP, if such is available.

For more information on the servers, protocols, ports, and supported functions please refer to the table below:

¹⁾ SSL/TLS – the communication between the client and the server is encrypted – we recommend this type of communication for maximum security.
²⁾ IMAP/POP-before-SMTP authentication – This method will allow you to send out messages if you have checked your incoming mail via POP3 or IMAP within the last 60 minutes.

Some Internet Service Providers do not allow their customers to connect to third-party SMTP (outgoing) mail servers on the default port 25. You can safely use the following ports for outgoing mail with our service:

• port 587 – Both encrypted (via STARTTLS) and unencrypted connections are supported.
• port 465 –  Only encrypted connections (SMTPS) are supported.

These ports are rarely blocked by ISPs, and it is strongly recommended that you use one of them instead of the default SMTP port 25.

Some Internet Service Providers do not allow their customers to use other SMTP servers than their own on the default outgoing mail port. This is a part of their efforts to limit spam coming from their networks. These ISPs block the default outgoing mail port, which is 25. You can use our SMTP service on ports 587 or 465 instead.

An alternative solution is to configure your e-mail program to use your ISP’s SMTP server for outgoing e-mail.

Please check the following article on how to configure a mailbox quota:

Academy -> Control Panel -> Mail Manager -> Modify a mailbox quota

E-mail autodiscover/autoconfig is a service that allows automatic configuration of e-mail programs to connect to mailboxes on our servers securely, using IMAP over SSL and SMTP over TLS.

Currently, automatic configuration on our servers is supported for the following e-mail programs:

– Mozilla Thunderbird (Autoconfig feature, any version, any OS)
– Outlook 2007+ (Autodiscover, Windows)
– KMail (Autoconfig)

This is the list of e-mail programs that we have tested and verified to be working properly with the automatic e-mail configuration service. The Autoconfig service is enabled for the main domain and all parked domains of the hosting account, while the Autodiscover service is enabled only for the main domain of the hosting account.

Note: Some versions of the Outlook e-mail program cannot recognize/obtain the correct mailbox configuration settings from the standardized autodiscover/autoconfig service running on our servers due to caching/configuration problems caused by the e-mail program. In such cases, you will need to configure your mailboxes manually.

Using the automatic e-mail configuration feature

When setting up your e-mail program to access your mailbox, after entering your e-mail address and password on the Account Setup screen, your e-mail program will automatically search for available server configuration.

Note: Your e-mail program may issue a warning that the name on the certificate does not match the name on the site. This is so because your e-mail program is attempting to connect over https:// to autodiscover.your_domain.com, and there is no certificate issued for this hostname. You can ignore this warning and continue.

IMPORTANT: The automatic e-mail configuration would work only if the hostnames autodiscover.your_domain.com and autoconfig.your_domain.com resolve to the IP address of the server where your account is hosted with us. The subdomains autodiscover and autoconfig must not exist in the Subdomains section of the hosting Control Panel.

Email protocols

The automatic e-mail configuration feature is set to add to your e-mail program an IMAP account for reading e-mail, and an SMTP account for sending e-mail. Both will be set to access the server securely (over TLS/SSL).

If you prefer to set up a POP3 account in your e-mail program, you should not use the automatic e-mail configuration feature. Instead, you should configure your e-mail program manually. You can check our setup instructions for the most popular e-mail programs in the Configuring an e-mail program section from our online documentation.

Stopping the autodiscover/autoconfig feature

You can disable the automatic e-mail configuration feature by creating a subdomain on your account with name autodiscover (autodiscover.your_domain.com) or autoconfig (autoconfig.your_domain.com) respectively. This can be done at the Subdomains section of your hosting Control Panel.

POP3 (or just POP – Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) are protocols for email access. Both of them are supported on our servers, and you can use them to connect to your mail server.

IMAP is a protocol for accessing and handling email directly on the mail server.

POP, on the other hand, is an email protocol that mail clients use to download email messages from the remote email server.

The main difference between POP and IMAP is that IMAP manages email messages directly on the server, while POP downloads them locally, and you can manage them only on the computer where they were downloaded.

Both protocols have their advantages in certain situations. With IMAP, for example, all your email is stored in your mailbox on the server, and you can see your messages only when you are connected to the server. This allows you to connect from any computer with any email program and see all your mail and mail folders as they are on the server.

The Webmail application that we provide for email access uses IMAP. If you intend to use it for email, we would recommend that you set up your email program to use IMAP, too.

With POP, on the other hand, the messages are usually removed from the server when they are downloaded, and your email folders are set up only in the mail program on the computer you use to manage your email. POP can be used to manage your already downloaded email even when you are offline.

Another difference is that if you use IMAP, outgoing email may be stored on the server; if you use POP, though, outgoing messages will be available only locally.

To view the full mail headers, open the corresponding message, and follow the instructions below:

Webmail Classic:

• Click on the Show headers button.

Roundcube:

• Click on the Details link.
• Click on the All headers… link.

Outlook Express:

• On the File menu, click Properties.
• Click the tab labeled Details.

Thunderbird:

• On the View menu, click Message Source.

Entourage:

• On the View menu, click Options.
• Click the section labeled Internet Headers.

Microsoft Outlook 2003:

• On the View menu, click Options.
• Click the section labeled Internet Headers.

Microsoft Outlook 2007:

• On the Options menu, click Internet Headers.

Microsoft Outlook 2010:

• Click on File -> Info -> Properties.
• On the Properties window, locate the Internet headers box.

Mail for Mac:

• On the View menu, click Message.
• Click All Headers.

Windows Mail:

• On the File menu, click Properties.
• Click the tab labeled Details.

Windows Live Mail:

• Right-click the message and click View source.

The Control Panel gives you the option to configure your mailboxes to receive a warning message if they reach a certain percentage of their quota. This will help you avoid losing important e-mail messages when there is no space/inodes left in your mailboxes.

Generally, each mailbox has a disk space quota set, and maximum allowed messages (inode quota). The settings for each mailbox can be configured at your hosting Control Panel > Mail Manager section. Click on the link under the Quota column, next to the mailbox in question. There, besides the quota for the mailbox, you can define a custom level at which the system will send a notice. Note that besides this custom level, the system will always be sending a warning when 99% of the usage is reached.

You can also set a warning notice for the total space of the hosting account at the Resources section of the hosting Control Panel.

The disk/inodes usage of your mailbox can increase, and respectively you would receive a notification about its usage, in any of the following cases:

1. 1. You are using the Webmail to read and manage your e-mail. When using the Webmail program, all the messages you keep are stored on the server, consuming your mailboxes space.
   2. You download your e-mail messages to your local computer; however, you have configured your e-mail program to leave a copy of the downloaded messages on the server.
   3. You read your e-mail messages using some e-mail program which is configured to connect to the server using IMAP. In this case the messages are stored on the server the same way as when you are using the Webmail program.
   4. You have your mailbox set to forward to another e-mail address, but have the option Keep a copy of the forwarded messages enabled.

In any of the cases above, you have several options:

• Clean up old messages from your mailbox using the Webmail program

  Log into the Webmail program to examine the messages you have in your mailbox, and delete the ones you do not need (old, spam, and virus messages that might be sitting in your mailbox, etc.). Do not forget to empty the Trash folder as any message you delete is usually moved there first.

• Download some of the messages from the server to your local computer

  In case you wish to back up the messages from your mailbox to your local computer and then delete them from the server to free up some space, you need to configure an IMAP account in some e-mail program on your local computer. You can use any IMAP capable e-mail program (Thunderbird, MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Mail for Mac, Entourage, etc.). You can find instructions on how to configure an IMAP account in the most popular email software applications in the Configuring an e-mail program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc.) section from our online documentation.

  Once you are connected to the server, you will be able to select the messages you wish to back up and move them to a local folder in your e-mail program. This way the messages will be downloaded from the IMAP folders on the server to the local folders on your computer. Once the messages are moved, they will no longer reside on the server, and you will have more space available in your mailbox.

Please note that the space taken by your mailboxes is counted towards the total disk space usage of your hosting account.

We support IMAP and SMTP over SSL/TLS. The Webmail interface can be accessed over SSL as well.

To set a forwarding for your mailboxes, please check the following article:

Academy -> Control Panel -> Mail Manager -> Configure forwarding

To set up an e-mail autoresponder, please check the following article:

Academy -> Control Panel -> Mail Manager -> Setting up an Autoresponder/Vacation message

The reason for the error “553 sorry, that domain isn’t in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.5.3 – chkuser)” is that your mail application has not authenticated to our mail server.

In order to send mail through our server, your email program must authenticate. There are two ways to do that.

The first one is to enter the mailbox username (your full email address) and the password in the outgoing mail server settings of your mail application so that it supplies them before sending. This can be configured in the options for the email account at the email program, and that is why this is the recommended method.

The second method is called “POP/IMAP before SMTP”. Basically, if you check your mail first for incoming messages, the server will remember your address for some time, and you will be able to send through it during that period without giving your username and password. This is probably the method you are using at the moment. The error message would appear after you have not checked your mail for some time, and you try to send. In this case, you should either configure your mail program to authenticate to the server in order to send, or check your email before sending.

You can change the password of your mailbox at your online Control Panel -> Mail Manager section.

Please refer to the following article on this matter:

Academy -> Control Panel -> Mail Manager -> Change email account password

If you are using the webmail interfaces to send messages, there is a limit of 100 recipients total in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. This limit cannot be increased.

However, there are no limits on our end if you send e-mail through our SMTP server using a local mail application like Outlook, for example.

Another option to send a message to multiple recipients is to use mailing lists. They have been specifically designed to handle sending of a single message to many subscribers, and the number of recipients you send to is not limited. Mailing lists can be created via the Mailing Lists section of the Control Panel of the hosting account.

There is no limit on the size of the e-mails that you send or receive other than the maximum disk space for the account. It depends on how much space is available in the receiving mailbox, in order for the recipient to be able to get the mail message.

Please note that the HTTP protocol itself (which is used for attachment uploads in the Webmail) is not too suitable for big file transfers, and timeouts may occur.

If you wish to send large attachments, you better use a standalone mail application, such as Outlook or Thunderbird – please check our Configuring an e-mail program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc) article for instructions.

There is no maximum size limit for sending messages via our SMTP servers; however, large messages may not be delivered successfully if your Internet Service Provider does not allow the distribution of large messages, or if the mail server of the message recipient is configured to reject incoming messages above specific size. If you encounter such a problem, you can upload to your hosting account/website any files that were attached to the message, and provide a link for direct access to the files on your hosting account/website. This should reduce the message size significantly, and result in a successful message delivery.

When using POP3 to read your email, your email program deletes the messages from the server right after downloading them to your local computer. In case you wish to configure your Outlook program to leave a copy of the downloaded messages on the server, please follow the steps below:

For Outlook Express:

1. Start your Outlook Express program.
2. From the menu Tools -> Accounts. Select the account you wish to modify, and click on Properties.
3. Go to the Advanced tab of the Properties window, and check the Leave a copy of messages on the server option.

For MS Outlook:

1. Start your MS Outlook program.
2. From the menu Tools -> E-mail accounts -> View or change existing email accounts select the account you wish to modify, and click on Change.
3. Click on the More Settings button.
4. Go to the Advanced tab of the Properties window, and check the Leave a copy of messages on the server option.

To configure your Gmail account to download your incoming messages with our service using the POP3 protocol, you can follow the steps below. In this manual, we are using example domain name and email address, so please make sure to replace:

username@example.com with your email address your_server.com with your server’s host name (you can find your server’s host name listed in the upper left corner of your Control Panel)

1. Log into your Gmail account, and access the Settings section.

2. Click Accounts and Import.

3. At the Check email from other accounts (using POP3) section, click the Add a POP3 mail account that you own link.

4. Enter your email address with our service that you want to download at Gmail, and click Next Step.

5. Specify the following values:

Username: Enter your whole email address (username@example.com).

Password: Enter the current password for the mailbox.

POP Server: Enter mail.your_server.com. Be sure to replace your_server.com with the actual hostname of your server.

Port: 995

Mark the Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail option.

The rest of the settings depend on your own preferences. If you would like to keep a copy of downloaded messages in your mailbox on our servers, the Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server. setting enabled.

You can add more email accounts by repeating the same procedure.

Note: Messages moved to the Junk folder by the SpamAssassin filter will not be downloaded to Gmail as that folder is not accessible via POP3. For more information, please check our Possible issues when using POP3 and SpamAssassin article.

You can search for specific messages in the SMTP session logs (ports 25, 465, and 587), mail delivery logs, and Spamdyke logs via the Mail logs subsection of the Control Panel -> Logs section. You can find several examples on how to search for specific messages listed below:

• Searching for outgoing messages
• Searching for incoming messages

There is more information about the format of the log messages in the Mail Logs Format article.

Searching for outgoing messages

To search the mail server logs for a message that you have sent, you should use the following search criteria in the Mail logs subsection of the Control Panel -> Logs section:

Note: Replace mailboxname@example.com with your e-mail address, and recipient@example.com with the e-mail address of the recipient.

1. Enter the full mailbox you used for sending the message (e.g. mailboxname@example.com) in the Sender field.
2. Enter the full mailbox of the recipient (e.g. recipient@example.com) in the Recipient field. This setting is optional.
3. Select the time interval for your search via the Date interface.
4. From the Search in options, select the SMTP session logs and Mail delivery logs.
5. Press the Search button.

The SMTP session logs will show you any SMTP sessions matching the search criteria, while the mail delivery logs will show you detailed delivery information about the messages matching the search criteria.

Note: Messages sent by scripts in which the sender is not defined as a mailbox in your hosting account will be sent from a system mailbox on the server (e.g. anonymous@sXXX.sureserver.com). These messages will not appear in your search results.

Searching for incoming messages

If you would like to check the mail server logs for an incoming message addressed to any of your hosting account’s mailboxes, you should use the following search criteria in the Mail logs subsection of the Control Panel -> Logs section:

Note: Replace mailboxname@example.com with your e-mail address, and sender@example.com with the e-mail address of the message sender.

1. Enter the full mailbox of the sender (e.g. sender@example.com) in the Sender field. This setting is optional.
2. Enter your full mailbox that the message was addressed to (e.g. mailboxname@example.com) in the Recipient field.
3. Select the time interval for your search via the Date interface.
4. From the Search in options, select the Mail delivery logs and Spamdyke logs.
5. Press the Search button.

The mail delivery logs will show you detailed information about the delivery status of your messages matching the search criteria, while the Spamdyke logs will show if the message was accepted or rejected by the Spamdyke protection service. More details about Spamdyke are available in our Spamdyke/Graylisting article.

Note: Messages addressed to mailboxes that do not exist in your hosting account will not appear in the search results; however, the sender will receive a bounce-back error message with more information about the failed delivery.

Instructions on how to delete all messages in a specific mailbox folder via the Webmail interfaces are available in our Emptying mailbox folders article.

If the procedure takes a long time or does not complete (this is possible if there is a great number of messages in the folder), contact our Support team.

1. Set up a new IMAP account for your mailbox in your e-mail program. You can check our step-by-step instructions on Configuring an e-mail program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc).
2. Use your e-mail program to manually move the messages from the POP3 account to the IMAP account.
3. Delete the POP3 account. 

If you send an email message from your hosting account to another mail server and it is not accepted or rejected initially, the message will remain in the outgoing queue of our mail server. Our mail server will try to deliver that message continuously for up to two days, waiting for the remote mail server to accept or reject the message. You will receive a bounce error message indicating the reason for the failed delivery if our mail server is unable to send your message after retrying for two days.

By default, you will not receive any notifications during the two-day retry period if a message delivery is delayed. If you wish to enable this feature for your hosting account, please refer to our Enabling delayed delivery notifications article.

You can find an example delayed delivery notification listed below:

From: <MAILER-DAEMON@your_server.com>
To: <mailboxname@example.com>
Subject: delayed delivery notice

Your message has been received by your_server.com but has been undeliverable to the following recipients for at least time.

The mail system will continue to attempt to deliver your message to these recipients for a total of 2 days.

You do not need to resend your message at this time.

Recipient(s):

    recipient@example.com

— Below this line is a copy of the original message.

Note: In the delayed delivery notifications that you will receive, your_server.com will be replaced with your server hostname, mailboxname@example.com with your email address, time with the message delivery delay, and recipient@example.com with the email address of your recipient.

There are three types of log files used on our mail servers:

• SMTP logs
• Delivery logs
• Spamdyke logs

Each type has a different format. This page provides an explanation of the most common lines you will see in the logs.

SMTP Logs

The SMTP logs contain information about messages that are delivered to our mail server for local delivery or relay to other mail servers.

Information about each message is logged on multiple lines, and the lines pertaining to the same message are grouped together.

SMTP logs are split by the incoming port. Our servers accept SMTP connections on ports 25, 465, and 587. Email is almost always delivered between servers on port 25. Ports 465 and 587 are mostly used by email programs (such as Outlook, for example) to connect to the mail server and relay email through it.

If you are looking for messages that have been delivered from the Internet to your mailboxes, they will be recorded in the SMTP log for port 25.

Here are a couple of examples:

2021-03-09 11:10:37, from, spam@mail.spam-source.net
2021-03-09 11:10:37, resp, 250 ok
2021-03-09 11:10:37, to, <recipient@example.com>
2021-03-09 11:10:37, resp, 554 "Refused. You have no reverse DNS entry. Contact abuse@suresupport.com for details."

2021-03-09 12:43:51, from, correspondent@elsewhere.example.net
2021-03-09 12:43:51, resp, 250 ok
2021-03-09 12:43:51, to, <recipient@example.com>
2021-03-09 12:43:51, check, accepted rcpt, h:198.51.100.25, recipient@example.com, found existing recipient
2021-03-09 12:43:51, resp, 250 ok
2021-03-09 12:43:51, size, 23533
2021-03-09 12:43:51, resp, 250 ok 1615286631 qp 15309

For these examples, we assume that our server handles email for example.com, and email for all other domains is hosted elsewhere.

In the first group, a message was sent from spam@mail.spam-source.net. Our server initially responded with an “OK” (response codes in the 200-299 range mean “request was accepted”).

The sending server then indicated that the message was addressed to recipient@example.com. Again, our server responded with “OK”.

However, when our server was done examining the sender and the message, it responded that the delivery was rejected (response codes 500-599 mean “request was denied”). The reason for the failure is given after the response code. In this case, the message was rejected because it was most likely coming from a spam source.

The second message was sent from correspondent@elsewhere.example.net (our server responded “OK”) to recipient@example.com, a local mailbox. Our server checked the mailbox and responded “OK” again. The message had a size of 23533 bytes and our server finally responded that it had been accepted for delivery. The “ok 1615286631 qp 15309” part contains information about the mail server process that took over the delivery.

On ports 465 and 587, you are most likely going to see outgoing messages. The following log entries describe a message that was sent from sender@example.com and delivered to recipient@example.com:

2021-03-10 14:17:33, from, sender@example.com
2021-03-10 14:17:33, resp, 250 ok
2021-03-10 14:17:33, to, <recipient@example.com>
2021-03-10 14:17:33, check, accepted rcpt, unknown:127.0.0.1, recipient@example.com, found existing recipient
2021-03-10 14:17:33, resp, 250 ok
2021-03-10 14:17:33, size, 620
2021-03-10 14:17:33, resp, 250 ok 1615205853 qp 5665

Note that the recipient@example.com email address points to a local mailbox on the server. This means that the message never left our server.

However, the message is still considered to be “outgoing” from the point of view of the sending mailbox, sender@example.com.

Delivery Logs

The delivery logs contain information about the actions taken by our mail server after accepting a message for delivery.

The message from correspondent@elsewhere.example.net would appear here as well:

2021-03-09 12:43:51, init, <correspondent@elsewhere.example.net>
2021-03-09 12:43:51, try, 114878, local, recipient@example.com
2021-03-09 12:43:51, result, 114878, success, did_0+0+1/

Here, our server initiated the delivery of the message from correspondent@elsewhere.example.net by trying to deliver it to the local mailbox recipient@example.com. The result was that the message was delivered successfully.

There are three possible delivery outcomes:

• success, when the message is delivered successfully;
• deferral, when delivery of the message is delayed temporarily and the message remains in the queue waiting for another delivery attempt;
• failure, when the message cannot be delivered and the mail server stops trying.

The delivery log of the message from sender@example.com to recipient@example.com tells a similar story. The message was successfully delivered to the local mailbox recipient@example.com:

2021-03-10 14:17:33, init, <sender@example.com>
2021-03-10 14:17:33, try, 90352, local, recipient@example.com
2021-03-10 14:17:33, result, 90352, success, smtp_auth/did_0+0+1/

Interesting to note here is that the sender (sender@example.com) authenticated to the mail server before sending (the smtp_auth part). This is required when relaying email through our servers.

Spamdyke Logs

Spamdyke is an anti-spam system running on our servers. Each line in the Spamdyke log corresponds to one handled message.

Here are two examples:

Mar  9 11:10:37 server spamdyke[29207]: DENIED_RDNS_MISSING from: spam@mail.spam-source.net to: recipient@example.com origin_ip: 203.0.113.66 origin_rdns: (unknown) auth: (unknown) encryption: (none) reason: (empty)
Mar  9 12:43:51 server spamdyke[15280]: ALLOWED from: correspondent@elsewhere.example.net to: recipient@example.com origin_ip: 192.0.2.12 origin_rdns: elsewhere.example.net auth: (unknown) encryption: (none) reason: 250_ok_1615286631_qp_15309

Delivery of the first message was denied because the reverse DNS (RDNS) record of the source IP address was missing. This is the same message as the very first example above (from spam@mail.spam-source.net).

The second message was OK, and it was allowed to be delivered.

• General information
• Configuring Mailvelope
• Sending encrypted messages (and files)
• Reading encrypted messages

General information

The only way to ensure that the messages you send and receive are private to you and the intended recipient(s) is to encrypt them. You can enable end-to-end message encryption with minimal effort using the Roundcube webmail client and the Mailvelope browser extension/add-on. Mailvelope uses the OpenPGP standard, which has been labeled as secure for many years and is open-source; this means you can communicate privately with other email addresses which use OpenPGP standard-supported software.

Note: This encryption method allows you to encrypt only the message body and attachments. The information in the message headers (sender, recipient, timestamp, etc.) cannot be encrypted.

Configuring Mailvelope

To configure Mailvelope to work with the Roundcube webmail client, you need to follow these steps:

1. Download the Mailvelope browser extension/add-on through the official website, and enable it. Currently, the Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge browsers are supported.
2. Access your mailbox using the Roundcube webmail client. Detailed instructions are available in the Logging into webmail article.
3. Open the extension, and press the Let’s start button.

   

4. A new window will appear in your browser, where you can generate a new key pair for your email address or import an existing one.

   
   You can import existing keys as files or text. If you do not have existing keys, you must create a new key pair by supplying the following settings in the extension:

   • Name – the name that will be displayed as the key owner. It will be visible to all participants in the encrypted communication.
   • Email – your full email address (e.g. mailboxname@example.com).
   • Enter/Re-enter Password – the password for your private key.
   You can leave the Advanced settings unchanged.

   
   Press the Generate button once ready, and your new key pair will be added to your Mailvelope keyring.

   
   Note: After a new key pair is added to your keyring, an encrypted verification message will be sent to your email address which allows you to add your public key to the Mailvelope Key Server. More information on how to read encrypted messages is available below in the Reading encrypted messages section of this article.

5. Navigate to the Roundcube webmail client and open the extension again. A new menu will appear where you should select the + Authorize this domain button.

   

6. A new tab/window will appear with the correct settings already filled. You only need to enable the API toggle, and press the OK button.

   

Note: If you access your mailboxes via Roundcube using the server domain (e.g. mbox.your_server.com) and your own domain name (e.g. mbox.example.com), you should authorize both of them.

Sending encrypted messages (and files)

Once you have configured Mailvelope on your browser, you can send encrypted messages in a few simple steps:

1. Access the Roundcube webmail client with your mailbox.
2. Open the Compose task from the main menu to compose a new message.
3. Click on the Encrypt button from the top toolbar to encrypt the message (and sign it). If you wish to encrypt and sign the message, click on the downward pointing triangular arrow next to the Encrypt button and select the Encrypt and sign option.

   
   Note: The Encrypt button will be inactive if the message editor type is set to HTML as encryption is supported only for plain text messages. To set the editor type to Plain text, press the X button in the top-left corner of the message field.

   
   Encrypted and signed messages will display your name and email address as you have listed them in your private key when opened by their recipients. This will help ensure the recipients that you are the actual sender of the encrypted messages.

   
   Additionally, you can enable automatic signing of all outgoing encrypted messages in the Mailvelope extension with the Sign all outgoing messages. setting under the General tab of the Options menu.

   

4. Enter your message in the message field. If you wish to attach private files, you should add them to the attachment area of the encrypted message field. Attaching files to messages the normal way will result in unencrypted attachments sent to the recipient of your message.

   

5. When you are ready, click on the Send button to send your message. A new window may pop-up asking you to enter the password for the private key of your mailbox.

If you plan to send mostly encrypted messages, you should set the message editor type to Plain text by opening the Settings task from the main menu, selecting the Preferences setting, clicking the Composing Messages option, and changing the Compose HTML messages setting to never.

When you send an encrypted message to a mailbox whose public key is not in your keyring, a new window will pop up, asking you to confirm their public key.

Reading encrypted messages

To read encrypted messages after you have configured Mailvelope on your browser, you should access your mailbox via the Roundcube Webmail interface, open the Mail task from the main menu, and click on the specific message from the message list. A window may appear where you should enter the password for the private key of the recipient’s mailbox.

If you do not have the correct public key of the sender and the correct private key of the recipient’s mailbox in your keyring, you will be unable to decrypt and read the message.