Vanilla - Email FAQ and Settings

Table of Contents

What is an email account?
What is an email address?
What is an email alias?
How much does an email account cost?
Can my computer get a virus from email?
What is Email etiquette?
Can I Save messages on the server
Do you provide open relay?

What is an email account?

An email account is an electronic post box. You get a username (which is similar to the number of a post box) and a password (the key to your post box). All email sent to your email account can be collected using any email program or web browser. Email addressed to you is delivered to your account and stored there until you log in and check it either online or download it to your computer.

An email forward is the equivalent of a real-life forwarding address. When you change your PO box and leave a forwarding address, any email addressed to your old address gets re-sent to your new address. An email forward is similar in that all email sent to the forwarding address just gets forwarded to a real account (i.e., like a real-world forwarding address, one cannot collect your mail from there as it's been forwarded). An email forward is not an email account, and it's a free service offered with any domain names.

What is an email address?

An email address is made up of two parts. The first is the name of the user that the address belongs to. The second part is the domain name of the ISP that the user has signed up with, or another domain names that the user owns.

In the email address: johndoe@vanilla.co.za, johndoe is the user's name and vanilla.co.za is the domain name. The @ symbol, which stands for 'at', means exactly that. If you register your domain name, you can set up an email address to forward all mail that goes to johndoe@yourdomainname.co.za to be redirected to your account, e.g., johndoe@vanilla.co.za.

What is an email alias?

An email alias is not a real email account.

Instead, it's an address that forwards all email it receives to another email account. Another name for an email alias is a forwarding address. For example, if you establish an email alias called jd@vanilla.co.za to go to johndoe@vanilla.co.za, then all email sent to jd@Vanilla.co.za will be automatically forwarded to johndoe@vanilla.co.za (In this case, 'jd' is called an alias of 'johndoe'.)

You can set up an email alias so that email is forwarded to an account outside of your domain name as well. For example, you can set up jd@Vanilla.co.za to go to johndoe@yourcompany.co.za. You can have several email aliases all send mail to the same account.

How much does an email account cost?

For a Vanilla email account:

from R50 per month or R500 per annum (incl. VAT) - for up to 10GB storage

from R65 per month or R650 per annum (incl. VAT) - for up to 25GB storage

Can my computer get a virus from email?

What is a virus?

A computer virus is a program that invades your computer.

Can you get a virus from just opening an email or do you have to open an attachment within an email?

Up until a few years ago, opening an attachment was required before you could get a virus through email on your computer. However, this has changed due to more 'clever' virus writing and more functionality being added to certain software programs. Opening certain types of messages can infect your machine.

Can you get a virus just by reading email?

Some users think they are always safe to open email as long as they don’t look at or open attachments. This is no longer necessarily true. Some viruses can infect users when they read email. They look like any other message but can contain a hidden script (program) that runs as soon as you open the email or even look at it in the preview pane. Scripts can change system settings and can cause your computer to send the virus on to other users via email.

Always have:

An updated anti-virus program installed on your computer.
Always keep your operating system and virus definitions up to date.

Note: this doesn't apply if you are using gmail.

What is Email etiquette?

Many users are not aware that email has its own set of rules, and violating those rules increases the probability of filtering your email not only by anti-spam filters but also by filters in other corporations (many corporations are using various spam filters to protect their users from the flood of spam). For your reference, here are typical email etiquette rules:

Refrain from using all capitals LIKE THIS when sending email. This is considered to be 'yelling'.
Include your full name and email address in the body of every message. Many email programs help you to do this with a signature file.
Use the subject line to provide a meaningful synopsis of your message, especially if you are sending business-related email or email to a stranger.
Take a moment to delete extra lines and text from replies and forwards to reduce the size of the message.
Do not use email to criticize other people's grammar and spelling. Email is informal, and criticisms like that are called flames. Remember that everyone makes mistakes.
Always check your email for readability and spelling before you click Send.
Double-check the email address of the person to whom you are sending your message is correct.

Can I Save messages on the server

Normally when you download your email to your computer, it is removed from your account mailbox on the Vanilla mail server. But there are means of saving the messages onto the server.

Leave your email on the server.

This is useful if you are going to check your email while away from your computer using Vanilla webmail.

Do you provide open relay?

Short answer: NO. You must use smtp-auth on port 465 or 587 with a valid account.

Unauthenticated open relay from client IP addresses used to be allowed, but then device compromises and client malware infections created a nightmare with our IP reputation. No client email can be delivered when we get blocklisted.

We now enforce smtp-auth for mail accounts and also apply rate limits to avoid mail floods where malware uses compromised credentials to send itself out.