Webmail instructions

These notes describe the Institute off site webmail service. This is provided to give easy access to your Institute email account while you are away from work, using software called Squirrel.

The central SquirrelMail service is available for accounts on the main computer unit mail server only (named aix-150.ion.ucl.ac.uk , mail.ion.ucl.ac.uk , pop.ion.ucl.ac.uk or www.ion.ucl.ac.uk ). 

NMR Research Unit & Epilepsy Research Group account holders have access to a departmental version. Please take note of the information below before moving on to the login pages.

This service is not intended as a replacement for your normal work-based (POP) email client such as Eudora and Outlook, and users should take note of some limitations:

  • The service makes it easier for you to read and reply to any new messages you have received whilst away from the Institute, and to send new messages while you are away. 
  • It does not give you access to messages previously read and saved using your normal work-based email,
  • and although you can create folders to help organise your Squirrel emails, these will not be automatically stored with your work-based emails.
  • Users wishing to store any
  • outgoing
  • messages
  • sent using Squirrel
  • with their normal IoN emails should
  • copy themselves in.
  • If large numbers of messages are allowed to accumulate in your Squirrel mail (more than 300), sorting all messages e.g. by subject or sender may fail, ungracefully.
  • Messages are held in the incoming Institute mail spool area, so once deleted they are gone for good (this differs from home use of POP clients). Any attachments are deleted when the message is deleted.

To Run Squirrelmail:

Users with e-mail accounts on the Central Computer Unit server should go to:

https://www.ion.ucl.ac.uk/Webmail/src/login.php

NMR/ERG users should go to:

https://saturn.nmr.ion.ucl.ac.uk:8443/squirrelmail/src/login.php

In both cases:

  • The login screen should appear.

  • Enter your login name and password.

    • The login name is your e-mail account username and will normally be 8 characters or less and has NO full stop (if you are unsure or your e-mail username, Eudora users can find it by: opening Eudora, selecting 
    • Tools
    • > O
    • ptions
    • >
    • Personal Info
    • . Your username is the first part (before the @) of the information displayed under
    • POP account.
    • Outlook users should look under,
    • Tools
    • >
    • Accounts
    • or
    • Tools
    • >
    • E-mail Accounts
    • . 
    • The password is the one you use to access your normal work-based email. 
    • It is a good idea to try logging in locally, before you need to use the service away from work. 
    • Please contact the Computer Unit (on 4118) if you need help with usernames and passwords (we don't know them, but can reset them if required).
  • Click Login (or hit the Enter key)
  • After a pause (the length of which is proportional to the amount of email you have stored on the server), the Message Index appears showing your Inbox (incoming mail), with most recent messages first.

Tips:

  • Individual messages can be read, either by double clicking them, or by right-clicking and opening in a new window (saves time getting back to main window).
  • To improve performance, remember to purge your deleted emails on a regular basis.  To do this, click on the
  • purge
  • command, which appears next to the INBOX.Trash folder label (but remember that these will be
  • permanently deleted, along with any attachments
  • ).
  • Although in-coming messages are screened for viruses, please take the normal precautions when dealing with attachments.
  • When you return to using your normal work-based email,
  • you will find that messages deleted using Squirrel are not in your Inbox (or Trash). Messages received while you were away are in your normal Inbox (these show as read rather than new), but will not have been filed in any existing folders. Any messages or replies you have sent using Squirrel will not appear in your normal Outbox and will not be retrievable using your work-based e-mail unless you copied yourself in on the original message, (see above).
  • A very useful link to follow is
  • Help
  • , followed by
  • Table of Contents
  • , which gives further details of how to use Squirrelmail.

Short guide to facilities on the first screen:

(by row then column)

Sign out Click here to end your session
Compose Compose a new message
Addresses Maintain an address book of e-mail addresses
Folders For volume users: organise your email
Options Set folder options, filtering etc.
Search Search for particular messages
Help Important and useful information
Calendar

A personal calendar. This is a limited feature add-on. The central UCL shared Oracle calendar is recommended.

(see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/is/diary/gettingstarted.htm for more details)
Previous Screen (displays when reading messages, help or if you currently have more than one screen full of messages).
Next Screen (displays when reading messages, help or if you currently have more than one screen full of messages).
Show All Show all messages (subject/sender) in one long screen (if you currently have more than one screen full of messages).
Toggle All Helps with selecting messages in current screen (useful when filing or deleting)
Move  move message to another folder
Forward  forward message
Delete delete flagged messages (flag by checking tick box in LH column)
Date, From, Subject Use these three to sort messages by date sender and subject - but please note the warning above.

Remember that the more messages you have stored, the longer access will take (storing more than 300 messages is discouraged!)

Please contact support with any queries regarding Squirrel mail.