Group IMAP Accounts

IT Services supports IMAP email on the campus mail systems. Stanford community members can choose between POP and IMAP for their @stanford email.

Basics about group IMAP accounts

A "group" IMAP account is a mailbox with more than one user, each user using his or her own SUNet ID and password to connect to the mailbox. It is particularly useful in these two situations:

• an organized group (a department, a team, a project group, a club, etc.) wants an email address and mailbox that multiple people can use, e.g., to read and reply to the group's email, to fulfill orders and requests, to send emailed newsletters, etc. Whether to share the tasks or to have a way for people to serve as backup to the main person handling the email, the group needs more than one person to be able to use the email account.
• a busy or important faculty member or administrator needs help dealing with her or his email. An administrative assistant could be the first to read the incoming email, sorting it into folders, discarding spam, etc. before the VIP reads it. But however they set up the workflow, both have access to the mailbox and the account at all times.

It's important to remember that access to Stanford-provided mailboxes is provided through SUNet IDs and passwords, and that it is a serious violation of University policy to share your SUNet ID and password with anyone. Hence, using a group IMAP account is the only legitimate way to share a Stanford-provided email account with anyone else for any purpose.

Requirements for a group IMAP account:

• each user of the account must have a SUNet ID. (Users who do not have a SUNet ID may be able to get one - either a regular SUNet ID for most Stanford people or a sponsored one, with or without its own mailbox, etc. - through the SUNet ID home page.)
• a basic charge of $5.95/month for the group IMAP mailbox, which provides 500Mb of storage space (additional space is available, for additional cost)
• a PTA number to which the fee is charged, plus someone with authority for that account who can approve it
• for each user, a personal computer with an email program that supports IMAP, such as Eudora, Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail, etc. (Unlike personal SUNet accounts, you cannot get to a group IMAP account through the web. In other words, the webmail-imap service does not work for group IMAP accounts.) You can, and most group IMAP users do, work with both your own personal email and your shared IMAP group email in a single email program, switching mailboxes easily and conveniently as needed.

Be aware that at the current time, there is no Webmail interface to group accounts. To read group account email while traveling, you would need to have a computer with an Internet connection and an email client you can configure, not just a web browser connection.

Requesting a group IMAP account

Requesting a group IMAP account is done via the Departmental Email Account Request form at tools.stanford.edu.

When you have finished filling in the information requested, click the Submit button to complete the request. You, the person who submitted the request, will be notified in a business day or two, usually with the news that the account is open and ready to use.

Changes and other considerations

Over the life of the email account, you may need to make changes, such as adding or removing people who will get access to the account or changing the SUFIN account being charged.

• You can request more storage space via Sponsorship Manager.
• Administrators for group IMAP accounts can use the Group Imap Account Access Control List Editor to grant and remove access to the mailbox.

Setting up your email client for a group IMAP account

Each user of the group IMAP account will need to set up his or her email client (e.g., Eudora, Apple Mail, etc.) correctly in order to use the account.

Another reasonable approach, which you can use to simplify the experience, is to use two or more separate email programs, one for your personal email (e.g., Outlook) and another for your group IMAP account. The main drawback is that you would have to learn two email programs.

Configuration details

We cannot provide specific configuration instructions for every email program; but here are the key pieces of information you should provide in setting up an IMAP group account on your email program. Some email programs may call these items by different names, or may not provide all options.

• Account type: IMAP (not POP)
• Email address: account-name@stanford.edu where account-name is the agreed-upon name for the email account (see above)
• Name/Full name: This is the name or phrase that mail recipients see beside the email address of the sender. You might use it to say "Stanford Kite Club" or "Epanorthosis Research Team" or whatever might better describe or clarify yourself to your email recipients than your email account name.
• Incoming mail server: group-accounts.pobox.stanford.edu
• User name/Account ID: sunetid - that is, your own SUNet ID, in its logon form (5-8 characters long, e.g., jdoe).
• Password: leave blank
• Outgoing mail server: smtp.stanford.edu 
• SSL: Turn SSL on.
• Port: 993 is the port to use with SSL
• Authentication: Password or Kerberos 5/GSSAPI
• IMAP path prefix/Root folder: Try leaving this blank; if you do not see your mailbox properly, try entering group in lower case.

Additionally, it is generally best with a group IMAP account to save items such as sent mail on the server so that it is accessible to all the group users, rather than save it locally on your machine where only you can see it. In other words, if it is group email and you want to ensure that everyone in the group has access to it, save the mail on the server rather than on your own computer. Some email programs let you choose this as a setting.

Once you have specified these settings, close the settings dialog box and try to fetch the group account email.
Note: In some email programs, you will see the email folders of the group account right away. In others, you may need to select the account, request that the list of folders/subfolders be updated (e.g., an Update List button in Entourage), and then subscribe to the appropriate ones. Different email clients behave differently - it may take some trial and error, or help from IT Services (through HelpSU) to get it working. Once the settings are all correct and appropriate, however, group email accounts generally work very well.