Windows Mail is an application that lets you manage an email account you already have. With Windows Mail, you can store all of your messages directly on your computer, so you don’t need Internet access to read or write them. (You do need Internet access to download the emails.) Windows Mail also helps you organize all of your emails so you can keep better track of your communications. To get started, open Windows Mail by clicking the Start button. Click All Programs and choose Windows Mail from the list.

Manage Your Email Account

When you first start Windows Mail, you’ll need to configure it to access your email account from your email service provider’s servers. We’ll show you how.

Add a POP3 account

To download your messages, you must first configure Windows Mail to connect to your email provider’s POP3 server. Go to Tools and choose Accounts. An Internet Accounts window will appear. Click the Add button and then select E-mail Account. Click the Next button. Enter your name as you would like it to appear to your recipients when they receive a message from you. On the next screen, enter your email address. This should be an email address that you received from your email provider.

On the subsequent screen, ensure that POP3 is selected as the Incoming Email Server Type. Next, type the name of your email provider’s mail server in the Incoming Mail Server field. Your entry should look similar to pop.example.com. Your entry in the Outgoing Email Server box should follow this pattern: smtp.example.com. If you are unsure about the correct server information, contact your email provider or ISP for more information. Click Next.

Type the username and password for your email account. This is the account you set up with your email provider. Click Next and then finish the account creation wizard. Once you complete the wizard, Windows Mail will attempt to download your email messages from your email provider’s POP3 account. If successful, your emails will appear in your inbox.

Add a Web mail account

Import emails

Organize your emails. It doesn’t take long before your Inbox has hundreds of messages and becomes difficult to navigate. Windows Mail has a Search tool found in the top right of the window that’s useful for locating specific emails. With a little organization, you can keep your Inbox free of clutter and find the information you need with ease.

The easiest way to organize your emails is to create multiple Inbox sub-folders in which to store them. Creating folders in your email program is similar to setting up a filing cabinet for your monthly bills. You can create a folder for personal messages, business emails, or emails from the electric company.

To create a new folder, click File, New, Folder. When the Create Folder window appears, select the Inbox and then type in the name of your folder, for example, “Business” or “From Kids.” The folder will appear just below your Inbox in the Folder List on the left side of the Mail window. Each time you receive an email from someone at work, you can file it in the Business folder, or when you receive an update from one of the kids, place it in the From Kids folder.

Learn The Basics

Whether you’re new to Windows Mail, or new to email completely, Windows Mail has several functions that are worth some explanation. Here are the basics.

When you open Windows Mail, you’ll see a window that includes three panes. On the left is a list of all of your mail folders, including your Inbox, Sent, Deleted, and Drafts folders. In the upper half of the screen is a list of all the emails stored in one of those folders. For example, when you select the Deleted folder, a list of deleted messages appears in the upper half of the screen. The lower half of the screen previews any email message you click in the upper half of the screen, letting you view and read your messages without actually opening them.

Compose an email. Sending email with Windows Mail is easy. Simply click the Create Mail button at the top of the main window. A new message, with several blank fields, appears. The To field is where you type your recipient’s email address, such as username@gmail.com. You can send one email to multiple people by typing in their email addresses and separating them with commas. Or, you can click the To button to open your address book and select recipients from your list of contacts. The Subject field is where you enter a brief description of your message. The largest field, or text box, is where you type your message. It can be as long or as short as you’d like, and you can use the formatting tools at the top of the text box to change the text color, size, and font.

When you receive an email that you’d like to share with someone else, you can use the Forward button at the top of the main window. To forward the message, select it from your Inbox and then click Forward. You can also forward a message while it’s open by clicking the Forward button at the top of the message window. When you forward a message, a new window will appear that looks much like the New Message window you use when you create a new email, but it has all of the contents of the message you are forwarding. Use the To field to enter the email address (or addresses) you’d like to forward the message to and then click Send.

Replying to an email message is much the same as forwarding a message, except it will automatically address the message to the person who sent it. For example, if you receive a message from your cousin asking whether or not you’re able to make it to the family reunion, you can click the Reply button to respond directly to your cousin. If your cousin sent the email to several family members and you’d like to send your response to all of them, click Reply All.

Attach or save a file

Create a contact.

For each contact, you can use the tabs at the top of the window to enter a name and email address, business title, phone number, birth date, and even add a picture. For more information about using additional features in Windows Contacts, check out “Get Organized With Windows Calendar & Contacts” in the October 2009 issue of Smart Computing (page 32).

Archive Your Emails

Periodically backing up your email messages can be just as important as archiving your family photos or financial documents. Windows Mail makes it easy to create a file for all of your messages that you can save in an alternate location (such as an external hard drive or a CD) and import into your account in case of hard drive failure.

Export emails to a file. To create a backup file,

Importing your messages after a computer crash or to another computer is much like importing emails from another email program, as explained above. Instead of selecting a different email program from which to import emails, click Microsoft Windows Mail 7, choose Next, and then select the backup file from its stored location. Once you finish the wizard, your backed-up emails appear in Windows Mail.

Communicate With Ease

By using Windows Mail, you can easily stay in touch with family, friends, and co-workers. If you need additional help with Windows Mail, click the Help menu at the top of the page. You can also find more information on Microsoft’s online user forum dedicated to Windows Mail by clicking the Help menu and choosing Questions & Answers From Communities