About

Department affiliates have two completely independent and parallel email systems to choose from:
FAS: maintained by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)
-or-
Physics: maintained by our administrators within the Physics Department.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each system; probably the biggest disadvantage to the FAS email system is their strict storage quota. Full Physics accounts have much more generous quotas. While it is true that some affiliates choose to use both, most users choose one and forward the other to it so that they need only check one inbox for new e-mail.

Physics Webmail
The physics webmail server is available at: https://mail.physics.harvard.edu/. The old mail server users can access their e-mail using our old webmail server.

Please read this page carefully as we now have two mail servers and are in the process of moving people to the new server. Unless your account is new as of around Sept. 2008 or we have talked with you directly about moving your mail, you have not been moved to the new server yet. We will notify you when we're ready to move you.

The common settings for email programs are:

Note: If you are an incoming G1, have had your mail moved by us or your account was created after Sept. 10th, you areon the 'new' mail server.

New Mail Server (accounts after Sept/ 08 or those we have moved)
The incoming server is an IMAP server.
SSL is required, and uses an alternate port (993).
The server name is "mail.physics.harvard.edu"
The IMAP server prefix is not required.

The outgoing (SMTP) server name "mail.physics.harvard.edu"
The outgoing (SMTP) server requires authentication (username & password).
The outgoing (SMTP) server port:
  recommended port (587) using TLS (Encrypted Secure Connection),
  or non-standard SSL port (465) using SSL,
  or old smtp port (25) using TLS.

Original Mail Server (for older accounts who have note yet moved)
The incoming server is an IMAP server.
SSL is required, and uses an alternate port (993).
The incoming server name is "physics.harvard.edu"
The IMAP server prefix is "mail". (If you don't see your folders check this)

The outgoing (SMTP) server name "physics.harvard.edu"
The outgoing (SMTP) server requires authentication (username & password).
The outgoing (SMTP) server port:
  recommended port (587) using TLS (Encrypted Secure Connection),
  or non-standard SSL port (465) using SSL,
  or old smtp port (25) using TLS.

Forwarding
Either system, Physics or FAS, can be configured to forward mail to the other, or both can be used simultaneously.
You can configure email forwarding from FAS to Physics at their account utilities page
-or-
You can configure email forwarding from Physics to FAS here.

These are exclusive options; whatever you do don't set up a loop by forwarding each to the other!

Getting your Physics e-mail

TIP: You can always check your Physics e-mail no matter where you are via our webmail system.
New webmail system (if you are on the new server)
(If you log in to this system and there is no mail, then you need to log into the old system below.)
Old webmail system
(If you log in to this system and there is a single message stating you have been moved, then you need to log into the new system above.)

Physics department email can be retrieved using IMAP over SSL (POP3 is no longer supported) and our SMTP (outgoing) server will relay mail from anywhere to anywhere provided that you supply a valid username and password combination when connecting. The system works well with most modern email programs we have tried. However, Eudora and Outlook produce less than desireable results in some cases and we do not recommend or support their use.

We recommend Mozilla Thunderbird as it is available on almost any platform, is stable, standards compliant and full-featured.

If you are having trouble sending e-mail because your ISP blocks port 25 (such as Comcast, AT&T, CERN, and others) please change your outgoing port to 587 (be sure you've selected the TLS option).

Instructions for setting up Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird - Includes Junk/Spam Filtering
(Mozilla Tunderbird is our recommended, supported e-mail client)
Macintosh OS X Mail (limited support)

Older Instructions (does not include instructions for new mail server)
PC-Pine (unsupported)
Outlook Express (unsupported)
We do not support or recommend Outlook and provide this info only as a courtesy.
Please be aware that, due to how Outlook stores e-mail, you may lose mail and settings if your system fails while using Outlook.
Have Symantec/Norton? Can't send e-mail? (Norton Internet Security issue)

Q: I can't send e-mail when I'm at home/CERN/other.
If you are having trouble sending e-mail because your ISP blocks port 25 (such as Comcast, AT&T, CERN, and others) please change your outgoing port to 587 (using TLS).

Tools

LDAP directory settings - Settings for adding an LDAP address book.
Check your mail quota: - Shows mail quota usage when logged in.
MacOS X Mail/Mail.app says it is locked - fix
Set up an Auto-Reply - Vacation message/auto-reply