Managing Freelock-hosted Mail

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

This page contains some tips and tricks about using an email account hosted by Freelock.

Forward messages to another address


We provide two ways of doing this: email forwarders, and mailbox rules.

Email forwarders

An email forwarder is usually not associated with a mail box. It's simply a rule we can add to the server that redirects mail sent to an email address at a domain we host, to any other email address.

The main advantage of this approach is that it's easy for us to set up, and it doesn't involve using a mailbox. Which means we don't charge for this service--if we're hosting email or web sites for you, we provide forwarders for free.

However, there are some substantial drawbacks to this service, and we may stop providing it soon. The main reason is that ALL mail sent to that address gets forwarded. Mail does get filtered by our virus filter (which filters everything) but not the spam filter. That means we end up forwarding a lot of spam to other locations.

The problem with this is that some ISPs and companies (specifically AOL and Boeing so far) blame us for the spam messages we forward, and then eventually stop accepting any email from us at all. Given that we host mail for over a hundred people right now, this turns out to be a problem because it affects all of our customers--if we allowed people to forward to these domains, none of our clients would be able to send to people there for long. For that reason, we don't allow forwarders to specific domains.

Set up a forwarding rule

  1. Log into Squirrelmail, and click Options.
  2. Click on the Mail Filters heading.
  3. Select either "To" or "To or CC" in the first dropdown, "Contains" in the second, and your email address in the next box. Select "Copy", check the Email box (uncheck Folder), and enter the email address to send messages to. Click the disk icon to save your rule, and you're done!

We recommend only forwarding messages sent directly to you to mobile devices, to keep your inbox free of lower priority messages. If you're forwarding to another account, you may choose to "Move" the message rather than copy it, and get messages sent to you in both "To" and "CC".

Mailbox rules

Mailbox rules are much more powerful and flexible than email forwarders, and you can set them up yourself. Squirrelmail, in addition to being a way you can access your email from any computer on the Internet, manages various aspects of your mailbox, including:
  • Mail forwarding or filtering rules
  • Vacation messages
  • Changing your password

Out of Office or Vacation Messages

When going on vacation you may wish to automatically send a notice to those emailing you. To setup this out of office message, use Squirrel mail:
  1. Go to https://foraker.freelock.com/mail
  2. Login (username is your full email address)
  3. Click on the Options link at the top of the main frame
  4. Click on "Vacation / Autoresponder" on the middle right side
  5. Fill out the form & Click "submit"

That's it! Enjoy your vacation far away from email.