Quickstart Tutorial for GutmannSoft InboxSpecialist

Important Terms:

Email Client: The program you use to send and receive email messages on your PC. Common examples are Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger or Eudora.

Pop3 Server: Its a computer somewhere in the internet that is always online and that will store all email that you receive.

InboxSpecialist: The computer program we're talking about here and that runs on your PC.

Understanding the relation between InboxSpecialist and other programs

1. InboxSpecialist connects to your pop3 server and retrieves information about the email waiting. InboxSpecialist is able to communicate with the server and can tell him to delete a specific email. Note that your email client is not involved in these actions. Theoretically you even don't need an email client to perform the operations above.

2. InboxSpecialist is not needed to retrieve your email with your email client.

3. InboxSpecialist needs an email client for its following functions:

-To display a message preview (function "preview")
-To use the "reply" function

In 99% the "reply" function will work with any email client. In case the "preview" function does not work you can try to set up another "Default save/Open extension". The setting for Outlook Express is eml and for Eudora sta. Note that you can also work with InboxSpecialist without using these functions.

Starting the program for the first time:

Restart your system and InboxSpecialist will start up automatically with Windows. The program sits now in your tray displaying a little icon. Right click on that icon and a popup menu will appear.

Using Inbox Preview

Select "Show Inbox Preview".

Now you need to tell InboxSpecialist what email accounts you want to use. Click the button "Accounts" to do that.Click here to learn how to set up an account.

After you have entered all account information you can click on "Check" or press F5
check.gif (2755 bytes)

InboxSpecialist tries now to communicate with your pop3 server. You can read a documentation of what is going on in the lower part of that window. A list of all things that happened is available when you click the little black arrow. While InboxSpecialist is communicating with the server a red ball lights up in the lower right corner what means that the program is busy. You can not give InboxSpecialist new instructions except pressing the button "Abort". When you press that button the current command will be completed but the next one will not begun.

When InboxSpecialist succeeds retrieving the information about your email account then the window will look similar like that one.

You have now the possibility to use the functions "Preview", "Delete", "Details" and "Reply":

The "preview" function: Downloads the first x bytes of the selected message, saves these bytes to a file and tries to execute an external program that can display that file. The amount of bytes that are downloaded can be changed under "settings/email preview". The preview function may fail if you don't have your email program associated with the file extension eml.

The "delete" function: Deletes the marked email(s) from the server.

The "details" function: Displays a window with the header of the email. This feature is only useful for people who are familiar with the source of email. Note that the values in the upper part of the window may be partly incorrect since InboxSpecialist knows only the header of the email.

The "reply" function: Starts your standard email program and fills in the sender of the marked email as the recipient as well as the subject line adding a "re:"

Setting up the Inbox Notifier

Select "Show Inbox Notifier".

Right click on the blue pager-like thing that sits now on your screen and select "settings"

Make sure that the values look similar to that ones on the picture. In this example InboxSpecialist will check for new email all 5 minutes. When new mail arrives a sound is played by your computer and the tray icon will blink. To stop that warning you have to click on the tray icon. Note that InboxSpecialist will only warn you when it finds a difference in the amount of messages waiting on your pop3 server.

If you don't like how Inbox Notifier looks like you can download another appearance called "skin". You can also draw them at you own. For new skins go to the skins section..