Hermes Email: Forwarding (redirection) and vacation messages

If you are unable to look at your incoming electronic mail, it will continue to build up on Hermes. When your backlog of mail gets beyond a certain size new messages will not be able to be delivered (and will ultimately be returned to the sender as undeliverable). The result may be that your build up of email will be lost.

This leaflet should help you to take suitable actions that will prevent this for Hermes mail. The actions that you should take will depend on your circumstances but will probably be covered by one of the following:

Moving to a new email address temporarily:

• forward your email from your Hermes account to your new account
• unsubscribe from mailing lists before you go. Resubscribe from the new address if necessary

Away and not using email:

• set up a vacation message
• unsubscribe from or suspend mailing lists

Forwarding and vacation messages are handled via the Webmail system, as described below.

Connecting to Webmail to manage your account

Launch a Web browser (e.g. Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, Internet Explorer) on any convenient system, and go to the URL https://webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk Type in your user identifier and Hermes password and select Login. When the main Welcome page appears, select the Manage icon at the top of the page. This takes you to the Account Management page. At any stage you can select the Help icon (top right) for more information about the page you are looking at.

Forwarding your email

To set up forwarding (redirection) of your email, you will need to know details of your new or temporary account, so you may not be able to set it up until you are away from Cambridge.

Connect to Webmail and select Manage as above, then select Redirect. Fill in the destination address and decide whether you want copies kept on Hermes (not recommended except for short periods). Then select the box by Enable Redirection (if it is not ticked) and then select Apply. You should see a message on the Status line confirming that the redirection has been updated. Logout from Webmail using the button at the top right.

Once the redirection is set up, it will be in effect until you cancel the redirection or the account is closed (at which point incoming mail is rejected).

Cancelling your forwarding

Go to the Redirection page as above, and select the box by Enable Redirection to remove the tick. Select Apply. You should see a message on the Status line confirming that the redirection has been updated. Logout from Webmail using the button at the top right.

Setting up a vacation message

Vacation messages are only sent out in response to messages personally addressed to you, that is where your name appears in the "To" or "Cc""; field of a message. Typically a vacation message is used to alert a sender that you are away (not necessarily on vacation) and will be replying after you return.

Connect to Webmail and select Manage as above, then select Vacation. Type the message you wish to send into the main box and select the box by Enable Vacation Message. The Aliases box can be used to define a comma separated list of additional email addresses which will trigger vacation messages in this way. This is normally used in conjunction with "friendly" email address associated with an institution. You will also see a box in which you should enter the number of days that should elapse before another copy of the message is sent to anyone.

When you have set up your message select Apply. You should see a message on the Status line confirming that the vacation message has been updated. Logout from Webmail using the button at the top right.

When you return, your mail is still in your Inbox awaiting you.

Cancelling your vacation message

Go to the same page as above, and select Enable Vacation Message to remove the tick. When you go away again you can edit the existing message and re-enable it.

Unsubscribing from mail lists

This is not part of the Hermes management system.

If you are a member of an active mailing list, you could receive large quantities of electronic mail over a short period. If you are away and have not redirected your email these messages will build up and could cause problems as described earlier.

In these circumstances you should unsubscribe from, or suspend, the mailing list before you go. To this end, when you subscribe to a mailing list, make sure that you keep the information provided about how to subscribe and unsubscribe, as the way to do it varies between lists. It usually involves sending a message to a specified address.

If the list is a Cambridge one, see Information for list members

If the list is one run through JISCmail (the address will be listname@JISCmail.ac.uk), you can suspend all lists by sending a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk, with the text set * nomail . When you wish to restart the lists, send a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk, with the text set * mail. If you wish to unsubscribe from a list, send a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk with the text leave listname; if you wish to unsubscribe from all lists, the message text should be leave *.

Last updated: October 2006 Last reviewed October 2011