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Technology @ Peabody
All about Email (VUmail)
Email software
Vanderbilt recommends that students use VUwebmail, a web browser-based service. Another option for undergraduate students is Vanderbilt's Gmail service.
In both cases, your email is stored on a central Vanderbilt server, allowing you to access it from anywhere on the Internet. Every Vanderbilt student gets 20 megabytes of email storage space, and can check your current usage at the Check VUmail Quota Usage page. If you need more space, you can buy more inexpensively at the Quota Increase Request page.
Your Assigned Email Address
Your email address is assigned at the time you get your VUnet ID, and will typically follow the format:
"first name" dot "middle initial" dot "last name" @vanderbilt.edu.
Modify Options
You can also select two other variations of your name/email (called "Business Card Addresses" or BCA). It is a good idea to set one of the names to be:
"first name" dot "last name" @vanderbilt.edu
and/or
"nickname" dot "last name" @vanderbilt.edu
This way your friends and professors can easily remember your email address. You can go to the VUnet Modify Options page to select a new BCA or change your Vanderbilt Directory Listing
Forwarding your email or using other email services
Many students prefer to continue to use services like AOL or Hotmail instead of their Vanderbilt email account. While the VUnet Modify Options page allows you to forward your mail, this is generally NOT a good idea. Due to the increased volume of junk mail messages on these commercial services, most of them "filter" messages to your account. Because messages sent to students sometimes come from Vanderbilt servers in large numbers, these filters may flag them as SPAM and delete them with no warning - over the last year this has been happening more and more. As a result, you may not get important information from the university - or your professors!
In addition, mail coming through the Vanderbilt system is scanned for viruses automatically - a service not always offered by others.
Going out of town?
If you are going on vacation or will be away from your email for any reason, you can use the Vacation / Auto-responder to automatically respond to any emails received during your "away time" with any message you choose.