Getting Started
with University Gmail
USER GUIDE
V1.0
© User Services
IT Services
University of Malta
© 2013 User Services
IT Services
University of Malta
Msida MSD 2080
Malta
May only be reproduced with permission
Email: support.itservices@um.edu.mt
Web: www.um.edu.mt/itservices
Tel: +356 2340 4112
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. Accessing the University Gmail Mailbox ________________________________ 1
B. Explore the Gmail Mailbox___________________________________________ 2
C. Importing the Address Book to Gmail __________________________________ 3
i. Exporting the Address Book from Mozilla Thunderbird _____________________ 3
ii. Exporting the Address Book from MS Outlook ___________________________ 4
iii. Exporting the Address Book from Old UoM Webmail ______________________ 8
iv. Importing the Address Book to Gmail _________________________________ 9
D. Setting up your Email Signature in Gmail ______________________________ 11
E. Gmail Basics ____________________________________________________ 12
F. Email Conversation View ___________________________________________ 14
G. Setting the Email Auto-Reply _______________________________________ 15
H. Setting Message Filters ____________________________________________ 17
I. Creating Labels (Email Folders) _____________________________________ 19
J. Searching Email _________________________________________________ 21
This user guide is intended for staff and students who have been migrated to Google Apps
for Education.
A. Accessing the University Gmail Mailbox
After you receive the notification that you have been migrated to Google Apps for
Education, you can access your mail as follows:
1. Open Google Chrome browser.
2. Visit any University of Malta web page
3. Click Quicklinks (top-right)
4. Click Webmail
5. If you are signed in, you will gain access to your email.
Note that:

Although you can access your University Gmail mailbox from any browser, it is
recommended that you access your mail using the Google Chrome browser. You can
download the Chrome browser from this link:
www.google.com/chrome
B. Explore the Gmail Mailbox
The Mail arrow enables you to
access your Contacts/Address
book.
Enter keywords into the search
bar to locate specific emails, or to
create conditions for email filters
The Compose button
is used to create new
email
Google Apps Quota
This section lists your folders
(which are now known as Labels)
The arrow next to your email address
enables you to sign out
The Apps button is used to switch
between applications (Google
Calendar, Google Drive etc.)
This section displays your emails
The Settings button enables you to
configure your email settings (auto-reply,
email forwarding etc.)
C. Importing the Address Book to Gmail
You can import your Address book contacts from your email program (Mozilla Thunderbird,
Microsoft Outlook etc.) or the old UoM Webmail to Gmail. This involves two steps:
1. Saving the contacts in your email client or webmail to a csv file. This step is known
as exporting your contacts.
2. Importing the csv file in Gmail.
i.
Exporting the Address Book from Mozilla Thunderbird
If you used Mozilla Thunderbird to read your email:
1. Open Mozilla Thunderbird.
2. Click the Address Book button.
3. Select the Address Book you want to export e.g. Personal Address Book.
4. Click Tools menu.
5. Click Export… The Export Address Book dialog box is displayed.
6. Click the location where you will save your contacts file. It is recommended that you
click Desktop to save the file on the desktop.
7. In the File name: filed type something along these lines: username-addresses e.g.
jbor7-addresses.
8. In the Save as type: field, choose Comma Separated (*.csv).
9. Click Save button. Your contacts file saved on your desktop. Close Thunderbird.
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10.Refer to Section iv to import the contacts to Gmail.
ii. Exporting the Address Book from MS Outlook
If you used MS Outlook as your email client:
1. Open MS Outlook.
2. Click the File tab.
3. Click Open
4. Click Import/Export. The Import and Export Wizard dialog box is displayed.
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5. Select Export to a file and click Next button. The Export to a file dialog box is
displayed.
6. Click Comma Separated Values and Next button.
7. Click Contacts and Next button.
8. Click Browse… button.
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9. It is recommended that you save this on the desktop. In the File name: field type
something along these lines: username-addresses e.g. jbor7-addresses.
10.Click OK button. You will return to the Export to a File dialog box.
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11.Click Next button.
12.Click Finish button. Your contacts file saved on your desktop. Close MS Outlook.
13.Refer to Section iv to import the contacts to Gmail.
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iii. Exporting the Address Book from Old UoM Webmail
If you used the old UoM Webmail to access your emails:
1. Visit www.um.edu.mt/mailarchive
2. Click Addresses (top left). The Addresses screen will be displayed.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen. In the Address book export section, click
Export to CSV file.
4. If you are using Google Chrome, a file will be automatically downloaded. The
filename will consist of your username-addresses.csv e.g. jbor7-addresses.csv. The
filename will be displayed in the download bar (bottom of the Chrome screen).
jbor7-addresses.csv
5. Click the filename. This will open in MS Excel.
6. In MS Excel, click File tab.
7. Click Save As. The Save As dialog box is displayed.
8. Browse to the location where you want to save your contacts file. It is recommended
that you save this on the desktop.
9. Click Save button.
10.Close MS Excel.
11.Refer to Section iv to import the contacts to Gmail.
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iv. Importing the Address Book to Gmail
You can import the contacts that you saved previously into Gmail as follows:
1. Visit www.um.edu.mt/webmail
2. Click the Apps button.
3. Click Contacts.
The Contacts screen will be displayed.
4. In the Contacts screen, click Import Contacts…
5. Click Choose File button. The Open dialog box is displayed.
6. Browse to the location where you saved the contacts file. If you have followed the
instructions in the previous sections, the contacts file is on the Desktop.
7. Click the contacts file e.g. jbor7-addresses.csv.
8. Click Open button. You will be returned to the GMail Contacts page.
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9. Click Import button. The Contacts page will display the number of contacts
imported.
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D. Setting up your Email Signature in Gmail
An email signature is a short block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender
and providing additional information, such as postal address, phone number, information
about the sender's post at his institution etc. You can set up your signature in Gmail as
follows:
1. Visit www.um.edu.mt/webmail
2. Click the gear icon (top right corner).
3. Select Settings.
4. Scroll down to the Signature section.
5. Click in the text box.
6. Type your signature. It is also advisable to tick the Insert
this signature before quoted text…
7. Click Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
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E. Gmail Basics
To compose a new email:
1. Click the Compose button.
2. Type your recipient's email address in the “To” field.
3. Enter a subject for your message in the “Subject” field.
4. Click in the large field below the subject line and type the message.
5. To format the body text (typestyles, bullets, numbering, indenting etc):
a. Click the Formatting Options button. The formatting toolbar will be
displayed.
b. Highlight the text to format.
c. Apply the appropriate formatting button.
6. To attach a file/s to the message:
a. Click Attach files button.
The Open file dialog box will be displayed.
b. Browse through your files
c. Click the name of the file to attach.
d. Click the Open button.
7. Click the Send button at the bottom of your compose window.
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To reply or forward a message:
1. To reply to a message, click Reply or Reply to all or Forward in the box below the
message.
2. Type the message.
3. Click the Send button.
Note that:

If you click Forward you will be prompted to enter the address of the recipient as
well.

You can also reply or forward a message by clicking the arrow icon in the top right
corner of the message and choose the appropriate option.
Other information about Gmail in the following documents:
1. Gmail: Sending, replying, attachments, and printing
2. Gmail: Signatures, labels, and filters
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F. Email Conversation View
By default, Gmail groups an email and all of its replies into a single thread or conversation.
In other email systems, responses typically appear as separate messages in your inbox,
forcing you to go through all your mail to follow the conversation. In Gmail, replies to
emails (and replies to those replies) are displayed in one place, in order, making it easier to
understand the context of a message - or to follow the conversation. This helps reduce the
amount of clutter in your mailbox, and makes it very easy to keep track of a long
conversation.
We recommend that you try out the conversation view but if you prefer to have individual
messages in your inbox:
1. Click Settings button (gear icon at the top right).
2. Click Settings.
3. In the General tab, scroll down and locate Conversation
View. Tick the option Conversation view off.
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save
Changes button.
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G. Setting the Email Auto-Reply
The Auto-Reply facility enables you to send custom, automatic messages to your senders
when you are unable to read your email. Typically the auto-reply message should notify the
sender/s when you will be unable to read emails, and indicate the date when you will be
able to send a reply email if needed.
The auto-reply is referred to as the Out of Office AutoReply in Gmail. To
set the vacation responder in Gmail:
1. Click Settings button (gear icon at the top right).
2. Click Settings.
3. In the General tab, scroll down and locate Vacation responder:
Tick the option Out of Office AutoReply on.
4. Set the date when Gmail will start sending the auto-reply
message.
5. Set the date when Gmail will stop sending the auto-reply
message.
6. You may type a subject for the auto-reply (optional).
7. Type the message text.
8. Tick the checkboxes Only send a response to people in my Contacts and Only
send a response to people in University of Malta. If you check both of these
boxes, only people who are in your contacts and at the University of Malta staff &
students will receive the automatic response.
9. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes button.
Note that:

Gmail starts sending your auto-reply message 00:00hrs on the start date and stops
sending this at 23:59hrs on the end date, unless you end it earlier.

In general, your reply is only sent once to people who email you. However, if the
same person contacts you again after four days and your auto-reply is still on, Gmail
will send your auto-reply message again to remind the person that you're away from
your email.
Your auto-reply will start over each time you edit it, so if someone receives your
initial auto-reply, and then emails you again after you have edited the subject or
body of the message, he or she will receive the edited response.
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
Messages classified as spam and messages addressed to a mailing list you subscribe
to will not receive your auto-reply message.
To turn off or edit your auto-reply:
When you have your auto-reply on, you will see a banner across the top of your Gmail. Click
the End now link in the banner to turn off your auto-reply, or click Out of Office Settings
to edit your response.
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H. Setting Message Filters
If you had folders set up on your email client (Thunderbird, MS Outlook etc) you will find
these in Gmail following the migration of your email to Google Apps for Education. Folders
are referred to as labels in Gmail.
If you made use of filters in your email client, you will need to set these again in Gmail. A
filter will automatically move incoming email to the appropriate folder according to criteria
that you set.
To set up a message filter so that incoming email is automatically moved to one of your
folders/labels:
1. Click Settings button (gear icon at the top right).
2. Click Settings.
3. Click the Filters tab.
4. Click Create a new filter. The filter dialog box is displayed.
5. Enter your filter criteria in the fields e.g. sender’s email address.
6. Click Create filter with this search.
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7. Choose the label/folder where the incoming messages will be moved.
8. Click Create filter button. You will be returned to the Filters tab. All incoming email
will now be automatically filtered according to the criteria set in step 5.
9. To exit the Settings page and return to the Gmail homepage, click Mail button.
To edit a filter:
1. Repeat steps 1-3 as for setting up a filter (as above).
2. Click edit next to the right of the filter to edit.
3. Repeat steps 5-9 as above.
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I. Creating Labels (Email Folders)
As indicated in the previous section folders are referred to as labels in Gmail. Labels operate
like the folders in your old email program with that added advantage that a message can be
in more than one folder at the same time.
You can create a label as follows:
1. Click Settings button (gear icon at the top right).
2. Click Settings.
3. Click the Labels tab. You will see the standard Gmail labels or
email folders and other folders you may have had in your old
email program.
4. Scroll down to the section Labels as shown below. Click Create
new label button.
5. Type the name of the label or email folder.
6. Click Create button. The name of the label will be displayed in the Labels section.
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7. To exit the Settings page and return to the Gmail homepage, click Mail button.
Note that:

You can set message filters such as that incoming mail (following specific criteria)
will be automatically copied to the folder/label. Follow the instructions in H. Setting
Message Filters.
More information on labels and filters here:
Gmail: Signatures, Labels & Filters
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J. Searching Email
You can search for specific email using the search bar above the mailbox. Normally, all that
is required is a few keywords to find the desired email.
You can also use the advanced search tools available by clicking the drop-down arrow in the
search bar.
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© 2013 User Services
IT Services
University of Malta
Msida MSD 2080
MALTA
May only be reproduced with permission
Email: support.itservices@um.edu.mt
Web: www.um.edu.mt/itservices
Tel: +356 2340 4112
© IT Services, University of Malta --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22