Hmail: Coming to a browser near you
Thanks again to all our users for your comments and suggestions! We read them all, and I’m happy to say that a great many of you ask for things already in the pipeline. For example, several of you have asked for changes to our email system. Well guess what? Change is here! We invited Sam to tell you about Hmail, the new email system we’re rolling out. As a Product Designer and an obsessive emailer, he’s uniquely qualified to give you a peek at what’s coming up. - Rochelle
Yes, I’m an email junkie. These days, I guess we all are. There are all sorts of ways we can read and manage our email, and a lot of us handle our personal and professional email accounts differently. I know many people like the functionality and control that desktop email applications like Microsoft Outlook provide. Others prefer the simplicity and convenience of web-based email tools such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail
Well, Hmail gives you the best of both worlds!
Hmail is Homestead’s innovative new email tool. It runs in any web browser, like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail do, so you can read your email nearly anywhere. At the same time it gives you the added functionality of a desktop email application, like the ability to drag and drop your email into folders, and an interactive calendar.
You can even use Hmail to read email from your own personalized email account. If you have a domain hosted at Homestead, say for example ‘www.yourbusinessname.com’, you can set up your own custom email addresses like ‘theboss@yourbusinessname.com’, and use Hmail to check and manage them.
There’s a lot more too; check out our Hmail page here for more information. Hmail does a lot more than our old email system did, and there’s still more functionality we expect to add. I’ll tell you about new features and improvements as we make them.
Some of you have already begun using Hmail, and we’re in the process of upgrading everyone else as soon as we can. If your account is hosted here, look for an email from us notifying you of your migration date!
Thanks, we hope you like the new Hmail!
July 3, 2007 at 7:08 am
Hi,
I’m experiencing problems with my e-mail. I cant access my accounts I made. Whats wrong? When will I be able to see the new Hmail??
Please let me now.
Dewald
July 6, 2007 at 10:17 am
It’s great to see the improvement. I’ve been with you guys for a while.
I, like some other Homestead subscribers would love to see you add PHP capabilities. This is a limitation for me and I have had to go to another hosting company who can fill the bill. I still have my hoestead account but would not like to have more than two at least to provide my needs. Please consider adding PHP capability.
July 6, 2007 at 10:55 am
How long is it going to take before we get Hmail? I have seen this advertised on your website since I have been a customer. I have called and emailed several times on how to access it. Your employees are not informed on what it is.
Thanks,
Chris
July 9, 2007 at 4:11 pm
My homestead email account became whiped out last night and is no longer working. Would appreciate any information regarding our old service being affected by this move.
July 11, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Hmail isn’t accessible from my new SmartPhone; the previous e-mail system worked fine for me….I’m bummed but still a avid fan of Homestead.
The other big issue that I have is that the e-mail list capacity is WAY too small…only holds 50-70 e-mail addresses per list. Sure you can create sublists in a parent-child format but this prevents use of the “join e-mail list icon” and more importantly the “opt out icon”. This creates a great deal of unnecessary work.
July 11, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Sure would be nice to know if you are going to be fixing the SSL errors that are coming up for all my clients utilizing “third party” software for their homestead e-mail accounts.
I called about it to be told I cant talk to anyone about this problem that is now happening since the upgrade unless I pay for the privilege. Whatever.
The person I spoke with was stuck on repeating that outlook is a third party e-mail tool…you don’t say.
Hope you guys get this corrected soon or relay any setting changes because those of running “third party” software may not wish to convert to your interface.
And by the way…I don’t think I will be paying you to talk to you about issues that crop up around your upgrades especially when they did not exist before.
July 23, 2007 at 5:11 am
I truly despise the email. I think it is the worst feature in regards to the homestead tools.
Suggestions…..name searches by list scrolling………….better filters and blocked sender’s lists. I am inundated with phishing schemes that I would have easiliy been able to stop if they weren’t for some other reason blocked by my home provider……..Let’s get with it! Who has time for this????????
Lastly not related to email. The exceptionally polite helpful employees I started out with, I find less and less so. Customer service need to be maintained!
July 30, 2007 at 11:53 am
Will we be able to change our email fonts in the new Hmail system as you can in yahoo mail?
July 30, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Yes it would be nice if the email would filter all the junk out. I am inundated with it.
It’s also a shame that the Pay pal features that come with Homestead Site Builder don’t always work. I found that out the hard way. Customer service..Hmnn It appears they are not well trained. They do not ever seem to have answers.
On a good note. I have used many other programs and Homestead is the best I have found so far.
July 30, 2007 at 7:39 pm
How long before we are upgraded to Hmail? I called a couple of weeks ago, but the customer service reps said they don’t have that information. Can you post an update as to when you expect to have all customers upgraded?
August 14, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I’ve been using Hmail and find it very slow. I do bulk emails and was initially told there was a max 50 emails for each bulk list. Is that still the case, or can I now combine my three bulk email lists to one?
August 15, 2007 at 5:13 am
My email account became inaccessible yesterday. None of my five email accounts can be accessed. error code is http status 404 Ironically the uprgade for HMAIL was to happen yesterday also. Please advise. This is a buisness and our email has been down 2 days.
August 15, 2007 at 10:02 am
Thanks for your comment Maureen! We’ve forwarded your question to the support team, and they’ll respond to you directly.
August 15, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I HATE the fact that there is no way to delete all the messages at one time and empty the box, as there is in my Comcast mail. I love the look of the new Hmail, but I use it when I travel and I don’t have time to delete hundreds of messages on the server when I may only want to read a few of them. I have to do this individually. Why don’t you have this capability? If I remember correctly, the old Homestead mail server did.
PLEASE do something about this!
August 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Hi Rayna,
To select multiple messages in Hmail, click on the first message you want to select, then hold down the “Shift” key as you click on the last message you want to select. All the messages between the first and last message should then get selected, and you can delete them all.
To get really tricky, you can use the “Ctrl” key to select multiple messages that are not in order.
August 16, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Hi Sam,
Thanks for your response. Hooray! It worked. Unless I missed these instructions in your “HELP” section, it would be helpful if you added them. I can’t be the only one who wants to delete a zillion e-mails at once. Appreciate your quick feedback.
August 17, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hi Maureen!
Yes, at this time our bulk mailing lists are still limited to about 50 email addresses each. There is a trick that you can use to create a bulk list that uses the other bulk lists as recipients though… if you create another mailing list, then add the email addresses of your current mailing lists as recipients (”newsletter@…”, “newsletters@…”, it acts as a “master” mailing list.
This way, when you send a message to your master mailing list, it would be sent to all of the addresses on that list. Since those recipients are mailing lists themselves, the message would then go to each recipient on each of those mailing lists.
I’m also going to create a help ticket for you in our Help Center explaining this in further detail. Don’t hesitate to send these tickets to us! We’re here to help.
August 17, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hi WINNTER,
I’m sorry to hear about the problems that you’ve been having with your Hmail! I just checked on the status of the help ticket that you created, and I see that it has been escalated to our Domain and Email specialists. They should be able to help you with this issue.
Once they update your help ticket with their progress, you should receive an email notification. After you get that, please log into the Help Center and review your ticket… that’s the best way to get help with problems like this!
August 24, 2007 at 7:37 am
I migrated to HMail last night, and it went smoothly. I love the integration of the calendar, but need to be able to insert links in my messages and would like one in my signature.
These limitations will keep me from using this new program.
I’d also like to customize a stationery and use different fonts on occasion.
Please keep us updated on the functionality of this program - I’d love to be able to use one e-mail host for all my business.
August 28, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I thought the old email system was mediocre and the worst part of Homestead. The new Hmail seems to have more bells and whistles but seems at first glance to be a downgrade from the old one. How do I report spam or report it as spam without opening it? I love the Homestead product but the email is bad even if I wasn’t paying for it and since I am paying for it you should try to come up with something worth paying for. A not at all happy customer of Hmail.
September 10, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Thank you for your time creating the upgraded Hmail.
Questions:
1 I need to create a hyper-link to my website’s domain address within the content of my email. It used to work with your prior email system but cannot figure out how. For example, I used to type “http://www.Homestead.com” and would be able to click direclty on this link within the conent of my message. It doesn’t work anymore. How can I fix this?
2 When I used to type in an email address within the To/CC/Bcc section, the prior email system used to auto-fill addresses that I had previously typed in. Hmail does not do this with identically repeated email addresses (I am not talking about the email addresses that I typed before Hmail).
— the same auto-fill issue applies to the Subject line. I use the same subject line a lot and not having the auto-fill as I did before Hmail will become a big nusance.
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Craig
September 12, 2007 at 2:37 pm
With all the bells & whistles, it seems odd that I’m having trouble creating a link in an email (at least with this particular version of hmail). I wind up creating the link in Outlook Express, copying it and then pasting it into an email created in hmail. Seems like a basic feature that hmail should have.
September 14, 2007 at 11:37 am
PLEASE,PLEASE…..Give me my old email back. The new one just an’t worth all the trouble.What happened to the simplisity of signing in????, Now have to go thru all kinds of junk and it takes a lot longer..Plus typing compleate addresses for all my site’s. Just not worth it.Maybe I just got spoiled with the old system. But if an’t broke, WHy mess with it…. Just my openion……Thanks…jLee
September 18, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Hi Craig,
On your first point, regarding creating links in the body of emails, you are absolutely correct. This is something that we know about and are looking to address in the future.
On your second point, regarding auto-filling of email addresses as you type, Hmail will auto-fill any email that is in your Hmail address book. If you need help exporting your address book from the old system to Hmail, you can contact Customer Support (at hmail@homesteadsupport.com or 1-800-710-199
and they’ll be glad to help you transfer it over.
September 19, 2007 at 7:59 am
Your new email Hmail is terrible! I still cannot import my address book. It is the slowest mail program I have ever worked with. As business customers we deserve better treatment than this. I am on the road a lot and do not always have the time to wait for this slow system. I am already changing to a new email for my business and as soon as I find a host I may be moving my website. I have been on Homestead for a long time and I feel hurt by this email change.
September 22, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I second all the above! Is it to late to go back to the old email? The address book transfer was ok except for all our notes in the old address list. Where did they go? Is there any way to find them? Also, where is all the junk mail coming from. We never had this much trash in our old email. Now we are getting viruses, pop-ups, and redirects like crazy. Our anti- virus is working overtime. HELP!!!
October 11, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Well I seem to agree with everyone else. THIS NEW EMAIL IS HORRIBLE!!! With all of the complaints you seem to be recieving why in the world don’t we go back to the old email system until you fix all the problems with this one.
One problem I am having is trying to foward emails. I don’t need for homestead to explain how to do this….I KNOW HOW!!! The problem I have is inserting address. What good is it to have an address book if I have to manually look up an address and type it in manually everytime I want to foward an email. It takes me 15 minutes to foward and email.
I have seriously considered cancelling my homestead services all together and moving to somebody new because of all these problems. If these issued don’t get taken care of soon instead of just poor excuses from homestead, I will eventually stop using homestead.
Thanks
October 24, 2007 at 11:55 am
There is some computer setting that I have on that is blocking the display of my Hmail screen. I have Norton Antivirus and have tried to disable to get the display. On another computer the Hmail displays for both email accounts. This has been a problem since the new email upgrade. Anyone out there that can HELP. I currently have two help tickets in and had one previously…. Just a big grey screen when I log in!!!
October 25, 2007 at 9:34 am
Hi Donna!
Sorry to hear about the Hmail login problems you’re having. One thing that I’ve seen affect Hmail in the way you’re describing is the browser security settings. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to make sure that your browser security settings are set to “Medium”. Because the Hmail interface runs through your browser, the security settings can definitely change how Hmail operates.
I just checked and made sure that one of our Hmail specialists has picked up your help tickets. I’ll be working closely with him to make sure that your problem is solved. Once he updates your help ticket with their progress, you should receive an email notification. After you get that, please log into the Help Center and review your ticket… that’s the best way to get help with problems like this!
October 28, 2007 at 10:37 am
In the old email system, you were able to ‘view headers’ to see the IP addresses of the people who sent you email. Is there a way to do that with Hmail that I’m just overlooking?
November 7, 2007 at 10:03 pm
I am pretty frustated with the new email program. The download is quite slow, I’m receiving more junk mail than ever, and for the life of me - why is this the only email program that I know of that doesn’t recognize another web site as a link (underlined) that it takes only one click to go to?
Recently sent a message to a client from my personal email, rather than this one, so they wouldn’t be bothered having to do a cut & paste with the link I was giving them! This needs to be rectified!
November 16, 2007 at 9:56 am
I am having absolutely terrible trouble with HMail. A lot of my emails are not getting to the recipients, and I am not receiving important enquiries and orders. It is a complete nightmare! I have done endless help tickets, and although all the people are very patient - there is absolutely no improvement! I am seriously at my wits end - when will it ever be put right?
I know I am not alone, as a friend of mine (whom I introduced to Homestead) is having similar problems.
We are trying to run 3 businesses through Homestead, but simply cannot function properly at all at the moment. I have customers ringing me up wanting to know when they will receive an answer to their enquiry - and I have absolutely no idea how many customers are similarly affected if they don’t bother to ring me. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can someone sort it out!
November 20, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Hi Angela!
Thanks for your comment. I just checked in with the technician that has your case, and she assured me that she’s working with our Hmail specialists to resolve this issue. When she updates your help ticket with their progress, you should receive an email notification. After you get that, please log into the Help Center and review your ticket for the update… but it already looks like you’re doing this!
Please let your friend (whom you referred to Homestead) know that they should also submit a Help Ticket to us (if they haven’t already). That way, we can help them out too. I’m sorry for the frustration you’re experiencing, and please rest assured that we’re working on this issue for you!
November 20, 2007 at 3:00 pm
In response to Kenny’s comment, Hmail will auto-fill any email that is in your Hmail address book as you type in the “To” field of a new email or one that you are forwarding. The interface looks like this:
http://homesteadblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/hmail_address.gif
If you need help exporting your address book from the old system to Hmail, you can contact Customer Support (at hmail@homesteadsupport.com or 1-800-710-199
and they’ll be glad to help you transfer it over.
November 24, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I was reviewing mail in my Junk Mail folder and clicked on one email to delete and it wiped out all other messages that I did not want to delete. This has happened to me twice. What gives? And how do I retrieve the emails that went into neverland?
November 27, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hi Joe,
What you’re describing is very strange! Deleting one message should not clear out all of the messages in that folder, Junk Mail folder or not. What would help would be if you create a Help Ticket in our Help Center about this issue. If you could include the exact steps that you took that led up to the problem, plus a screenshot of the button you used to delete the message, that would be great!
I’ll keep an eye out for your ticket and make sure that one of our Hmail specialists gets the case.
December 4, 2007 at 10:57 am
I am having trouble with junk emails and I can’t just delete them or not open them for that matter. I feel like my business email is infested. Never had that problem before. HELP!!!
December 5, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Great!
Regards,
CMS,
Sergio’s World Beers
Email : generalmailbox@sergiosworldbeers.com
http://sergiosworldbeers.com
December 13, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I lost all of my email accounts during the upgrade. I just had to recreate them. Thank god there was only four of them. I wonder what went wrong. I also had to change my outgoing server from mail.mydomain.com to smtp.mydomain.com
December 16, 2007 at 9:32 am
I like the LOOK of the new email, but I have some issues with it. First of all, it takes too long to load. And when I have finished with my email and try to navigate to another site, I get a pop up asking if I’m sure I want to navigate away from it.
Here is my biggest issue: I now have POP UPS!! When I log into my email account (zimbra) there will be 2 or 3 new full-size browsers pop up with ad site web pages in them. I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS. I use McAfee Anti-Virus, Spyware and Adware protection so the zimbra Hmail is clever enough to get around that.
The pop up browsers need to go away and SOON or Homestead will lose a client.
If these pop up
January 16, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Hello,
I have followed your guide to add my account to my Outlook 2003, but doesnt work since the upgrade to HMail, what differently has to be done, to get my email on my outlook 2003 again?
January 17, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hi Josh,
Sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with Outlook and Hmail. No changes were made with the latest upgrade to how Outlook needs to be configured to send and receive Hmail.
However, I’ll have one of our Hmail specialists create a ticket on your behalf in our Help Center, and they’ll be able to help you out further there.
Thanks for your comment!
March 3, 2008 at 7:17 am
How do I add my email account to my home page, so that I can send and receive questions and answere from my home page?
Thanks,
Dr. R. L. Chanslor