What Are Email Aliases?

An Email Alias is a "virtual" mailbox/address. Mail sent to this address is silently re-directed to an existing email account/mailbox. Why would you want an email alias? It allows you to have a longer username than the standard 8 character limit, and lets you give out an email address that may be more appropriate to you or your business. For example, let's say you have an email account entitled joeuser (email address is joeuser@cape.com), and you add an alias of joeuserbossman. Mail sent to joeuserbossman@cape.com will be deposited in the joeuser@cape.com mailbox.

Virtual Hosting Email Aliases

• alias address is in the form youralias@yourdomain.com
• There is no maximum character length
• No mailbox. Mail is re-directed to any existing mailbox
  
  
• Add/delete/modify aliases anytime:
  
  
  • Click on the link labeled "On-Line Accounting" from any page on our site, and login with your Cape.Com user name and password.
  • Click the "View/Add/Delete Services" button. (If Virtual Hosting is on one of your associate accounts rather than your own account, first select the correct associate user by clicking the down arrow in the box directly to the left of the "View/Add/Delete Services" button, and then click the "View/Add/Delete Services" button)
  • Click on "Or check on Email Aliases for yourdomain.com".
  • For "Alias Address", enter the email alias, e.g. info@yourdomain.com. For "Real Address", enter the existing email address you wish the mail to be re-directed to, e.g. yourusername@cape.com. Click Update Aliases.
  • For added security, we recommend that you add a "global" alias, @yourdomain.com, to your alias list. You can direct this to a real mailbox, or, one of two special global alias targets, "bounce" or "null". If you would like our mail systems to send a reject message back to the sender, configure your global alias to point to the keyword "bounce". If you would like our mail systems to silently "eat" messages sent to invalid addresses within your domain, configure your global alias to point to the keyword "null". If mail is sent to anyuser@yourdomain.com, but, the alias anyuser@yourdomain.com does not exist, the mail will be sent to your global alias target.

If you are NOT Virtual Hosting

• alias address is in the form youralias@cape.com
• 1 free email alias
• There is no maximum character length
• No mailbox. Mail is re-directed to your existing Cape.Com mailbox
• To add/delete/modify an email alias, email support@cape.com, and let us know the email alias you would like, and the existing email address that you want the alias to re-direct mail to.

Anything Else To Keep In Mind?

You may wish to set your Email Address and your Reply-To Address to reflect the alias, however, this is not necessary.

• Netscape Communicator Mail: Click Edit, Preferences. Under the Mail & Newsgroups category, click Identity (if you can't see Identity, then click the box to the left of Mail & Newsgroups to turn the plus sign (+) to a minus sign (-); you should now see Identity.) Set Email Address and Reply-To Address to the alias address.
• Eudora: Click Tools, Options, Getting Started, and set Reply-To to the alias address.
• Outlook Express: Click Tools, Accounts, click the Mail tab, highlight the Cape.Com account, click Properties, and set Email Address and Reply-To Address to the alias address.

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