Hi there,
Is this video tutorial of any help?
http://www.plus.net/support/email/manage_my_mail_video.shtml?

Very many thanks James but I have already viewed the video tutorial but still cannot see the wood for the trees !
Any further simplified instruction will be most welcome.

The video help specific to Thunderbird is here.
Some of the terminology is explained here.
Do either of these provide the guidance you are seeking?

Thanks Spraxyt but I have already read those. Let me try and be a little more specific with what I am finding confusing -
PN Email instructions say my default mailbox is described as -forename@username.plus.com but further into the description of adding mailboxes it says the mailbox username is made up as username+mailbox_name. I am confused between forename,username,mailbox name etc. Are any of these the same as an Email address ?
Have I been able to explain my dilemma better ?
                      Thanks.

Hi there,
For Thunderbird the settings you will need are:
Server Name: mail.plus.net
Email address: What you wish to appear as the sender ie dave@username.plus.com
Username: username+mailbox (for the above example this would be username+dave)
Outgoing server: relay.plus.net
Regarding aliases, mailboxes etc the following should clarify (hopefully):
An alias is best used when you want more than one email address to go to one mailbox, ie email addressed to dave and david going to the same mailbox.
For additional family members separate mailboxes would probably be best as you then get a separate password for each.

Technocrat,
Will this help you?
Username is the part before the ‘realm’ you use to log on to the internet, used when you connect either with a USB Modem or with a router it’s in the format of (in my case) ‘username@f9.co.uk’
When you make a mailbox your ‘default mailbox’ is, (or was), just this ‘username’. When used in your mail retrieval program (in my case Outlook) you add an account and use the format of Username: username’, Password: the account password. That will collect all mail arriving in your default mailbox, not a good idea as all the spam and rubbish will arrive there unless you have it disabled (see the help files for info about this).
Then if you add a mailbox for a member of the family or for yourself (recommended) in the settings page of the Portal you would add a mailbox name say ‘peter’ and give it a new different password (note you can also use the format of peter.asurname if you have a partner with a different surname and they wish to use it).
In your mail retrieval software you use the format of Username: username+peter, Password: the different password you used above.
Now when anyone sends you a mail they can use the format username@username.f9.co.uk (default mailbox and not recommended) or peter@username.f9.co.uk (the best way, NB change to suite your realm) or
peter.asurname.@username.f9.co.uk, just to be complete.
You can have as many mailboxes as you wish, one for each member of the family and each mailbox is accessed the same way i.e.
Username: username+familyname (or username+family.name if you used a dot to differentiate the two parts as in peter.asurname).
So different family members can use their own mail retrieval software and only get mail from their individual mailbox.
Any better?
Regards, P.

Very many thanks Pendragon,
It still seems very complicated at this stage of the day however tomorrow I will try to digest what you have told me & see if I can't sort it.
If I have further problems may I post back to you asking for further guidance.
        Thanks indeed

You can indeed.
Good luck and don't worry I went through all this when I first set mine up :D.
Regards, P.

I have never understood the need for PlusNet mail boxes.
I use OE and message rules to collect my email.  Assuming each family member has a login in (or I guess you could you identifies in OE), just create a message rule to only download emails sent to (or cc or bcc) to required person on each login.

Nick,
Mailboxes can be used in many ways and for every user there seems to be a different way of using the mailboxes.
I simply have a personal mailbox so mail sent to me always arrives in the same mailbox. The ‘default’ mailbox is then used to collect all the ‘junk mail’ and like you I use a rule to just download this and send it straight to my junk mail folder in Outlook. You can also ‘black hole’ this default mailbox so the junk just gets sent to ‘null’ and only mail you get in your personal mailbox gets delivered.
Because I also subscribe to a number of mailing lists I have rules to separate any mail arriving in my personal mailbox into individual folders.
Some people go much further and when signing up to say a gas provider use the format gas@username.f9.co.uk so when a gas bill arrives it
a) goes into the ‘gas’ mailbox and
b) if the email address is ‘sold on’ then the user can track the passage of his/her email address and apply blocking etc to stop any spam.
Some users like to have separate mailboxes for themselves and their partner so when either log in they only download the mail from their respective mailboxes to whichever mail retrieving software they are using. A number of users also separate ‘business mail’ from ‘personal mail’ in the same way so when logging in from home they get the personal mail and from their workplace the business mail. The choice in the end is up to the user and their lifestyle.
Just some ideas, not meant as a ‘lecture’  :), regards, P.

Crikie!!! Some answer!!!!
Well a very good explanation of the reason for different email addresses and sorting and filtering etc but not really a reason why anyone should go to the trouble of setting up many different mailboxes on PlusNet, rather than use message rules and identities with OE or Outlook.
I also use emails like "gas@username.f9.co.uk" or "amazon@username.f9.co.uk" so I know where my emails come from but with no mail boxes set up they  get delivered into my own OE inbox so I can easily see where they have come from. My simple message rules collect my own emails only and all the defaults.  My partner’s  OE account collects only her emails and no defaults. Once received, message rules could direct to any number of folders.
The only possible advantage I can see for having PlusNet mailboxes is if you use web mail a lot and have lots of email you could log onto each mailbox.
I fully agree with the need for selecting what emails are downloaded, filtering and directing to folders – I just can’t see the benefit of using PlusNet mailboxes to do this. Surely it is easier to do in OE or Outlook? Outlook in particular has excellent message rules that will do all you suggest you need to use mailboxes for.
So, in short, I still cannot understand the need for PlusNet mailboxes…over to you  Pendragon!

I suppose it all boils down to personal preference, your current skill-set, your preferred mail retrieval software and how many computers you use.
As I said the only reason I set up a personal mailbox was so I could, if needed, black hole my default mailbox when we had the ‘spam storm’ a few months back. I also had to have a ‘fax’ mailbox for a time as I had need of Plusnet’s fax to mail facility. But now some years on I could just use the default mailbox and let Outlook deal with all the separation. I just can’t be bothered to change, to old and set in my ways I guess.
Interesting how just us two users can differ in the way we use our email, think how everyone else must use theirs  ::).
You know this ‘amalgamating’ of the ViSP’s still has me feeling a ‘traitor’  posting here and not on F9’s forum.
Regards, P.

I have several mailboxes set-up on my account, but it has nothing to do with receiving mail in different inboxes- OE rules do that for me.  I use them for the simple reason that is the only way to get OE to send emails from different addresses, i.e. one from me, one from my wife etc.
Each account that you define in OE has a different outgoing address (me@domain wife@domain, both@domain). When you have more than one, you get to pick the outgoing address, and OE sends it accordingly.  But to do this, the account details need to be different or OE won't play. domain+mailbox aceives this.
If you receive a msg addressed to one of these mailboxes, the reply automatically originates from the same address, not your default/catchall address.
This avoids annoying situations where you "reply to all" to a msg sent to me@domain, using the default outgoing address of both@domain. In this situation, OE automatically adds me@domain to the list of recipients, so I get a copy of own message, plus TWO copies (to me@domain and both@domain) from anyone else who "replies to all".
I have found this to be a very cool feature that I have never encountered on any other ISP.

Pendragon, I certainly appear to have openend a can of worms but unfortunately I am still having difficulty !
I have decided to try to keep things simple (to match my mentality !) I will initially just use squirrel mail as my retrieval prog. So I have at least opened another mailbox for my wifes use (The mailbox in her name is confirmed in the settings page of the portal).
However I seem unable to come up with the correct log-in format for squirrel webmail to be able to access her Email.
Have I explained myself sufficiently for you to be able to tell where I am going wrong ?
          Many thanks
                                    T