We like to keep things simple, so your username is a part of your main Slingshot email address.

For example, if your email address with Slingshot is joepatel@slingshot.co.nz, then your username will be joepatel.

If you can't remember your email address with us, just give us a call on 0800 89 2000. We'll be glad to hear from you.

Not everyone uses their @slingshot.co.nz email addresses, and these dormant accounts are juicy targets for spammers and troublemakers.

So if your account is inactive for 6 months, we'll archive it to keep it safe.

If you access your webmail or send/receive email via an email client (e.g. outlook) at least once every 6 months, then we'll know that you're using it and it won't be archived.

If your account does get archived, then getting it re-activated is only an email away - please contact us and we'll reactivate your address.

If your email account remains in an archived state for longer than 6 months, as it is no longer been used, we will then close down that email account for good (at which point all emails and contact lists associated with that account will be deleted and irretrievable).

There are a few reasons this may happen: 

1. Your mail box is full
2. There is something wrong with your email client (e.g Outlook, Thunderbird, an app on your phone)
3. The email settings may be set to block the email
4. Genuine fault

So what we want to do is find out what is causing the issue.

How do I check if my mail box is full?

Check out this useful article: Slingshot Webmail: Storage

How do I check if it's my email client?

The best way to do this is to log in to Webmail rather than your client. Here you can run your own tests and see if you are getting the emails through Webmail.

1. Log in to Webmail. Click this link.
2. Get the contact who you are unable to receive emails from, to send you an email.
3. Wait 1-2 minuets and check all your folders to see if you can locate the email.
4. If you have received it, the problem will be with your email client. If you have not received it, the problem is not the email client.

How do I check my email settings to see if the contact is blocked?

You can check your email settings by going to the  section in the top right hand corner.

Once here, you will need to check if you have any  set up.

Check what filters you have set up, you are looking for a particular one that stops you receiving emails.

What do i do if I have checked everything and still can't receive emails?

If you have completed the above checks, and still can't receive emails, please contact us.

You can contact us here.

Secure Socket Layer is an international and industry-wide encryption method. It's a very secure way to connect to an email server.

Just like IMAP and POP, Slingshot email supports SSL and non-SSL connections. It's up to you to decide. Normally, there is little to no difference to you as a user between using SSL or not. Just remember, SSL is more secure.

Some email providers (particularly Gmail we've noticed) can occasionally run into issues receiving emails from the team at Slingshot and end up incorrectly marking these emails as "Spam". In order to get around this you can "whitelist" all emails from the Slingshot domain. It's not as tricky as it sounds so to make life easier we've put together a walkthrough for you here!

• Log into your gmail at www.gmail.com
• Once you're logged in click on the "cog" icon in the top right and select "settings"

• Click on "Filters and Blocked Addresses" and then click "Create a new filter". You can also see and edit existing filters you've already set up here

• At the next screen enter "slingshot.co.nz" OR "team.slingshot.co.nz" into the from field. This will make sure you don't miss anything from either of the two domains we send our emails from

• Click on "Create filter with this search". You can then select "Never send it to Spam" to make sure those emails will stop going to your spam folder. I've also selected "Categorize as Personal" so any emails from Slingshot go straight through to my main inbox

• Click on "Create filter" and you're all done!

What is the difference between POP and IMAP?

Backing up your email can be a good practice to get in to if you have emails between friends, family, or co-workers that are too important to risk losing. Thankfully there are several easy ways to back up your emails to a file on your computer with Microsoft Outlook.

1. Drag and drop

This is probably the easiest way to back up your emails:

• Create a folder on your computer where you want your emails to be saved. I've created a new folder in "My Documents" called "My Emails" by right clicking on a blank space in the window and selecting "New -> Folder"

• I quite like this email here and want to save it. To do that, all I need to do is drag it into the new folder I just created and I'm done! The email is now saved on my computer. This saves the email as a .msg file which will be opened in Outlook

2. Export all of your emails at once as a .pst

You can do this to save all of your emails in one file

• In Outlook 2013 click on "File" then "Open and Export" and then "Import/Export"

• Select "Export to a file" and click "Next"

• Select "Outlook Data File (.pst)" and click "Next"

• Select the folders containing the emails you want to save and then click "Next"

• Choose where you want the emails to be saved (a new folder like in the previous method might be a good idea) and then click "Finish"

And you're done! .pst files will back up your mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes. You will need a computer with Outlook on it to open this back up. Most email clients will have similar functionality but as always, Google has all the answers. Try searching for "How do I backup my emails"

If you're looking to back up your email contacts then you've come to the right place! This guide was written with Outlook 2013 in mind but most versions of Outlook are very similar.

• Click on "File" then "Open and Export" and then "Import/Export" (the "Export" option may be under "Advanced" in some earlier versions)

• Select "Export to a file" and click "Next"

• Select "Comma Separated Values" and click "Next"

• Select the "Contacts" folder (and any other folder you've set up to save contacts) and click "Next"

• Choose a name for the file and where you would like it saved and click "Next"

• The last page is just for confirmation. Once you're happy with everything click "Finish"

Most email clients will have an option to import contacts and the .csv file that you've just created is the preferred method of doing this. 

Firstly, you need to identify which program you're trying to use to access your email. Common programs include Microsoft Outlook, Mail, or Mac Mail.

Each program has its own special way of setting it up and basic instructions can be found on the program's respective website. They often share common steps, and the specifics can differ just enough that the steps for setting up on one might not help you with the other.

 [Please note] Slingshot no longer provides an email address or email service to all new customers.

Email Settings

Enter the appropriate settings as they appear below:

Username: This will generally be the first part of your email address before the @ symbol. For example, if your email address was joepatel@slingshot.co.nz your username would be joepatel.
Password: Your Slingshot password
Name: This is your name as you want it to appear when people receive emails from you. Normally your first and last name is just fine, or if you like you can use an alias, or just your email address. If you change your mind later, it can be changed fairly easily.
Email Address: Some email setups ask for your email address. Just enter it as your full Slingshot email address, including the @slingshot.co.nz.

Server settings:

If you're uncertain on the difference between POP and IMAP, check out this article: What is POP and what is IMAP? We also have an article on SSL if you're interested.

Blacklisting an email is determined via a policy, that is normally based on how many emails are been sent from that email address. These policies are managed by different vendors all over the world, which email server admins may subscribe to, in order to help protect their servers.

If you have received a bounce back email from an email address you have tried to send to, it is likely the server or your email address you’re sending from has a poor reputation, with the bounce back containing more information.

Removal of your email address off of these blacklist is an automated process, with the Slingshot staff having limited ability to fix the issue.

As blacklisting normally happens when high volumes of spam are sent, you can help reduce risk to your account and to the mail service by ensuring you have a strong password and by keeping it secure.

What features are available in Slingshot Webmail?

Deleting emails is simple!

First of all, you need to click on the email you'd like to delete. Then click on the Delete button in the menu bar above your Inbox. If you'd like to delete multiple emails simply hold down the shift key (or the ctrl key if the emails in question aren't in order) while clicking.

If you are using a desktop computer or a laptop, you can alternatively drag-&-drop the email into the Deleted Items folder! 

If you receive an error message when you try to delete an email, go to the Settings menu, and select Server Settings.

From there, tick the box for If moving messages to "Deleted Items" fails, permanently delete them. This will help ensure you stay within your storage allowance for webmail.

If you're still having difficulty deleting emails, please contact our friendly Technical Support team via our Contact Page.

If you're looking to transfer your emails from Slingshot Webmail to Outlook (or another mail client) then you've come to the right place!

Saving your contacts in Slingshot Webmail

• Log in to webmail and click on "Address Book"

• Select the contacts you want to save (hold down the shift key to select more than one)

• Click on "Export"

• Depending on your browser you may be asked to open or save the file. If prompted select "Save File" and chose a location to save it to. If you're not prompted it's likely the file is automatically saved in your downloads folder (this happens in Google Chrome for instance)

Importing your contacts using Outlook

• Click on "File" then "Open and Export" and then "Import/Export" 

• Select "Import a VCARD file (.vcf)" and click "Next"

• Select the file you saved in the previous step and click "Open"

To automatically move mail to a folder, you need to create a filter. You can either do this from the Settings menu, or from your Inbox.

This can happen when your mail account has been compromised and a spammer has gained access to your account.

Once an account has been identified as sending spam it is blocked as it has serious consequences to the whole mail platform for all users.

To have the account cleared the user is requested to run a scan for Virus and/or Malware and change their password to something more secure.

Once this is done all we can do is request for the users to be removed from the blacklist, however this is a request to a 3rd party, which can take time.

Find out how you can login to your Slingshot Webmail account and send, reply to, forward, and delete emails.

Basics of Webmail

• How can I sign in to my Slingshot Webmail account?
  1. Log in to your Slingshot Webmail by entering your email username and password.

  2. Check the 'I'm not a robot' checkbox and click Login to enter your emails.

  

• How to send an email?
  1. When you are logged into your Slingshot Webmail, click Compose from the top left to open a new email.

  2. Type in the email address of the person you're wanting to email in the To field. You can type in as many email addresses into this field as you desire. Separate each email with a comma.

  3. Write the subject of your email in the Subject field.

  4. In the large white box under Subject, type in the content of your email.

  5. Click Send to submit your email.

  

• How can I reply to an email?
  1. Click the email you want to reply to and select the Reply icon, which looks like an arrow pointing to the left. If you're replying to many recipients, select the Reply all icon. This icon looks like two arrows pointing to the left.

  2. Compose your email and select Send. Note: When replying to an email, some of the fields in the email are pre-filled:

  1. The sender and any CCd emails will be in the To field.
  2. The subject will already be in the subject field, but Re: will be at the start of the subject.
  3. The original email will be in the reply email. Compose your email in the space directly above the text.

  

• How can I forward an email?
  1. Select the email you want to forward.

  2. Select the Forward icon, which looks like an arrow pointing to the right.

  3. Type the recipient(s) into the To field. You can type in as many email addresses into this field as you desire. Separate each email with a comma.

  4. Compose your email and select Send.

  Note: If you forward an email, some of the email's input fields are pre-filled:

  1. The subject will already be in the subject field, but Fwd: will be at the start of the subject.
  2. The original email will be in the forwarded email. Compose your email in the space directly above this text.

  

• How can I delete an email?
  1. Select the email(s) you want to delete. To select multiple emails, hold down the 'Ctrl' key while you select the emails.

  2. Click the Delete icon, which looks like a rubbish bin.

  Note: Deleted emails will go to the trash folder. You can recover deleted emails by moving them back to your inbox from the trash folder.

• What is an email filter?
  An email filter is a way to categorise emails and place them in specific folders. You can filter emails using properties unique to those particular emails such as the sender's email address, the subject of the email, message content, etc.

  1. Select the 'Settings' option from the top right.

  

  2. Choose 'Filters' from the left-hand menu and click the '+' icon in the Filters column.

  

  3. On the right-side a new window will appear named Filter definition. Begin by providing your filter a name in the Filter name field.

  4. Complete the rules for your filter depending on the kind of emails you are filtering. The example below will move all emails from "notmyfriend@gmail.com" to the Junk folder. Click Save to submit your changes.

  

Email Troubleshooting

• Email Settings
  You can use Slingshot Webmail to view and send emails, or use an email application. If you are using an email application, use these POP/SMTP or IMAP settings to configure your emails on your device.
  
  

  1. Username: This will be the first part of your email address, portion before the @ symbol. For example if your email address is rehkel@slingshot.co.nz, your username would be rehkel.
  2. Name: This is the name you want to appear on your recipients email application when they receive an email from you. You can set it to your full name or your email address.
  3. Email address: Your complete Slingshot email address, for example rehkel@slingshot.co.nz.
  4. Password: Your Slingshot email password.

  

• I can't login to Webmail?
  There can be simple reasons that can lead to the inability to access Slingshot Webmail. We recommend going through this list and ensuring that you are logging in correctly.
  
  

  1. Ensure that you are entering only the first section of your email address in the Username field. For example if your email address is rehkel@slingshot.co.nz, we would enter only rehkel.
  2. Ensure you are ticking the 'I'm not a robot' checkbox and completing the reCAPTCHA by selecting the appropriate images. The reCAPTCHA does dissapear after 30 minutes.
  3. If you have reset your email password, it does take up to 30 minutes for the password to update in our system. Wait 30 minutes and then try logging in again.

  If you complete these steps and are still experiencing issues logging into Slingshot Webmail, please contact our team.

• I am unable to receive emails, what can I do?

  There are simple checks you can do that might help resolve this particular issue. Go through the checklist provided below and test to see if you can login.

  1. Ensure that your mailbox isn't 100%, if it is near 100%, please delete some emails. You can check your mailbox storage levels on the bottom left of your screen. If you are unable to delete emails, refer to the 'I can't delete my emails, what can I do?' section.

  

  1. Disable any additional filters you have created, ensuring the default '#1' filter is still active. The below photo shows the 'test' filter has been disabled.

  

  In the event that you are not receiving emails from a particular sender, please confirm with the sender if they receive an error message when attempting to you. If you continue to not receive emails from a particular sender, provide our team with 3 examples within a 24 hour period in the format provided below.

  1. Date and time of email:
  2. Email address of sender:
  3. Email address of receiver:
  4. Subject of email:
• I am unable to send emails, what can I do?

  There are numerous reasons that may cause your inability to send emails. We recommend going through these checks and determining if you can send emails.

  1. Send an email to yourself by placing your full Slingshot email address in the To field. If you did not receive this email after 10 minutes and your mailbox is not full, contact our team.
  2. Confirm if you are receiving an error message, an error message provides us with more information as to why this could be occurring. Example reasons can be the recipients mailbox is full, or your emails are being marked as spam by the receivers mail server.
  3. If you only experience issues emailing one particular email address and you are receiving no error messages, provide our team with 3 examples instances with the date & time, subject of the email and receiving and sending email addresses.
• I can't delete my emails, what can I do?

  When an email mailbox is 100% full, we may come across issues in emptying our deleting items folder, which can be resolved by adopting this alternative approach.

  1. Click Settings and then choose Preferences. Select Server Settings from the options underneath Section.
  2. In the Main Options section of Server Settings. Check the "If moving messages to Trash fails, delete them" option and hit Save.
     
     
  3. Once you have completed this, click Mail and choose the Trash folder from the left hand side. Select the gear icon from the bottom left and choose Empty.
     
     

reCAPTCHA

• What is reCAPTCHA?
  reCAPTCHA protects Slingshot email services and email accounts from spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA uses an advanced risk analysis engine and adaptive challenges to keep automated software from engaging in abusive activities on our customer accounts. It does this while letting our valid users pass through with ease.
• Why is reCAPTCHA integrate into our Slingshot Webmail sign in?
  We've added the reCAPTCHA service to the login section of our email platform to help protect your security. The service prevents automated systems from gaining access to your email account. That way your private information is kept private and you can avoid having nasties send lots of spam emails from your account (which, as well as being really annoying, can cause your email to become "Blacklisted" and you'll be unable to send anything at all!).

Email filtering is the automatic processing of email to organise it according to your needs. You need to 'teach' your Webmail account to process email the way you want it to. This article will help you set these filters up.

First of all, log in to your webmail.

From the main screen, click on the Settings button

This will bring you to the Settings screen:

In the far-left menu, click on Filters, you will see the following screen:

You'll see two columns in the middle of your screen; Filter sets and Filters. At the bottom of these columns you'll see some icons. Click on the plus symbol in the second column, called Filters.

A new column will appear, titled Filter definition.

1. First, give your new filter a name (this is for your own use, nobody else can see this name).
2. Now you can set the filter for incoming mail based on a number of criteria:
   • matching all of the following rules
   • matching any of the following rules
   • all messages
     • Once you have chosen the main filtering, you can now determine the individual rules. For example, you could set:
       • All email from a certain sender to go to your Junk folder
       • All email containing 'viagra' in the Subject line to go to your Junk folder
       • All email over 1MB to be forwarded to a specific email address

The possibilities are almost endless!

Once you have set all the rules you want, make sure that you click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

If you're having trouble configuring your filters, feel free to contact our Technical Support team on 0800 89 2000 or via email.

It is possible to receive emails that look authentic and that link to authentic-looking websites but are actually faked (this is called spoofing). These emails and websites are designed to trick you into divulging your personal financial details, and this type of malicious behaviour is called phishing. Wikipedia has a lot more information if you're interested.