Help Centre

Reading

Getting Started

• Conversations
• Sidebar icons
• Marking messages 'read' or 'unread'
• Printing messages

Learn More

• Muting or ignoring conversations
• Reply by chat
• Viewing message size

Troubleshooting

• Message text is clipped
• Can't open messages
• Message text is garbled
• Improper message threading
• Messages aren't displaying properly
• Some characters display as boxes
• Mail from contacts is marked as spam

Your Messages : Receiving : Reading : Getting Started

Conversations

Virgin Media Mail groups all replies with their original message, creating a single conversation or thread. In other email systems, responses appear as separate messages in your inbox, forcing you to wade through all your mail to follow the conversation. In Virgin Media Mail, replies to replies (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.

When you open one message in a conversation, all of your related messages will be stacked neatly on top of each other, like a deck of cards. We call this Conversation View. In Conversation View, each new message is stacked on top of the ones that arrived before it, so that the newest message is always the one you see first.

To see all the messages in a conversation, just click Expand all.

Sidebar icons

Virgin Media Mail Icons

Starred

A special status you can give to messages or conversations. Starred items remain visible when you return to a conversation. The white star () means the conversation hasn't been marked. The yellow star () indicates that you've marked the conversation. When you click on the 'Starred' tab, you can see all the messages you've starred, even if they have different labels. Starred messages within a conversation also remain visible in 'Conversation View' so that you can find and read important messages, even if new messages are added to the conversation later.

Expand all

Opens all messages if you are in 'Conversation View' -- the view that allows you to see all of your messages stacked together. When you open a message, all previously unread messages, and any starred messages, open automatically. When you click on this icon, all messages are opened for you to view.

Collapse all

Closes all messages when in 'Conversation View.'

Attachment

The conversation includes at least one attachment.

Print conversation

Opens a new window with all messages viewable in a printer-friendly format.

New window

Opens a new browser window. The contents of the new window vary depending on what action you are taking when you click the icon. For example, if you are in 'Conversation View' when you click the icon, the new window also appears in 'Conversation View.'

Marking messages 'read' or 'unread'

Here's how to mark your messages 'read' or 'unread':

1. Log in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
2. Check the box next to the message you'd like to mark as 'read' or 'unread.'
3. Select 'Mark as read' or 'Mark as unread' from the 'More actions' drop-down menu.

Printing messages

To print one message:

1. Open the message you want to print.
2. Click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message.
3. Select Print.

To print an entire conversation:

1. Open the conversation you want to print.
2. On the right side of the screen, click Print all.

Your Messages : Receiving : Reading : Learn More

Muting or ignoring conversations

If you're subscribed to a mailing list, you've no doubt been subjected to the 'thread that just won't die!' If you're part of a long message conversation that isn't relevant, you can 'mute' the conversation to keep all future additions out of your inbox.

By using the 'm' shortcut key, new messages added to the conversation bypass your inbox so that the conversation stays archived. If your address appears in the to or cc field, though, the conversation will pop back into your inbox ready for your attention.

Muted messages are not marked as read, are still searchable, and can specifically be found by searching for:

is:muted

Filters will still be applied to muted messages.

To un-mute a conversation, select the conversation and click Move to inbox. Doing so will move the entire conversation to your inbox and will remove the mute action, so that future messages are also delivered to your inbox.

Reply by chat

Reply by chat lets you and your contacts discuss an email you've sent or received. If you've enabled the Save chat history option in Virgin Media Mail, it also groups your chat history in the same conversation as the message you're chatting about. This way, you can keep all of your communications in context.

Here's how to reply by chat:

1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
2. Open the message you'd like to chat about, and make sure the sender is online and available to chat.
3. Click Reply by chat at the bottom of the message.
   • A new chat window will open displaying the subject of the email you're discussing.
4. Click the X in the top-right corner of the chat window when you're done discussing the e-mail.

Chat histories are only grouped with conversations when you use the Reply by chat feature. If you close a chat window after you discuss an email with someone, and then initiate a new chat, your chat history won't be grouped with a conversation.

Viewing message size

Virgin Media Mail currently doesn't display the size of individual messages, but you can see how much of your storage limit is in use at the bottom of any Virgin Media Mail page.

Your Messages : Receiving : Reading : Troubleshooting

Message text is clipped

To ensure that messages load quickly, Virgin Media Mail displays only a portion of the text of long messages. To read the full text of a clipped message, scroll to the bottom of the message, and click Show Original.

Can't open messages

Unresponsive links and unopenable messages are usually caused by your browser's settings or by security software that conflicts with Virgin Media Mail.

You should try opening your security, privacy or firewall software and check the following:

• make sure cookies are allowed from virginmedia.com
• make sure that third party browser extensions are enables
• clear your cache
• check that you are allowing pop-ups on the virginmedia.com website
• close your browser, restart it and log back into Virgin Media Mail

Message text is garbled

Each time you view messages sent to your Virgin Media Mail account, our system determines what encoding was used by the sender in order to display the mail. If Virgin Media Mail isn't able to accurately detect the encoding of a message, it may not be displayed properly. Our engineers are working hard to find a solution to this problem. In the meantime, you can view your messages by opening an original copy. Here's how:

1. Log in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
2. Open the conversation containing the message you would like to view.
3. Click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message pane.
4. Click Message text garbled?

Here's how to adjust encoding settings in Internet Explorer:

1. From the View menu, select Encoding.
2. Choose an encoding from the list of options. (Additional languages are available by selecting More.)

Here's how to adjust encoding settings in Firefox:

1. From the View menu, select Character Encoding.
2. Choose an encoding from the list of options. (Additional languages are available under More Encodings.)

Here's how to adjust encoding settings in Safari:

1. Click View along the top of your browser, select Text Encoding.
2. Choose an encoding from the list of options.

Improper message threading

Virgin Media Mail considers a number of factors when grouping messages into conversations, but from time to time messages are improperly grouped or separated. At the moment, Virgin Media Mail doesn't offer the functionality to manually separate or group these conversations.

Messages aren't displaying properly

Virgin Media Mail encodes your mail based on your language settings -- if you can't properly compose or receive messages in languages other than English, we suggest adjusting your browser's encoding settings.

To adjust encoding settings in Internet Explorer, please follow these steps:

1. Click the 'View' menu at the top of your browser, and select 'Encoding.'
2. Select 'Unicode (UTF-8)' from the list of options.

If you continue to have trouble reading mail in languages other than English, the problem is most likely a result of mail clients which convert encodings during the transmission of messages. We are aware this issue, and our engineers are working diligently to find a solution.

In the meantime, you can view messages properly by opening the original sent message. To view the original message, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
2. Open the conversation containing the message you would like to view.
3. Click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message pane.
4. Click 'Show original.'

Some characters display as boxes

If you've selected to view Virgin Media Mail in another language, but don't have the necessary fonts installed in your operating system, Virgin Media Mail will display boxes instead of the proper characters.

You can install the appropriate fonts in your operating system to view Virgin Media Mail in another language, without all the boxes. We suggest contacting the customer service department of your operating system's manufacturer for further instructions.

Mail from contacts is marked as spam

While adding a sender to your Contacts will typically prevent their messages from being classified as spam, this rule does not apply when:

A) the message is not authenticated AND
B) the 'To:' and the 'From:' fields contain the same address.

This exception is in place because spammers will often insert the recipient address in the 'From:' field, assuming that this will automatically whitelist their spam message.

To check whether or not a message is authenticated:

1. Select the conversation containing the message affected by this issue, and open the individual message.
2. In the top-right corner of the message window, click show details.
3. Find the 'mailed-by' field. If this field is blank then the message is not authenticated.

If a legitimate message is not authenticated, we suggest contacting the sender to authenticate their messages.

You can verify the 'To:' and the 'From:' fields of a message by viewing message headers:

1. Select the conversation containing the message affected by this issue, and open the individual message.
2. At the top-right corner of the message window, click the down arrow next to Reply, or select More options.
3. Click Show original.
4. The To and From addresses are in the lines beginning in 'To:' and 'From:'

We're currently working on methods to combat this spam tactic while also allowing legitimate messages with matching 'To:' and 'From:' fields.