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Quota

Each account on the WiscMail system is given 200 MB of storage at no charge. In case you are approaching your quota limit, we have provided some tips for managing/reducing your quota usage and an online way to obtain additional WiscMail storage quota.

Important:

WiscMail quota model does not allow for manual modification nor do we accept payment for quota adjustments. Previously, any quota adjustment over 100mb was a fee based service. Given the popularity of free services such as gmail, however, this model was not well received. As such, we adopted the automated, incremental adjustments available at no cost. The incremental adjustments are fundamentally necessary for two reasons:
  1. Our networked storage solution is extremely expensive. The sum of in use storage must be kept to an absolute minimum due to budget constraints.
  2. Abandoned accounts with high storage limits collect spam and leave us vulnerable to denial of service attacks thus degrading service for all.

Please understand that our automated quota management system will eventually allow you to adjust your quota to a workable limit. Any manual interference would just lead to a programatic downward adjustment to the nearest quota increment where your account would exist below a threshold of percent usage.

WiscMail Quota Program Details

  • Base quota is 200MB per WiscMail user.
  • The quota warning message system will allow customers to update their quota configurations, through an automated process, based on the following criteria:
    • The ability to increase quota by 100 MB will be offered to customers who reach 90% of their 200 MB, 300 MB and 400 MB allocations at no charge.
    • The ability to increase quota by 500 MB will be offered to customers who reach 90% of their 500 MB, 1 GB, 1.5 GB, 2 GB and 2.5 GB quotas at no charge.
    • If you need to increase your quota past 3GB, please contact DoIT Help Desk.
    • A periodic "true-up" process will identify accounts that are using far less than their allocations and will readjust quota allocations downward.
  • Only users who've reached at least 90% of their current quota are eligible to increase their storage.

Important: Some email clients (desktop clients) may have problems interacting with large accounts. If you begin to have problems, review the client documentation.

The easiest way to monitor your quota is to log into the WiscMail web client with your NetID and password. The bottom of the page will show you the number of messages in the Inbox, the amount of space in use and the amount of space available to your account. The Folders page will show you a breakdown of how much space is used in each of your online folders.

When you get near your quota, the WiscMail system will automatically send you reminders via email:

Subject Percent Usage Frequency
Quota Notice - Your Email Account: [your email address] is at XX% or more of capacity - contents 90% Once every 48 hours
95% Once every 24 hours
100% + Once every 24 hours

If you are close to your quota limit, it is possible for a large message to put you over capacity. Once you are at or above your quota limit, messages will no longer be delivered to your account. WiscMail and WiscMail Plus senders will see warning messages when they attempt to send email to your account, and the email will not be accepted. External senders will also be unable to send email to your account, and they will most likely receive notifications from their email providers that the message transmission was unsuccessful. Once adequate space has been made available in your account, either by deleting mail or by obtaining additional quota space, new messages will begin to be delivered to your account.

While quota does not affect messages you send, if your mail client stores a copy of the sent message in an online folder and this does not fit in your quota, you may receive an error that your message cannot be sent because the copy cannot be created.