[ARCHIVED] Sending emails from student email

[FIONADOUGHERTY]

Are students able to send emails from their student email? I've had professors ask me to email them from my student email, but I don't know how to access it or send emails from it. If anyone knows, please let me know!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @FIONADOUGHERTY ...

The Canvas Inbox is not the same as e-mail.  When you use the Inbox within Canvas, you can only send messages to other people that are enrolled in the same courses that you are enrolled in...which includes your classmates and your instructor(s).  The Inbox does not allow you to message your friends or family members...unless they are also enrolled in the same course(s) that you are enrolled in.  Conversely, your friends and family cannot send you messages from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. and then expect you to receive those e-mail messages inside of Canvas.  The Canvas Inbox is meant to keep course conversations contained within the Canvas environment.

All that being said, when someone sends you a message via the Canvas Inbox, you can certainly set up your own Canvas settings to receive notification of that Inbox message via e-mail.  The same holds true for your classmates...if you send them a message via the Canvas Inbox, they can set up their own notification settings to be notified via e-mail that you've sent them a message via the Canvas Inbox.  This is covered in the following Guides:

• How do I add an additional email address as a cont... - Instructure Community
• How do I manage my Canvas notification settings as... - Instructure Community
• How do I manage notifications for a single course ... - Instructure Community

If you have your notification settings set up to receive an e-mail, you can reply to the e-mail message in your e-mail client, and then it should send the reply message right back to the Canvas Inbox (at least that's my understanding).

So, to answer your question, you wouldn't be able to send an e-mail from your e-mail client (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) and expect your professor to receive that message via the Canvas Inbox.  However, if you knew the professor's e-mail address, you could use your e-mail client to e-mail him/her, and he/she would receive that e-mail like they normally receive other e-mails...just not through Canvas.

I hope I've covered most scenarios here, but if you still have questions about this, please let Community members know so that we can work with you further on your question...thanks!