Using Sero's built-in email program

Every Sero subscription includes an email account. Your email address is of the form: your user name at sero dot email.

Or, if you have a previous samobile.net address from Serotek, it would be: your user name at samobile dot net.

For example, if your username is JoeSmith, your Sero email address will be joesmith@sero.email, or joesmith@samobile.net.

On Windows, Sero has a built-in email program. For all other computers and devices, including Mac, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire OS, you will need to access your Sero email using either the email program included with your device, or a third-party email program. How to do that is discussed in the section titled: Accessing Sero email via a third-party email program. This section explains how to use Sero's built-in email program on Windows.

On Windows, you may send either standard text messages, or voicemail messages. If you choose to send a voice message, recipients can click on the attachment to hear the message you have recorded.

Email From the Sero home screen

If you've not done so, launch Sero by pressing Control+Alt+N.

If you have new unread messages sent to your address at sero.email or samobile.net, you will hear Sero speak the word, “Email.”

Arrowing down you will find a link which speaks the number of new messages you have. It might say, “You have 4 new messages.” Or whatever number of messages are currently pending.

If you take no action on one or more messages, the next time you start Sero, the number of messages in your inbox will be announced again to ensure that some action is ultimately taken on them.

Sero email options

From the Sero home screen, choose Email. Then choose from one of the following options:

Read new email

Choosing Read New Mmail will display any messages on which you haven’t taken action.

After the email message, you will find two checkboxes.

The first says "Quote original message in reply.” Check this box with the Space bar if you intend to reply, and want to include the text of the original message.

The second checkbox says: “Add the sender to the address book when I reply.” Check this box with the Space bar to add the sender's email address to your address book, which is very useful if you believe you will be emailing this person at any time in the future.

Next are seven buttons.

The Reply button, like all buttons, is activated with the Space bar. You are then presented with the option to Send a Text Message, Send a Voice Message, Cancel, or Return to Main Menu.

Sending a text message

After choosing to send a text message, you may add multiple addresses in the To field by separating each with a comma and a space. For example, to email your buddies Joe Smith, Pete Moss, and Rob Zombie, you would write something like the following:

JoeSmith@MyInternet.com, PMoss@ZMail.net, zombie.rob@anywhere.org

Tab once to the CC field where you can enter the address or addresses of others you wish to receive this message.

Tab again to the BCC field. BCC stands for blind carbon copy. Email addresses inserted here will get the message, but those people in the To and CC fields will not see addresses in the BCC field, and therefore will not know these people are also seeing this message.

You may enter a total of twenty five recipients in the To, CC, and BCC fields combined. This is to ensure that your Sero email account is not used to send spam, for both your protection and ours.

Just after the To, CC, and BCC fields is the edit box to enter your subject. Give some consideration to what you put here, as it will determine the importance your recipients will give to your message.

Tab again to land in the edit box labeled, "Body,” which is where you type your message. Once you have entered your text, press Tab to find a few options related to sending your message.

First is a checkbox to include your signature in the email message you have just written. A signature is text you can optionally add to the end of any message you choose. It can be as simple as your name, or it can contain complete personal or business contact information.

After the Include Signature checkbox are three buttons. The first is to check your spelling, and is also invoked by pressing F7 in the "Body" edit box. For help with using Sero's spell checker, see the section titled: Spell-checking text.

The next button allows you to attach a file to your message. More on attaching files is discussed a bit later in this section.

The final button is the Send button. Once pressed, your message has been sent, and there is no going back.

Note: emails may go through many computers before reaching their targets; therefore, it is important to never send any personal information you don't want falling in to the wrong hands. This includes but is not limited to credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, banking info, and similar information.

Finally, a link is provided to return you to the email menu.

Send a voice message

In addition to sending text messages, Sero provides a way for you to send voice messages as well. If you find typing difficult or painful due to a physical impairment with your hands, this may be a more workable solution. Some Sero members also like to exchange the occasional voice message, much as some might exchange a picture, as a way to get to know someone a bit better.

Because voice messages take a bit longer to download, and often take more time to play, please give some thought to what you want to say before recording.

Voice emails may be up to five minutes in length.

Composing a voice message

To compose a voice message:

  1. Start by filling in the standard To, CC, BCC, and Subject fields.

  2. The edit box labeled, “Body,” that is present when sending a text email is replaced with buttons to Record, Stop, and Play the message. Press the Space bar on the Record button. You will hear a beep to let you know the computer is recording. Now say what's on your mind.

  3. When finished, press Space on the Stop button, which should already have the focus.

  4. The focus is now on the Play button, so press the Space bar to hear what you have recorded.

  5. If you like how the message sounds, Tab one final time to the Send button, and press the Space bar to send your message.

When making a long recording, you will get a prompt alerting you that you are nearly out of time.

If you have made a recording and realize you forgot to say something, you can add to the message by pressing Alt+R, or pressing the Space bar on the Record button. You will be asked if you wish to add to the recording. If you answer no, your original recording will be overwritten and a new recording will be made.

If you play back the recording and you hear no audio, make sure your microphone is connected, is turned on, has not been muted, and is selected by Windows as the default recording device. If you need help with this, please read the section titled: Voice chat.

Attaching files to your messages

After choosing the Attach a File button, a dialog will appear asking you for the location of the file. To choose a file, Tab to the Browse button and press the Space bar.

Now, navigate your computer to find the file you want to attach. You may have to press Shift+Tab to get to the list of files and folders on your computer. Press Right Arrow to open a folder, and Enter to select the file you wish to attach.

Finally, tab to the Attach button, press the Space bar, and your file is ready to be sent along with your email message.

Note: most Internet service providers place limits on the size and types of files that may be sent as attachments. You also cannot send files with certain file extensions such as .exe. To share large files, we recommend a cloud storage service such as Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive.

Sending a message: final notes

On the main Sero email menu, just after Read New Mail, or as the first option if there is no new mail to be read, is Send a Message. Selecting this option presents you with the choices of either sending a text or voice message, as described above.

This leaves us with only two other important items to mention.

When you choose which type of message to send, the focus is placed in the To field to enter one or more addresses. If you press Shift+Tab, you will land on a button labeled Add Recipients From Address book. Activating this button with the Space bar offers you a list of names you have entered in to your address book. Use the up and down arrows to choose the one you want. Then Tab once to choose from the list of fields: To, CC, or BCC. Tab again to the Add button. Once all addresses have been entered, Tab to the Return to Message button, and press Space to activate it.

Back on the main screen for sending a message, from the Add Recipients From Address book button, press Shift+Tab to get to a drop-down list of accounts. If you have a samobile.net address, you will see that as an option. You will also notice a sero.email account available to you. When sending a message using the email section of Sero on a PC, you can choose which address to send the message from.

You can choose to set the Sero address as the default email address by using an option at the bottom of the Email screen.

Managing email messages

Read saved mail

Choose this option to see all messages you have received and not deleted. You will see a list of messages displayed in chronological order, with the oldest message at the top of the list. To see your most recent messages, press the End key. To return to the top of the list, press the Home key. Press Enter to read any message of interest, or the Delete key to discard the message.

Press the Tab key for other options including the ability to read, forward, delete, add to sync list, move to another folder, create a new folder, or open another folder.

Sent items

Choose this option to read all messages you have sent via Sero’s email program. You'll see folders for the current month and each year to help you more quickly find what you are looking for. Once you have chosen a folder, you can tab through options to read, forward, delete, move, create, and open folders, or add to your sync list.

As is the case elsewhere in Sero, use Alt+Left Arrow to go back or move up one level, or press Escape to exit email altogether.

Go to trash folder

Choose this option to view messages that have been deleted within the past two days. You cannot delete messages from the trash folder, nor can you restore messages once two days have elapsed. After two days, these messages are gone for good. This section provides all the same options as other folders, with the exception that the Delete button is replaced with a Recover button to pull a message out of the trash and back to permanent storage.

Creating folders

From the main Email screen, choose the Create Folder option to create a new folder. Type in the name of your new folder, then Tab once to the Create button and press the Space bar. You can use folders to easily organize your email by category.

Email technical support

This works the same as Send a Message. The difference is that the To field is pre-populated with the email address support@serotek.com. Use this to:

Managing your address book

The Sero address book is a great resource for storing contact information for your friends, relatives, and business contacts. You can have phone numbers, street addresses, and email addresses -- all in one place.

The address book is located in the email section of Sero, directly after the option for contacting technical support. Pressing Enter on the Manage Address Book option will bring you to the main screen for doing so.

Contact list

The first menu you will encounter in the address book is your contact list. You will find the list of names that you have previously stored in your address book. You can arrow up or down in this list to find a specific name.

Once you have selected a name, you can then choose from the buttons below to view, edit, or delete the contact. You can place more names in this list by using the Add a Contact option, which is located near the bottom of this screen.

Viewing a contact

You can see the information you already have saved for each one of your contacts by selecting one name from the contact list and then pressing the View button. Simply move up or down to find the name you want, then tab to the View button, and press the Space bar to activate it.

You can only see the information you have already saved under the View option. If you see something you would like to change, or if something isn't the way you would like it to be, then you can alter the saved information by using the Edit option.

Editing a contact

As you did for the View option, you can select a name from the contact list, but press the Edit button instead. From this screen, you will be able to alter names, phone numbers, and other information for each contact you have in your contact list.

Once you have modified the information for a contact, move to the Save Changes button at the bottom of this screen. Pressing this button will save all the changes you have made to the edit fields in this form.

Deleting a contact

To delete an existing contact from your contact list, move through your contact list and select the name you would like to delete. Once you have done so, move to and press the Delete button.

Warning: You will not be asked if you would like to delete a contact from your list once you have pressed the button. You will have to recreate your contact with its complete information.

Adding a contact

Add a new contact to your contact list by selecting the Add Contact option. Once you have chosen this option, you will find fields for adding information for your new contact's name, email address, and so on. Just enter the information you would like to be saved in each edit field. Then move to the Save Changes button. Press this button to keep the information you have entered.

You can always go back and change this information later by selecting the name from the contact list and then choosing the Edit button.

Third-party email accounts

In addition to your Sero email account, you can add third-party accounts from external email providers to combine all of your email in one location. Send, receive, and read all email via Sero's easy-to-use interface.

Note that due to Google's stringent security policies, Sero no longer supports adding a Gmail account as a third-party account.

When choosing this option, you are presented with a list of email accounts you have configured. To work with one of these accounts, first choose it from the list, then press one of the buttons below the list.

You can choose the Check Now button to retrieve any new email from a specific account.

Choose the Edit button to modify the settings for an existing account.

Choose the Delete button to remove an account from Sero. This will not delete any email messages, either from Sero or from the account itself.

Finally, there is a link labeled "Add a New Account.” Before adding or editing an email account, please close all other programs you use to send and receive email. Once you are sure that you are receiving your email from within Sero, you can re-enable any email programs you were using.

When choosing either Add or Edit, you will encounter several fields, some of which must be completed in order for the account to work properly. They are listed below:


Last modified March 22, 2019

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