You have just received your academic credentials and are trying to log in to the Convergence webmail of the Lyon academy for the first time. The interface appears, but with the IMAP settings, security questions, and contact management, everything seems more complicated than expected. This guide details the concrete steps to access your email, set it up on your devices, and make the most of it on a daily basis.
Functional mailboxes and personal mailboxes: a distinction that changes organization
Before touching on the technical settings, one point deserves your attention. The Lyon academy uses two types of mailboxes in Convergence: the personal mailbox (your personal address, like [email protected]) and the functional mailbox, linked to a service or establishment.
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The functional mailbox is shared. A secretariat, a school life department, or a management team can access it together. Rather than multiplying redirects to personal addresses, this mailbox centralizes the exchanges of a team.
Configuring a functional mailbox in a client like Thunderbird requires changing the display name and sending address, then managing delegation rights. The national documentation on Thunderbird details these settings. If you want to set up Convergence Lyon webmail on a shared workstation, first check which of these two types of mailbox you have access to, as the steps differ.
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Logging into Convergence Lyon webmail: username and password
Access is done from the academy’s web portal. You need two elements: your username (usually the first letter of your first name followed by your last name) and your password.
By default, the password corresponds to the Numen. It is a personal code assigned by the National Education to each agent. Change this password upon your first login. An unchanged Numen remains a simple vulnerability to exploit if someone knows your identity.
Once logged in, the Convergence interface displays your messages, your address book, and a calendar. Everything works in the browser, with no software to install.
Setting up a mail client with the IMAP and SMTP settings of the Lyon academy
The webmail is sufficient for checking messages occasionally. For regular use, setting up an email client on your computer or smartphone offers more comfort: notifications, offline writing, managing multiple accounts.
IMAP incoming server settings
You may have already seen the POP and IMAP options when adding an account. Choose IMAP to synchronize your messages across all your devices. When you read or delete an email on your phone, the change reflects on the webmail and vice versa.
- IMAP server: mail.ac-lyon.fr
- Security type: SSL/TLS (accept all certificates if your application requests it)
- Port: 993
- Username: your academic username (first letter of first name + last name)
- Password: the one you set after the initial change
SMTP outgoing server settings
The outgoing server manages the sending of your messages. On most clients (Thunderbird, iOS Mail app, Gmail on Android), these fields are filled in the same sequence of configuration.
- SMTP server: mail.ac-lyon.fr
- Security type: SSL/TLS
- Port: 465
- Authentication required: yes, with the same username and password as for the incoming server
If the type of authentication is requested, select “Plain” or “Normal password.” These settings are identical on Android, iOS, and computer, only the input interface changes.
Importing your contacts and creating mailing lists in Convergence
Manually re-entering the addresses of parents or colleagues takes considerable time. Academic tools allow for bulk transfer of addresses from ONDE to the school’s messaging system, whether in Thunderbird or directly in Convergence.
The Lyon academy notably uses a small Windows software provided by the Haute-Garonne academic team, as well as an online “moulinette” offered by the Strasbourg academy. These two solutions avoid re-entry and allow you to quickly create mailing lists in the Convergence address book.
Once your contacts are imported, you can create groups (parents of a specific class, teaching team, management). Sending a message to the group amounts to writing to a single address, simplifying regular communication.
Privacy and spam management on academic messaging
When you write to families from Convergence, a privacy rule applies: always place recipients in blind copy (BCC). Putting multiple parent addresses in “To” or “CC” exposes each address to all other recipients. This is a violation of academic guidelines on data protection.
For spam, Convergence has a quarantine. Suspicious messages are held there before reaching your inbox. The Mon Aide Numérique portal of the Ministry of National Education offers a dedicated tutorial on managing this quarantine, explaining how to release a legitimate message mistakenly blocked or report spam that has slipped through the filter.
Regularly check this quarantine, especially at the beginning of the school year. Messages from parents or service providers sometimes end up there for no apparent reason.
The academic messaging system remains a professional tool subject to confidentiality obligations. Separating personal use and professional use avoids sending errors and protects your data as well as that of your contacts. A well-configured mail client, with the correct IMAP settings and a properly identified functional mailbox, makes daily email management much smoother.