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Change my email to take less time...

Discussion in 'Tilted Gear' started by Lindy, Feb 23, 2013.

  1. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska
    I'm now using four different computers, all Macs. When I got another computer I just cloned one of the other ones to the latest unit. Including the Apple Mail client.

    I have ten different email addresses, and I get mail from all ten on every computer. I end up slogging through all the messages, at least by title or sender, not necessarily reading them, and deleting most.

    It's becoming time consuming. I guess I could just forego email on a couple of the machines, but is there a way I can have access to all of my mail from all of the different machines? Without having forty different point sources of email?

    Mac relevant solutions would be really appreciated.
     
  2. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    I crated rules for certain ones to be marked read. Things that come from subscribed lists like listservs, newsletters, etc. I treat them like junk mail, not spam but junk mail I sometimes want to read.

    I did a search for "unsubscribe" and those that I truly did not read in years I unsubscribed from.

    For the access, I am like you. I have all my email every machine I sit at via gmail. Certain ones I turn off from time to time because I reestablished email contacts and context to refrain from having to respond from so many email addresses.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  3. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    Like cynthetiq , I run all of my emails through Gmail. I have four accounts--two university accounts and two personal accounts. Everything forwards to Gmail. In Gmail, I have the filters set to sort out my mail for me or delete certain emails. I have it set to label certain items a particular way. For example, I get a lot of emails from different websites like TheKitchn and Culinate. These emails all get labeled Food. All of my emails from professors are labeled School. Every email from my boss or from my coworkers or subordinates is labeled Work. Gmail also allows me to email people back using other accounts, so I can easily email my professors back and it looks like I'm using the school email when I am actually using my regular Gmail account. What I like about it is that it works on any computer and syncs between my laptop, desktop, Nexus 7, and smartphone, in addition to any public computer I access my email at.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    I don't have any experience with it because my hardware is too old to run it, but is there a solution with iCloud?

    I know it syncs mail through the @icloud.com address, but does it sync everything else in the Mail program (i.e., all your third-party email)?
     
  5. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska
    Thanks for the responses.
    My guy Sig has email through the University. He has two different addresses (I think he's limited to two) @unl.edu but can access his email anyplace that has internet access, at his office, at home, his laptop on the road, a computer at a library or a hotel business center in Manitoba, etc. He can access from anywhere, but the email is all stored on the unl.edu server. It's possible to download a copy of anything to any computer or other device, but unless he deletes the original, it's all still on the unl.edu server.

    That's what I'm looking for. Is that what's called "Webmail?"

    I would think that there would be something like that for ordinary civilians that aren't affiliated with any business or institution, but maybe I'm wrong.
     
  6. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    well all mail servers work that way in some capacity.

    it's a matter of pop vs. imap style of connecting to your server if it supports them. I use imap since it allows me to keep things virtual, meaning exactly like you describe. POP means each time I connect to a new client it wants to retrieve all the mail from time immemorial.

    Martian can explain it tons better and more complicated than I can.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    I think you're looking for IMAP.

    I could explain all the different flavours of mail servers and the technical details of how they all work, since supporting and maintaining mail servers is part of what I do to pay my rent. But I won't do that, because I've learned that most people don't really much care how it works, so long as it does work.

    The first thing you'll want to do is consolidate. If you've got ten different email addresses from ten different providers, managing them is going to be a pain in the ass no matter what you do. The easiest solution to this is to take advantage of mail forwarding. Most providers today will allow you to forward an email address you own to a different address. So if you have a Hotmail address and a Gmail address, you can have anything that goes to Hotmail automatically get passed right along to Gmail, and therefore not have to worry about the Hotmail one at all. Using that, you can reduce the number of mail boxes you have to manage down to one or two, which will make life a lot easier.

    From there you're going to want to set up IMAP for your mail server(s). POP is an older standard, and doesn't support a lot of the nifty features that IMAP has, but the important one for your purposes is that IMAP keeps all of your mail server side. That means that you can check it from your laptop, desktop, iPhone, refrigerator, whatever you have with a mail client, and it will present a consistent inbox and outbox each time. POP used to be the standard because providers were constrained on both connectivity and storage, so they didn't want to store all your messages and have you keep half a dozen connections open constantly, but those issues are largely a thing of the past now so most providers will allow IMAP these days. Usually it comes pre-enabled so all you have to do is tell your mail client that you want to use IMAP instead of POP and it will take care of the rest. Exactly how to do that varies based on provider and mail client, though. If you're not sure how to do it and you've got tech support available, now's the time to give them a ring.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  8. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska
    Thanks for recognizing that.

    Not ten providers. I have ten different addresses, six with earthlink and four with windstream, so only two providers. If I do the forwarding thing, don't I have just as many emails as before, distributed to fewer boxes, but still downloading to all four computers? The problem isn't the number of messages or mailboxes, it's the number of computers that mail is downloaded to.:confused:

    That's it!!! "keeps all your mail server side" are the magic wordsI want to hear!:)

    Sounds like that is what I want. I use Apple mail client, because I've never had any reason not to. I'll try to look on the earthlink website to see what I can find before trying customer "support" on the phone. I'll split this and try it with one provider and see how it works. Thanks.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  9. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    See told you he could do it better than me.
     
    • Like Like x 1