I'm about to leave for Europe and now I'm preparing for the trip. I know what I want to do with regards to email, but I'm not sure quite how.

Basically, I'm leaving my machine on while I'm gone. If it shuts down I'll just have someone turn it back on again. I want to do this so that my inbox doesn't get too full with the 140+ spam messages I get a day.

However, I don't plan on checking email regularly, but want to get emails from friends and relatives from time to time using my webmail account. The thing is, if I were still using Outlook Express, I could do this, but I can't seem to do it with Outlook.

See, in OE I could set up a special rule wherin if the message satisfied the requirements, OE would NOT download the message and leave it on the server. So then if there was information I wanted to keep on my webmail for a while, I could tell OE not to download emails sent to "keeponserver@mydomain.com".

I have since migrated to Outlook 2000, and this rule seems to be absent for some reason. At least, I can't tell if it's there because of some stupid wizard they've set up in place of the simple, straightforward message rules dialog.

So, does anyone know where this rule is?

It's not in Outlook 2000 AFAIK. All rules are run after the mail is downloaded in 2000. OE does have the option for "Do not download from server" but it never made it across to Outlook.

I'd either install OE temporarily and merge the PST file later or add a rule in outlook to forward the mail when received to a web mail account.

Thanks. I'll experiment with it I guess. That's pretty crappy about the feature not carrying over. That was a very usefull rule for me.

You have some supporters on this point judging from a scan through the Outlook newsgroups. Apparently MS views these as separate email clients. Outlook is not viewed as an upgrade to OE but seemingly, as an internal competitor. I'd like to hear the story how that came about...rampant IE bloat?

Bloat would be the word for it. So far the only good thing about switching from OE has been that I'm now able to use the fully-integrated Spambayes spam filter. I love it and couldn't go back now, but I dislike just about every other difference between the programs.

1) I don't need the extra stuff. I never use the calendar, and it's more trouble than it's worth.
2) the above rules stuff. I'd love to find out why they changed their approach and applied the rules afterward instead of during download.
3) the thing I like least is the storing of messages. I really liked having a message store that was easily found and could be plainly backed up on DVD with other important files. I haven't gone out and figured out an easy way of backing up my current files without removing them from use in Outlook. Can anyone point me in the right direction as far as this goes?


*edit*
Scratch that. I thought I had solved my original issue by setting up a filter in webmail to take emails with a certain phrase in their subject line and put them out of Outlook's reach in a webmail folder. Unfortunately, I have to be logged into my webmail account for it to work, and the longest the login will last is about 7 hours. Damn. I'll have to find another solution...

I'd love to find out why they changed their approach and applied the rules afterward instead of during download.

Well, as said above, they are seperate clients with seperate development paths, and always have been. Anyhow, Outlook is seen as a mostly Exchange client, and when rules are set, they get sent over to the Exchange server to be run there, thus server side procesisng. This can be changed in the Exchange enviornment, but of course doesn't apply to POP or other accounts. For the most part, POP and other protocals have always seemed to be in Outlook as an afterthought.

The e-mail mess is there even on the Mac side. Outlook existed for Exchange support, while Entourage came around as well for the Mac as part of Office. They were oddly similar, except Entourage never had Exchange support. OS X came out, and an Office X version was released. Outlook never got ported to OS X, and instead Exchange support was (badly) added to Entourage via a free patch. Mail, the built in mail client of OS X added Exchange support as well in 10.3, so some people never even bothered to add the support to Entourage. The bad part of the Exchange support in both clients is that they have to have a recent Exchange server to connect to, and with IMAP and web access turned on.

MS E-Mail is a mess period. It's just a shame most ISPs do not offer IMAP mail these days. That, combined with server side filters can simply clients lifes quite a bit, since their mail is there no matter what e-mail client is used to read it.

There is an option somewhere in Outlook (mail delivery options I think) that allows you to specify that a copy of the mail should be left on the server for a specific length of time. I have mine set to a couple of days so I can use webmail during the day at work.

I thought about that, but it kinda forces me into a schedule in which I have to check my mail. I'd also have to wade through the hundreds of spam messages in order to get to the two or three important ones.

I personal use ThunderBird as it has some nice features.

Disable javascript, Don't load external images, and Junk mail controls.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

I even have it setup to leave the messages on the server for 7 days or until I delete them. This way I get my junk mail deleted from the server but I can use the web mail for my normal stuff.


Here is a different approach, are you running XP? Are you on a static IP? You could just remote desktop to your PC and use Outlook from the PC you currently have access to.

Or even use VNC if you're not on XP. And you can tunnel VNC through zebedee (or some other encrypted tunnel, though zebedee is easy if you don't already have something set up) if you're concerned about VNC security.

Thanks, but these aren't really the simple solutions I was hoping for. I finally realized that hey, I have my own domain, and I can just make a new email address. It won't be getting much email (at least at first), and I can tell people to just send important messages there. I also won't have Outlook even set up to check that account, so it'll remain safely on the webmail, uncluttered by junkmail.

That's probably the way I'll go if I can't figure out some solution with my current account.

If you don't mine making the extra email address, couldn't you use the same filters you would have used to tell outlook not to download the messages, but now have outlook forward those messages to the new email address you set up? It should be able to do that, and people could still use your old email.

True, but if we're talking about 4 to 6 people here, it would probably be easier to just tell them to send to the new address. I'd have to tell them to include something in the subject line anyway, and that might be harder to remember and more likely to misfire than remembering a different address. Plus, it won't look like every email is from myself

Just curious, but I can't tell the connection to the lines you quoted. It was about setting up a filter that keeps certain messages on the server instead of downloading them.

Personally, I liked Spambayes a lot, but yours looks interesting as well. I would try it, but I've already switched to Thunderbird, which has far more problems in my view than either Outlook programs. It's really ticking me off at the moment. Its spam filter is absolutely horrible to use.

Of course you're right on both those points (though the second doesn't matter to me), but it just frustrates me that the "spam filter" in Thunderbird is obviously not working correctly for me. It simply doesn't. This and other small annoyances do not instill my trust in the program.

So Ross, what do you like the best about your Empeg?

Go advertise somewhere else.

Damn. I was baited

He'd been registered 5 days before he made that post. I'm gonna have to give him the benefit of the doubt as a lurker.

How'd you like to be greeted like that when you tried to make a helpful first post?

I'll eat my words if he's a lurker, but look at the facts:

Not one other post ever, not really on-subject, post that reads like an ad: "utilizes the latest technology".

Let's take this off in another direction but back to email... Any suggestions on how I can keep two mail clients (one under WinXP and one under Mac OS X) in sync?

Ideally I'd love something that would be able to sync client-to-client without just having to do another POP download of the same mail. I'm sure I can set up a couple of clients to leave mail on server until it's been grabbed by both clients. I'd like something where I can grab with either client and then synchronize them to each other.

I'm currently using TheBat under XP which has all sorts of "power" but I haven't yet updated to 2.x (I'm subscribed to the beta list and I keep seeing them just introduce more bugs and features instead of fixing everything I've already had a problem with). I'm not fully taking advantage of all its abilities. I don't need the world from a mail client, but I do have some very strict requirements.

I took a very quick look at Thunderbird today and may try that on the Mac. I'll be getting a Powerbook in a few weeks (no PC laptop came close enough in total features and fit-n-finish in my opinion).

I can't stand Outlook even though it does have some useful functionality. It's just too much of a pig and back-aswards in most respects though. On the Mac side, I don't know if Entourage will be all that. The new version does look decent and if I were interested in Exchange support it looks like it will be full-featured. Mac OS' own Mail program is also not on my short-list. Though starting with 10.4 (Tiger) it's going to fit in nicely with the cool new Spotlight searching/indexing they're fitting into the OS.

Bruno

Short of running my own mail server I don't think I have IMAP available to me. I started my net email days on IMAP servers. There simply was no POP3 around.

If I did set up IMAP, the PITA would be having to be connected to touch any of my mail. I really need offline ability so I can at least read and compose for future delivery.

But you're right, it would solve the problem. Even if I used it in a more POP-style, by downloading everything to the local machine. Using creative settings for POP mailbox message deletion I think I can keep the inbox contents in sync, but this doesn't do anything for my "sent" mail. Anyone who uses multiple machines from which to send mail knows the frustration of looking for a particular piece of sent mail, only to discover it was on the "other" computer.

Bruno