I have two computers in the house, both with Vista and Office 2003. It's a pain only having one Outlook configured for email - needs to be like this to keep all the emails in one place. I was thinking of installing a simple email server, preferably free or possibly just cheap.
Does anyone have any recommendations that don't involve buying Windows Home Server and/or another computer?
|
MS Exchange is a brilliant solution. For $9.99 (about £7-8) I use the Mail2Web professional Exchange server. Hosted remotely, it just works. I have 3 PCs and a phone all seamlessly synched, and it has never, ever, caused a single glitch.
If that's too expensive (it probably is), why don't you just use an email account that supports IMAP so that each copy of Outlook can just sync with the online account - GMail does this, for example.
|
...or configure your mail store onto a shared drive (NAS?)
Or, if you have a "main" computer that you want the mail on, but want to also receive mail onto the other one but still have it delivered to the main one, set up Outlook on the secondary one so that it doesn't delete downloaded mail.
|
|
just use a web based mailbox
|
Have noticed with my virgin blueyonder account, where previously I used the webmail, one I had opened Outlook and downloaded the messages, it automatically deleted them from the webmail.
Now since a recent update, it keeps them all on the webmail so you have to manually delete them from that.
From my perspective, its good as it means that I can always use the webmail wherever I am and see all emails, not just the ones that haven't yet been downloaded.
|
Problem is, Bobby, that most ISPs limit the size of your online mailbox, some are very small, so it will get full before too long, and no new stuff will get delivered (and you may not be able to send).
In Outlook/Outlook Express (and probably most other mail clients) there is a check box to delete mail on serfver after download - which, IIRC, can have modifiers - e.g. delete xx days after download, or delete on sever once deleted in mail client.
|
I have my Mac download mail and delete after about 30 days on the server. So when away from home I can still read on the website too (if someone else turns on the Mac it will download).
It's a shame there is no modification for the NAS I have at home to run an email server. It's Linux based so certainly possible.
|
|
True, but then if I send emails from the secondary one, they won't appear on the "main" one. It's this I want to avoid, I want ALL my email activity in one place.
Last edited by: Mike H on Thu 15 Apr 10 at 11:28
|
I tend to do what Smokie says. One main Mac with all the mail on it. POP3 account. All others are set not to delete mail and also use POP3. When I send from those I just BCC myself in to make sure I have a copy.
The only other way that is much cleaner than this is to use IMAP. Essentially this turns your email client into a glorified webmail app so you see the same thing on all machines. On the plus side, if you get a PC nicked you still have your mail on the server. The downside is that you do have to store it all on the server and space can be an issue. I think Gmail gives you 7GB for free, but then you have to be happy with Google storing your information.
If you want to set up your own mail server at home you will either have to have it collect mail from your internet account via POP3, or have the mail directly pushed onto it via SMTP. I understand that the former isn't that reliable with MS Exchange, but then things may have changed. The latter is the preferred way, but then you need a static IP address and your broadband has to be always available unless you use an intermediary SMTP forwarding service where they can back up your mail while you are "offline".
|
What c4p said.
Google mail is easy to configure for IMAP. I have a couple of other email accounts that I forward to gmail so I can handle it all together this way.
You still use a mail client such as Outlook Express or Thunderbird. A major benefit for me with a slow (500kbps) connection is that the mails don't have to download unless I want to open them; the ones I'm not interested in I can ignore or delete without downloading.
Because the mails stay on the server indefinitely I can use multiple machines and webmail without problems.
Anything really important I can drag into a local folder and back up myself.
|
>> MS Exchange is a brilliant solution. For $9.99 (about £7-8) I use the Mail2Web professional
>> Exchange server. Hosted remotely it just works. I have 3 PCs and a phone all
>> seamlessly synched and it has never ever caused a single glitch.
I've used the free version of Mail2Web for the office, but I'll take a look at what you're suggesting.
>> If that's too expensive (it probably is) why don't you just use an email account
>> that supports IMAP so that each copy of Outlook can just sync with the online
>> account - GMail does this for example.
I'll take a look at this as well, although I want to keep using my existing email accounts so if they don't support it it isn't an option.
Thanks for the suggestions anyway, I'll follow them up.
|
Home email server - Statistical Outlier
