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hadaso · 10 Apr 2023, 09:42 AM

There's a help page on the new "My email addresses" screen here: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/a.../6400028063119 (it the "learn more" link from that screen).
It explains some but not all of what I see in that screen.
For example, the "status" of dsome of my email addresses is "Catch-all" and this status is not mentioned in the help page (openning that address for editing provides an explanation). These are sending identities I set for some of my email addresses that are receiving mail through a catch-all alias.
More confusing is that they seem to get it wrong: I have an catch-all alias for *@mydomain.tld, and I have another alias for bounce@mydomain.tld. They are both now in the least of "Team addresses", and the setting seem to be unchanged from what they were when they were called "aliases".
I also had a sending identity set for bounce@mydomain.tld. now it is called a "My email address", and the settings seem to be unchanged from when it was called a "sending identity".
When I click "Edit" for this address, I see this message: "This address can send and/or receive mail because *@mydomain.tld delivers mail to you."
Now this is not supposed to work this way, because a particular alias under a domain is supposed to override catch-all alias settings for the domain.
I have other aliases under the same domain and they are not detected as being derived from a catch-all.
Another thing I see when I open this bounce@mydomain.tld for editing is "To send as bounce@mydomain.tld you must first verify that you own this address."
The help page says this is the case for addresses whose status is "Verify" and not other statuses. There is no indication that the address needs to be verified unless one opens it to editing. Also it is an address in a domain that I host in Fastmail so I don't see why it needs further verification that it is "my address". I pointed the NS records of the domain to Fastmail's NS servers so it's pretty good verification.
Another address's status is "Blocked"/ The help page says this means "This email address sends mail through Fastmail, but has been set to reject incoming mail:. That's correct. It is an alias in one of Fastmail's domains. Actually it's the first alias I used when I became a user of FastMail more the 20 years ago (but not 20 years ago today...) I disabled that alias a long time ago, and that is still it's status in the "Team addresses" screen. So it's supposed to not receive any mail but to be available for sending mail, however, when opening the email address for editing it says that it needs to be verified to be able to send. So the "Blocked" status is wrong, and the correct status is apparently "Verify", and there's nothing to suggest that verification is needed until one decides to try to edit the address. But then again, why would an alias in a Fastmail owned domain that points at a particular user's account need to be verified by that user?
I haven't yet tried to "verify" those addresses, but I guess that this involves having them receive email, and since they are blocked addresses they do not receive email (especially the bounce@ address whose sole purpose is to serve as a sender's address that doesn't receive replies.
I don't really understand the purpose and function of the "Team addresses" screen. I I want to add a user I use the "user management" screen. Unlike the "My email address" screen the "Team addresses" screen contains no link to a help page.
Back to "My email addresses": there's one email address that's certainly "mine": the one I use for corresponding with family and friends. Also the catch-all for my domain. These are labelled as "Shared". Two other addresses are also labelled as "shared": aliases in Fastmail owned domains that I use as a whois contact and with my domain registrar (so they still work if there's a problem with the domain). When opening any of them for editing it says: "This is a shared address. Messages sent to this address will go to you and other members of your team". However, these are not shared with anyone but myself. The only thing that makes them "shared" is that they are set to deliver a copy to a gmail account for backup (so they are available in case Fastmail is down; I don't recall ever using this backup option' except perhaps when Fastmail was down for several days more than a decade ago). They are certainly not shared with any other user within my Fastmail account.

One more thing: any address can have a "Nickname" (in the advanced settings for each address). It not new. It was so with sending identities. In the past (perhaps distant past) it was very useful because it appeared in the identity drop-down menu in the compose screen and helped in choosing the correct identity. That list was sorted by the nickname and I used it to control the order in that drop-down menu. This functionality was lost some time in the past. Now the nickname has very little use, and there seems to be no way to make the drop-down menu of identities (that is' of my email addresses) sort in a useful way. I need to scroll down quite a lot to find addresses I use often. If anyone has an idea how to force it to sort in a desired way I would like to hear about it.

Probably with time I would get used to the new setup. Nothing in my daily usage has change. Those addresses that require verification are ones i haven't used for many years. And while in the past I understood completely what an alias was and what an identity was, and where to deal with which, now it is less clear what is the difference between "my addresses" and my addresses that are classified "team addresses".
BTW, I never liked the term "alias". I always thought it was just an email address, and I didn't like the distinction between the user's main address (used to login) and the other addresses (the aliases) that was in Fastmail's early days. It is more correct to use the name "email address" than "alias"/
However, sending identities are not the same as email addresses: there's no reason to force a user to use different email addresses if the user want's to use just one address, and to identify as say "Bob" when corresponding with friends, as "Bobby" when corresponding with close family and as "Mr's Robert Smith, attorney at law" when corresponding with clients, and as "Robert Smith" when corresponding with others.

10 Apr 2023, 09:42 AM	#23
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,859	There's a help page on the new "My email addresses" screen here: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/a.../6400028063119 (it the "learn more" link from that screen). It explains some but not all of what I see in that screen. For example, the "status" of dsome of my email addresses is "Catch-all" and this status is not mentioned in the help page (openning that address for editing provides an explanation). These are sending identities I set for some of my email addresses that are receiving mail through a catch-all alias. More confusing is that they seem to get it wrong: I have an catch-all alias for @mydomain.tld, and I have another alias for bounce@mydomain.tld. They are both now in the least of "Team addresses", and the setting seem to be unchanged from what they were when they were called "aliases". I also had a sending identity set for bounce@mydomain.tld. now it is called a "My email address", and the settings seem to be unchanged from when it was called a "sending identity". When I click "Edit" for this address, I see this message: "This address can send and/or receive mail because @mydomain.tld delivers mail to you." Now this is not supposed to work this way, because a particular alias under a domain is supposed to override catch-all alias settings for the domain. I have other aliases under the same domain and they are not detected as being derived from a catch-all. Another thing I see when I open this bounce@mydomain.tld for editing is "To send as bounce@mydomain.tld you must first verify that you own this address." The help page says this is the case for addresses whose status is "Verify" and not other statuses. There is no indication that the address needs to be verified unless one opens it to editing. Also it is an address in a domain that I host in Fastmail so I don't see why it needs further verification that it is "my address". I pointed the NS records of the domain to Fastmail's NS servers so it's pretty good verification. Another address's status is "Blocked"/ The help page says this means "This email address sends mail through Fastmail, but has been set to reject incoming mail:. That's correct. It is an alias in one of Fastmail's domains. Actually it's the first alias I used when I became a user of FastMail more the 20 years ago (but not 20 years ago today...) I disabled that alias a long time ago, and that is still it's status in the "Team addresses" screen. So it's supposed to not receive any mail but to be available for sending mail, however, when opening the email address for editing it says that it needs to be verified to be able to send. So the "Blocked" status is wrong, and the correct status is apparently "Verify", and there's nothing to suggest that verification is needed until one decides to try to edit the address. But then again, why would an alias in a Fastmail owned domain that points at a particular user's account need to be verified by that user? I haven't yet tried to "verify" those addresses, but I guess that this involves having them receive email, and since they are blocked addresses they do not receive email (especially the bounce@ address whose sole purpose is to serve as a sender's address that doesn't receive replies. I don't really understand the purpose and function of the "Team addresses" screen. I I want to add a user I use the "user management" screen. Unlike the "My email address" screen the "Team addresses" screen contains no link to a help page. Back to "My email addresses": there's one email address that's certainly "mine": the one I use for corresponding with family and friends. Also the catch-all for my domain. These are labelled as "Shared". Two other addresses are also labelled as "shared": aliases in Fastmail owned domains that I use as a whois contact and with my domain registrar (so they still work if there's a problem with the domain). When opening any of them for editing it says: "This is a shared address. Messages sent to this address will go to you and other members of your team". However, these are not shared with anyone but myself. The only thing that makes them "shared" is that they are set to deliver a copy to a gmail account for backup (so they are available in case Fastmail is down; I don't recall ever using this backup option' except perhaps when Fastmail was down for several days more than a decade ago). They are certainly not shared with any other user within my Fastmail account. One more thing: any address can have a "Nickname" (in the advanced settings for each address). It not new. It was so with sending identities. In the past (perhaps distant past) it was very useful because it appeared in the identity drop-down menu in the compose screen and helped in choosing the correct identity. That list was sorted by the nickname and I used it to control the order in that drop-down menu. This functionality was lost some time in the past. Now the nickname has very little use, and there seems to be no way to make the drop-down menu of identities (that is' of my email addresses) sort in a useful way. I need to scroll down quite a lot to find addresses I use often. If anyone has an idea how to force it to sort in a desired way I would like to hear about it. Probably with time I would get used to the new setup. Nothing in my daily usage has change. Those addresses that require verification are ones i haven't used for many years. And while in the past I understood completely what an alias was and what an identity was, and where to deal with which, now it is less clear what is the difference between "my addresses" and my addresses that are classified "team addresses". BTW, I never liked the term "alias". I always thought it was just an email address, and I didn't like the distinction between the user's main address (used to login) and the other addresses (the aliases) that was in Fastmail's early days. It is more correct to use the name "email address" than "alias"/ However, sending identities are not the same as email addresses: there's no reason to force a user to use different email addresses if the user want's to use just one address, and to identify as say "Bob" when corresponding with friends, as "Bobby" when corresponding with close family and as "Mr's Robert Smith, attorney at law" when corresponding with clients, and as "Robert Smith" when corresponding with others.