backup email info.

jfv · 21 Aug 2003, 11:51 AM

hey there,

i've been recently quite intrigued by the idea of setting up backup email server, the cheap way, which would involve having all mail go through a (usually) reliable forwarding service like pobox.com and then forward each email both to my primary fastmail account as well as to as secondary email account.

having to manually erase tons of email is annoying, however, and if you don't the backup email account will so be clogged and inoperative. the question therefore is: does anyone know of a free and usually reliable email provider that will allow you to specify how long you want the mail to say on the server before it gets automatically cleared (say 7 days then it's wiped)?

jules

DrStrabismus · 21 Aug 2003, 12:04 PM

If you don't need to conserve bandwidth, you can do this using a fastmail pop-link and set it to delete after, say, seven days. The duplicate filter will prevent you getting a second copy.

Another advantage is that eventually everything ends up in one account.

bitequator · 21 Aug 2003, 12:48 PM

Hi, are we sure we can rely on duplicate filter for all situations? I forget now but I seem to remember having had the impression it didn't apply in some specific cases...?

lukask · 21 Aug 2003, 04:47 PM

SoftHome (http://www.softhome.net) offers a free webmail account with 6MB and 150 messages maximum, which expire automatically when you reach these limits; I think that is what is intended:

Quote:

Large messages have a shorter life expectancy than small messages.
Messages you have seen have a shorter life expectancy than messages you have not seen.
Messages in your POP mailbox (aka your web-based INBOX folder) have a shorter life expectancy than messages you have moved to a different web-based mail folder.
Messages in your web-based Trash and Sent folders have a low life expectancy.
Web-only folders (besides Trash and Sent) have a longer life expectancy than the INBOX folder. The INBOX folder is shared with POP.

hardeep · 29 Aug 2003, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DrStrabismus
If you don't need to conserve bandwidth, you can do this using a fastmail pop-link and set it to delete after, say, seven days. The duplicate filter will prevent you getting a second copy.

Another advantage is that eventually everything ends up in one account.

I'm trying this method using Yahoo as my backup mail server. However, as bitequator mentioned, the duplicate filter doesn't appear to be working properly as I'm getting two copies of all e-mails. I've checked the headers of the messages and the Message-IDs are identical. Does the duplicate filter use some other header information to find duplicates? Is there an option I need to set to get this to work properly?

On a related note, does anyone know of a Windows mail client that allows filtering of duplicate messages? If I can't get the above working or to save Fastmail bandwidth, I was thinking I could try client-side filtering of duplicates.

-Hardeep

jfv · 29 Aug 2003, 10:50 AM

Many thanks for the helpful suggestions.

I've done a trial using a pobox forwarding that sent a copy of my email to my fastmail account and another one to a softhome account I created. Well, that's in theory, since about 30% of the mail actually ended up in the softhome account. At first I thought it was a forwarding problem but then I tried directly emailing the account to discover, to my dismay, that either the mail takes an awful long time (i.e. more than one hour) to get there or it doesn't get there at all.

Any other idea for a free email account that would automatically purge the oldest messages as the quota is reached?

Cordially,
Jules

lukask · 29 Aug 2003, 05:09 PM

GMX freemail: 20 MB, messages will be automatically deleted after three months.

But the site is in German only.

bitequator · 29 Aug 2003, 05:45 PM

How do Trash or Bulk folder auto-deletion work at places like Yahoo and Hotmail? I think their policy is something like: those folder contents are subject to auto deletion after 30 days. Which means it's not a hard and fast rule I guess.

Anyways, with Yahoo for example, maybe you can just filter all inbound to one of those folders, so that Yahoo will auto delete from time to time. Just better hope they delete individual emails after 30 days, not not just delete the whole folder every 30 days

21 Aug 2003, 11:51 AM	#1
jfv Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 27	backup email info. hey there, i've been recently quite intrigued by the idea of setting up backup email server, the cheap way, which would involve having all mail go through a (usually) reliable forwarding service like pobox.com and then forward each email both to my primary fastmail account as well as to as secondary email account. having to manually erase tons of email is annoying, however, and if you don't the backup email account will so be clogged and inoperative. the question therefore is: does anyone know of a free and usually reliable email provider that will allow you to specify how long you want the mail to say on the server before it gets automatically cleared (say 7 days then it's wiped)? jules

21 Aug 2003, 12:04 PM	#2
DrStrabismus The "e" in e-mail Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,804	If you don't need to conserve bandwidth, you can do this using a fastmail pop-link and set it to delete after, say, seven days. The duplicate filter will prevent you getting a second copy. Another advantage is that eventually everything ends up in one account.

21 Aug 2003, 12:48 PM	#3
bitequator The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: USA Posts: 2,978	Hi, are we sure we can rely on duplicate filter for all situations? I forget now but I seem to remember having had the impression it didn't apply in some specific cases...?

29 Aug 2003, 10:50 AM	#6
jfv Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 27	Many thanks for the helpful suggestions. I've done a trial using a pobox forwarding that sent a copy of my email to my fastmail account and another one to a softhome account I created. Well, that's in theory, since about 30% of the mail actually ended up in the softhome account. At first I thought it was a forwarding problem but then I tried directly emailing the account to discover, to my dismay, that either the mail takes an awful long time (i.e. more than one hour) to get there or it doesn't get there at all. Any other idea for a free email account that would automatically purge the oldest messages as the quota is reached? Cordially, Jules

29 Aug 2003, 05:09 PM	#7
lukask Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Haarlem, Netherlands Posts: 311	GMX freemail: 20 MB, messages will be automatically deleted after three months. But the site is in German only.

29 Aug 2003, 05:45 PM	#8
bitequator The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: USA Posts: 2,978	How do Trash or Bulk folder auto-deletion work at places like Yahoo and Hotmail? I think their policy is something like: those folder contents are subject to auto deletion after 30 days. Which means it's not a hard and fast rule I guess. Anyways, with Yahoo for example, maybe you can just filter all inbound to one of those folders, so that Yahoo will auto delete from time to time. Just better hope they delete individual emails after 30 days, not not just delete the whole folder every 30 days