Fastmail app and offline access

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by gardenweed

I've seen in the pass it does heaps of log-ins. And the IP address shown is somewhere in Virginia - but I'm in Australia.
So what's behind all those log-ins? Obviously it needs to be able to log in to get the email. But why so many & why the Virginia IP ? I never understood this.

I am unsure why you see log-ins from Virginia. I would try to figure out which device is involved which may allow you to identify the mail client and give you a clue.

There are often many log-ins because of the way IMAP works. Each time a separate folder is accessed, this can result in a separate log-in (depending on how the mail client works). I have seen this behaviour with the Apple IOS Mail app.

[gardenweed]

Originally Posted by BritTim

... I would try to figure out which device is involved which may allow you to identify the mail client and give you a clue.

.

I know which App it is.
It's Outlook on my Android.

[hitoriangasu]

Originally Posted by gardenweed

I've seen in the pass it does heaps of log-ins. And the IP address shown is somewhere in Virginia - but I'm in Australia.
So what's behind all those log-ins? Obviously it needs to be able to log in to get the email. But why so many & why the Virginia IP ? I never understood this.

Well, it's polling for email and each time it does that will be a separate login. And the Virginia IP is likely a server farm - either Azure or AWS.

[gardenweed]

Originally Posted by hitoriangasu

Well, it's polling for email and each time it does that will be a separate login. And the Virginia IP is likely a server farm - either Azure or AWS.

So if the MS Outlook App is bringing my FM email onto a MS server in say VA, would the email sitting on their server still be encrypted or now unencrypted?

[hitoriangasu]

Originally Posted by gardenweed

So if the MS Outlook App is bringing my FM email onto a MS server in say VA, would the email sitting on their server still be encrypted or now unencrypted?

Vis-a-vis anyone without the encryption keys (or access via your app) to that server it will be encrypted, but I suspect your email would not be encrypted on the server itself. So, Microsoft employees who have access to the server will probably have access to your email subject to the internal controls that Microsoft puts in place (which should be stringent). But the server itself will be encrypted so no-one outside of Microsoft should be able to access your email (as they won't be able to access the data on the server).

[hitoriangasu]

Originally Posted by hitoriangasu

Vis-a-vis anyone without the encryption keys (or access via your app) to that server it will be encrypted, but I suspect your email would not be encrypted on the server itself. So, Microsoft employees who have access to the server will probably have access to your email subject to the internal controls that Microsoft puts in place (which should be stringent). But the server itself will be encrypted so no-one outside of Microsoft should be able to access your email (as they won't be able to access the data on the server).

Or at least that's how I think it should work. Certainly MS could encrypt your own email separately if they wanted to, but that's usually a premium offering for cloud services. But it's what Proton Mail does. It plays havoc with IMAP though.

[jaynyc]

Originally Posted by robn

It's our #1 feature request for the apps - believe me when I say we're very aware of it. It's going to require quite a few changes in both the webapp itself and in the server backend. We're working on some of those pieces at the moment, but not all of them are priorities yet.

I don't have an ETA for you. You shouldn't expect it this year though. I would personally hope to see something in the second half of next year, but that's not much more than a guess right now.

@robn and anyone else still tracking this thread

New forum user here, am looking at switching to Fastmail and visited this page which says"

No offline support yet
We are building the infrastructure to support offline capability.
We don't know when the feature will be ready.

I'm curious because this thread is now over 4 years old.... what's the real story with Fastmail iOS and Android apps storing some amount email on the mobile device for offline use? It seems odd that in September 2015 offline access was the #1 most requested feature....

Thanks to anyone here for any guidance.

[BritTim]

Offline support is often requested, but it is a major undertaking. In spite of the demand, there are (I believe) two key reasons why it has yet to be implemented (and, in my view, may well never be):

1. The opportunity cost involved in shelving other enhancements and features to get offline support done.
2. Those for whom offline support is critical have other options. There are mail clients that work well with FastMail that already have offline support.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by jaynyc

... what's the real story with Fastmail iOS and Android apps storing some amount email on the mobile device for offline use? ...

I have no insight into the Fastmail plans on this, but it’s a good question and I will ask people I know on their staff. My iPhone iOS app is the latest beta version (yes, you can change this in the iOS Settings screen for the Fastmail app), but I have seen nothing which would indicate that changes allowing offline use are underway.

One issue I can imagine is the size of email accounts these days. I have a Standard Fastmail plan which provides 25 GB of email storage. At this time I’m using a little over 15 GB of email quota in my Fastmail account. Although I have plenty of storage for all of those emails on both of my iOS devices, many users could find their devices not able to store off of their email quota. And if using a mobile cellular data service to transfer the initial message store, my guess is that many users might overload their mobile service plan and get large bills. The IMAP protocol has the concept of “subscribed” folders (which might help), but of course some people may only use their Inbox to save a huge historic message store.

So if Fastmail implements offline storage in their mobile (iOS and Android) clients, I think they might need to implement a system where you could specify a certain number of messages or a time range (such as the previous month or year) for each folder.

These days I’m rarely out of range of fast access to the internet and the current Fastmail online search is very fast, So I have little use of offline storage except for viewing recent messages when I’m in a parking garage or other location where I can’t get to their server.

I agree with the comments from BritTim.

Bill