GMail features

[diaa]

Hi everybody,
well, let me begin with a short intro... I'm a very big FM fan, it suits my lifestyle, you know very fast, very simple yet powerful... I think you all feel this.

however recently I'm facing alot of temptations from GMail, also alot of my friends keep telling me about its features... and I admit, it's impressive, sure it doesn't have some annoying limitations(Mailbox size, Bandwidth) in FM but it's not as powerful and it doesn't have IMAP :P.

but... GMail is adding new features all the time, and one of the features I discovered recently is this one

tell me what you think in general and does FM offer a feature similar in functionality to the one mentioned above?

[Sherry]

Originally posted by diaa
tell me what you think in general and does FM offer a feature similar in functionality to the one mentioned above?

You bet it does. It's called Plus-Addresses. It also offers something, I think, is much better called SubDomains. Guest (free) users can use the Plus-Addressing but you need a paid account to use SubDomains. Lets say your address is 'jcitizen@fastmail.fm'. You can give out the addresses of 'anything@jcitizen.fastmail.fm.

Oh, one other thing. If you have a folder called 'anything' the email will automatically go to that folder when FM gets it.

You can read about it Here .

Sherry

[hadaso]

Originally posted by diaa
... one of the features I discovered recently is this one...

The main problem with Gmail's implementation of plus-addressing is that Gmail doesn't really provide a way to reliably filter incoming email sent to such an address. Gmail has no way to filter by envelope information. FastMail does. FastMail adds a header named "X-delivered-to" that records the envelope recipient address and allows filtering using it. Gmail loses envelope information, and an email can only be filtered using header or body content, that is easily forged.

[diaa]

Wow, that's my beloved fastmail, no other email service can beat it

I thought I knew most of each features(I read alot in the FAQ and help), but seems I was wrong.

I'm really happy with this feature, thanks for the help.

[541]

Part of the problem with Gmail not being able to filter is the fact they don't have folders. The lack of folders is a deal breaker for me. Because of that, I only use Gmail as back up for other accounts.

[hadaso]

Originally posted by 541
Part of the problem with Gmail not being able to filter is the fact they don't have folders...

They have labels, which have some advantages over folders. I forward most email that comes to my FastMail account to a "plus address" in Gmail, and I wanted to label the email that comes through this forwarding so I can isolate it in Gmail, but I found no way to do it.

[rmns2bseen]

Originally posted by diaa

but... GMail is adding new features all the time, and one of the features I discovered recently is...

I like Gmail and use it frequently; but one of the features they don't have is an identifiable individual to contact in case of problems

[hadaso]

Originally posted by rmns2bseen
... an identifiable individual to contact in case of problems

You mean you don't discuss these with Larry or Sergey?

[rmns2bseen]

Originally posted by hadaso
You mean you don't discuss these with Larry or Sergey?

Nope...you think maybe I'm a little intimidating or something?

[Sherry]

Originally posted by hadaso
They have labels, which have some advantages over folders. I forward most email that comes to my FastMail account to a "plus address" in Gmail, and I wanted to label the email that comes through this forwarding so I can isolate it in Gmail, but I found no way to do it.

I have a filter in Gmail that when email is from a certain address to skip the inbox and apply a filter so that does work for me.

Sherry

[hadaso]

Originally posted by Sherry
I have a filter in Gmail that when email is from a certain address...

I know how to filter by the address in the "from" header in Gmail. The problem is how to filter relayed mail. Mail redirected by FastMail using Sieve (or other forwarders I use( remains the same as the original except for some header fields (such as "Received") that are added by the forwarder. They don't provide good characterization of the forwarded mail (and also I don't see how to access info in "Received" or other headers in Gmail filtering). The envelope-to is the most reliable info in a message, and Gmail filtering cannot access this info (I forward to an address like me+viafastmail@gmail.com but Gmail loses is info and doesn't seem to allow filtering based on it).

[infoghost]

Another flaw in the gmail '+' system is it's not always recognized by all forms or email systems. I've had a few mailing lists tell me it's invalid, and I've had some take it, but never allow me to leave the list because suddenly they see the address without the +. CNN is a good example, I signed up for their breaking news, got on, but could never cancel it.

Cool idea. I like fastmails better.

[poelmanc]

I just had to use gmail for a while because fastmail locked my account due to overbandwidth usage. All I had done was set up a new machine with Thunderbird and IMAP and checked the "make available offline" box, which of course causes your entire mailbox to be downloaded. Anyway, fastmail flagged this and gave me a message saying my mail would be down for one hour, but here it is 10 hours later and it's still locked... Grr...

Gmail is pretty sweet. But one thing I didn't like: I use Firefox and always have tons of tabs open viewing emails, composing emails, viewing different folders, copying from an old email and pasting into a new one, searching for some old email while composing a new one, etc. Gmail somehow grabs the middle-mouse button and won't let me click on any messages or on the "Compose" link and open it in a new tab. I can't go back to living with a single screen!

So I guess as soon as fastmail unlocks my account, I'll come back here.

[Abydos]

Originally posted by Sherry
...Lets say your address is 'jcitizen@fastmail.fm'. You can give out the addresses of 'anything@jcitizen.fastmail.fm.

Sherry

I really like the sound of this & I read in some of your other posts (Sherry) that you give everyone a subdomain address to track where spam might come from. eg dad@myalias.fastmail.fm, amazon@myalias.fastmail.fm etc.

But has anyone had any experience of spammers getting hold of one of these addresses & then just sending spam to random (eg) ***@myalias.fastmail.fm?

Isn't this then very hard to filter, as whatever address they use, it'll still get through. You'd then have to delete the entire alias to block it?

Or do spammers rarely use this scatter gun approach with subdomains?

Richard

[Mugwhamp]

Originally posted by Abydos
I really like the sound of this & I read in some of your other posts (Sherry) that you give everyone a subdomain address to track where spam might come from. eg dad@myalias.fastmail.fm, amazon@myalias.fastmail.fm etc.

But has anyone had any experience of spammers getting hold of one of these addresses & then just sending spam to random (eg) ***@myalias.fastmail.fm?
Richard

Yes, in fact I've gotten about six virus rejected email notifications today using things like mike@myalias.fastmail.fm or support@myalias.fastmail.fm. It ebbs and flows, but I always have the option of dumping the alias. It's never gotten to be more than about 10/day however, and happens sporadically, so I haven't bothered with disposal of the alias.