Email, My Thoughts

[emanon]

Dear Folks,

I was staggered by the recent FM outage on Server3. Quite frankly, the
duration of service interruption was unbelievable. Initially, the
communication about the outage was poor, confusing time stamps and
all. However, to be fair, FM's communication did improve somewhat
during the course of events, becoming more frequent and
predictable. In any case the worst now seems to be over. I am staying
with their service since I still think FM is a good company, and its
user interface, in my view, remains even after several years, and the
emergence of many other email companies including gmail, possibly the
best - the best at least for a certain kind of user. (Try using lynx
or w3m to access gmail!)

The outage was edifying. Edifying because it became clear that I had
not given much thought to the central role email, even in 2006, plays
in one's personal information management. Despite the ever-increasing
bally-hoo and hype for all things techno- or computer-centric, email
remains the one indisputable "killer application" for computers. So it
deserves some thought and even afterthought. But enough prefatory
remarks.

I'm starting this thread to collect my thoughts on how to manage email
generally. Writing things down is, one might suppose, part of the
thinking process. In any case, possibly someone else might find some
of the remarks useful too. Constructive criticism, remarks,
suggestions are of course welcome.

Emanon

[emanon]

One Element in an Email Redundancy Plan:

How to keep sent mail (more or less) in synch between a FastMail and a
gmail account.

Assumptions:

• You are using a mail forwarding service provided by your domain
  host such that incoming mail sent to, for example,
  you@yourdomain.com, is forwarded to both a FastMail and gmail
  account. The FastMail and gmail accounts are set up consistently
  such that, for instance, a FastMail "personality" and a
  so-called gmail "account" (less ambiguously, a user alias) are
  identical: e.g. you@yourdomain.com.

Problem:

• Copies of mail sent from the FastMail (or gmail) account are not
  archived at the other account.

Possible Solution:

• Gmail is set up to archive certain incoming messages to a
  specified Label view skipping the inbox so that mail sent using
  the bcc forwarding feature in a FastMail account (to for
  instance: "username+FMsent@gmail.com") is automatically archived
  in a gmail account, and mail sent from a gmail account is
  manually bcc'ed to a FastMail "Sent Items" folder.

Method:[list=1][*] In FastMail account: Select Options > Personalities. Now add a
BCC address. Here for example: username+FMsent@gmail.com. Note:
Personalities having a BCC address will have a (b) appended to
the personality to indicate the activated BCC option.
[*] In gmail account: Create a new Contact named FMsent with email
address "username+FMsent@gmail.com". (NB: For immediate purpose,
this step is actually redundant/optional.)
[*] Create a new Label called "FMsent".
[*] Select Settings > Filters and create a new Filter for email from
your fastmail personality, e.g. you@yourdomain.com. Choose the
following actions: first, Skip the Inbox (Archive it); second,
Apply the label "FMsent". Now you can call up all duplicates in
gmail of mail sent from the FastMail account by selecting the
label "FMsent" in the gmail account.
[*] Note: On Fastmail member accounts, mail can be sent directly to
the "Sent Items" folder by using the email address
sent_items@fastmailusername.fastmail.fm.
[*] To send a blind copy (BCC) from gmail to the FastMail "Sent
Items" folder: Create a new Contact named "sent", specify
contact's email as sent_items@fastmailusername.fastmail.fm. Now
for all gmail outgoing messages, manually append to the BCC
field, "sent".[/list=1]
Notes:

• Only a simple application, assuming one primary mail address, is
  outlined in the method above, supposing for instance, that
  FastMail is used as one's primary email interface, and gmail for
  redundancy purposes. In such use, the method is fairly
  transparent and elegant. If more FastMail personalities, or
  generally aliases are used, additional gmail filters etc will
  have to be specified.

References:

• Gmail Tips, The Complete Collection. URL:
  http://g04.com/misc/GmailTipsComplete.html, see
  esp. http://g04.com/misc/GmailTipsComplete.html#Tip-03
• FastMail, Automatic BCC option for personalities. URL:
  http://blog.fastmail.fm/?p=555

[estrabd]

I think that you can add dots in your gmail addess, and they are essentially ignored - however you can filter on them.

jsmith@gmail.com and j.smith@gmail.com go to the same place, but can be filtered distinguished by a filter bc of the dot....or so I hear.

update:

confirmed. You can even do stuff like:

j.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com
j....s....mit.....h@gmail.com

[Shazzer]

Thanks so much for posting this, Emanon. In the wake of last week's service outage, I set up a personal domain e-mail address pointing to both FM (primary) and Gmail (as back-up), but hadn't quite figured out how to back-up my outgoing mail from FM to Gmail in a logically organized way. The system you've outlined here will work perfectly for me needs. Cheers!