How do I simplify my email accounts?

October 1, 2007 9:33 AM

How can I make Gmail retrieve email from my university's webmail service?

I've tried following the directions given by Gmail and searching for the answer online, but every time I attempt to have Gmail fetch my mail, the error "connection timed out" is given. Is there anything I can do to make simplify my email life?

posted by jefficator to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Can you just set a rule to forward all mail your university account receives to your Gmail account?
posted by middleclasstool at 9:35 AM on October 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is going to depend a lot on how your University has their email system setup. If it is a POP email account, you would add the account in the GMail preferences. If it is IMAP or Exchange you will need to forward the email to your gmail account which could be a setting in your University webmail.
posted by genial at 9:44 AM on October 1, 2007

The webmail service opens a Microsoft Outlook page in internet explorer. That's pretty much all I know about it. Does that tell anyone anything?
posted by jefficator at 9:55 AM on October 1, 2007

That's actually very telling. I assume it says "Outlook Web Access" then? If that's the case you're on Exchange as far as email clients and generally I don't think you have a whole lot of options. We use it at my work (also a University) and looking through the options I don't see anyway of filtering and forwarding email to another account. Perhaps someone else knows a trick I haven't thought of.
posted by genial at 10:05 AM on October 1, 2007

clients protocols
posted by genial at 10:06 AM on October 1, 2007

My university (Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX) uses the same system, but there's an option to turn the online inbox off and instead forward the email to a POP3 account. I take it yours doesn't have that option?
posted by DMan at 10:19 AM on October 1, 2007

It will depend on what version of Exchage is being used. Log in to your web mail. At the bottom left, you should see Rules. Click on that, then choose New. A new box should pop up. In Rule Name, use Forward all. Under "Then" choose "forward it to" and enter your Gmail account.

It should also be noted, that this is usually disabled for a good reason. Most administrators do not like the idea of not having control of confidential data. I would advise you to check your policy regarding storing university information off of their servers.
posted by Climber at 12:14 PM on October 1, 2007

I don't have an option marked "Rules"
posted by jefficator at 1:28 PM on October 1, 2007

Have you tried talking to your university's IT department? I'm sure they get this question often. You could also look on their website.
posted by philomathoholic at 1:53 PM on October 1, 2007

Are you attending Princeton University? If so, then check out this page.

From the link: The following steps must be done using Microsoft Outlook; they cannot be accomplished in OWA. Please contact the OIT Help Desk for more information.

OWA == Outlook Web Access
posted by philomathoholic at 1:57 PM on October 1, 2007

Well, if you can set up web hosting with python scripts you could try this.
posted by Good Brain at 2:31 PM on October 1, 2007

Find your IT department's page. It's very likely that they have a page set up with just this kind of information. You're looking for POP access information
posted by chrisamiller at 4:31 PM on October 1, 2007

Following philomathoholic's comment, if you indeed are a Princeton student you could attempt the directions here.

...you must also set up forwarding on the Where is my Mail Going? web page (login required). Choose Change Entry under Set Delivery and change your Primary Mail Delivery Location to your new e-mail address.
posted by genial at 1:11 PM on October 2, 2007

looks like this has been answered, but just a quick note: I'm a student at ASU (where the university email is actually provided by GMail) and recently went through a similar process to forward that mail to my personal GMail. Turns out that, in addition to enabling POP forwarding/retrieval in each of the accounts, I also had to enable a POP network service within my ASU student account. Your situation may vary.
posted by Chris4d at 11:52 AM on October 3, 2007