How can I get my Blackberry to support email identities?

March 7, 2008 7:21 AM

How can I get my Blackberry to support email identities?

Does anyone know of a solution (hack, program, etc ..) for the Blackberry to allow sending email using "identities". I use one mailbox (I use Zimbra CS) where all my various emails, from different email addresses, are sent. This way I have one location to manage all my email. Though I can receive all my email on my Blackberry easily I have not been able to find a solution that would allow me to send outbound email from my Blackberry using different identities. I have tried BBReply in the past but all it does is change the "reply-to" field which doesn't look very professional. I am looking for a solution that will prevent email sent to business clients from having any mention of my personal email and vice-versa. This functionality exists in Thunderbird, Zimbra, and Outlook. I am surprised it is not supported natively by the Blackberry.

posted by DerekTheGeek to technology (7 comments total)

I forgot to mention I use a Blackberry 8830 with Verizon. Thanks.
posted by DerekTheGeek at 7:22 AM on March 7, 2008

I may not be understanding the question, but does your 8830 not have a "Send Using" field at the top of the email when you compose an email? That's how I determine what mailbox I will send from of the various mailboxes my BB polls.
posted by The Bellman at 8:02 AM on March 7, 2008

The "Send Using" option only appears if you have multiple accounts setup on your Blackberry. I only have a single mailbox to which all my emails go so I don't have multiple accounts and therefore don't have that option.
posted by DerekTheGeek at 8:10 AM on March 7, 2008

I see. Could you set up the BB to poll all the email addresses individually (bypassing Zimbra for purposes of the handheld only)? Or even set it up to poll those addresses but filter out all mail so that none of it ends up on the BB except the mail from Zimbra? That way the BB would know about all the accounts for sending purposes, but received mail would come through the central account.
posted by The Bellman at 8:31 AM on March 7, 2008

You bring up a good idea. I could create a separate mailbox for each account I would like to send from, however, each mailbox would cost me an additional $10 month, bringing my total cost to $40/month for four (4) email addresses. If I can't find another solution this may be my only option, though an expensive one. I was hoping to find something that would allow me to just use the single mailbox and use identities for outgoing mail. I would think that more than a few people would be using the same setup as myself. Having just one place to check all my email is essential to my sanity. :) Thanks again for the suggestion.
posted by DerekTheGeek at 8:42 AM on March 7, 2008

You need to work out if you are using BES or BIS. If you are using BIS (you can be using both) you need to go the web interface which is a link your service provider gives you. In there you will be allowed to set up upto 10 email identities. In short, you can use pop or imap settings in addition to Yahoo and Gmail etc. Once you have set that up you can set one of them as your default identity.

Now you will start receiving emails from all your (4) accounts (at no extra cost) and each email you respond to goes to the sender with its original identity. If you forward an email or compose a fresh email you can scroll all the way up on this screen and choose which identity you want to send this email from.

I hope I understood your question and hope this works. If not sorry.
posted by london302 at 9:04 AM on March 7, 2008

The problem with your solution is that I would need to have a separate mailbox for each email address, which I don't. I only have one mailbox therefore one login to my email system. BIS won't allow you to setup multiple accounts with the same login information. Thanks for the suggestion though.
posted by DerekTheGeek at 9:16 AM on March 7, 2008