Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with forwarding

URL forwards in a frame

andrewzipp — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:17:49 -0800

Is there a domain shortener like TinyURL that forwards, but keeps the http://tinyurl.com/whatever part stay in the address bar? I need to send links to sites that are stored at MyCompany.com/whatever and not have it say MyCompany.com. I used to use Good.to or Goin.to for this, but they are going under soon.

Lotus Notes and Outlook forwarding problem

paulyballs — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:55:39 -0800

I use Outlook 2003 in the office. If I receive an email from someone outside the company that uses Lotus Notes and I try to forward that email, the body of the email is stripped automatically when it is forwarded. Has anybody ever heard of this?

How can I be in two places at once when my mail isn't anywhere at all?

DiscourseMarker — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:29:30 -0800

USPS mail forwarding: Can I have permanent and temporary change of address requests at the same time? In February I moved from Address A to Address B within the same city, and I filled out a permanent Change of Address request with the USPS. I don't actually get very much mail forwarded, because I changed my address with all of the businesses that I could think of back in February, but occasionally some fall through the cracks.

Next week I will be leaving for Address C (in another state) *temporarily* (until mid-August), and I would like to have a temporary Change of Address with the USPS to forward my mail from Address B to Address C.

What I'm wondering is if filling out a temporary request to forward mail from B to C will affect my permanent request forwarding mail from A to B. I looked through the USPS.com FAQ but I couldn't find anything relevant to this situation. Has anyone here ever dealt with something like this before?

Really, I don't get that much snail mail (save Netflix, and there I can easily change the shipping address), but I'm just paranoid that this will be the one time when something important that I totally forgot to account for will arrive, and I won't get it.

Help me port forward with my new router, please!

proj — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:44:40 -0800

Bittorrent hell with new router! Vital statistics upfront:

Macbook running OS X 10.5.6.
Actiontec GT701 Cable Modem (Qwest).
D-Link DIR-625 Wireless Router.

I was just forced to buy a new router. I got the D-Link listed above. I have never had a problem forwarding ports before and have always had great bittorrent speeds. This is not my first, second, or even third router over the years. I have never had a problem opening up ports on any of them. Not anymore. The only change that I have made lately is with the router.

I have my computer set to this IP. I have the router forwarding port 50000, like so. Port-checking utilities tell me the port is still not open. Vuze/Azureus says that it is able to open up a connection to that port -- at first. However, all of my connections say yellow (no incoming connections) and Vuze says it is firewalled. Speeds are quite slow on this transfer, though I did a test download of a Knoppix distribution and got speeds of about 270K/sec, although the light/face stayed yellow.

If I place my IP in the "DMZ," it still happens. If I connect directly to the cable modem, I get green lights all around and Vuze says that NAT is OK. I am pulling my hair out here trying to figure out why this is happening.

Forwarding email?

yodelingisfun — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:00:58 -0800

This is probably the dumbest question ever and yet, I am unable to figure it out. How do I all my emails that go to my comcast account to automatically go to my hotmail account? I used to have this set up but my system crashed and now I don't know how to get it back. Message rules doesn't work because I need to open Outlook for the messages to get forwarded. There are a million things on Google about forwarding hotmail to Outlook Express but not the other way around....I just want everything to go to Hotmail...please help!

How could one set up a distributed cellphone hotline number?

Salvor Hardin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:11:35 -0800

What is the best way to set up a hotline number which forwards calls to multiple personal cell phones? Suppose one wanted to acquire a phone number that would be publicized as a "hotline number." What is the best way to set up a system in which, when someone calls said hotline number, the call is directed to one of several participants via their individual cell phones?

Is there some device or service that can accomplish this? Bonus points if the call can be forwarded to each cellphone in turn until one of the cell-phone-wielding participants picks up (in some preestablished, or even schedule-based, order).

If anyone is particularly curious about the background info for this question, I'd be happy to post it.

Gmail and Outlook Are Not Friends

SpiffyRob — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:49:02 -0800

Why did my Outlook inbox empty when I started forwarding messages to a new account? Posted for SO: In September I set up my work e-mail (uses Outlook 2003) to be sent to my gmail account so I could read e-mails at home/in other offices (I wasn't familiar with our webmail options, which in retrospect would have been a lot easier). I found the Outlook forwarding settings to be very confusing and complicated, so I opted to have gmail retrieve my work e-mails by adding the account to my gmail settings.

Everything was swell until I got a blackberry and decided I didn't want my work e-mails on my blackberry (confidential client information, etc.) and figured the best thing to do would be to remove my work e-mail from my gmail settings and create a new, special gmail account solely for my work e-mails. Shortly after I created the account and arranged for gmail to retrieve my work e-mails, all the messages in my Outlook inbox disappeared.

Currently, the contents of my work e-mail account's inbox reside in my new gmail inbox, but nowhere else. The trouble is that I share my work e-mail account with another intern, so while I have access to our inbox through gmail, he can't access any e-mails that were in our inbox prior to the switch. I already went through my gmail settings and checked the little box that says "Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server," which has fixed things for new e-mails, but doesn't appear to be retroactive, meaning I still can't view any old e-mails in Outlook. Before I start forwarding every e-mail back to its original inbox, I'm wondering if there is any way to retrieve the e-mails that seem to have gotten lost. Any ideas?

Bacdagmailup

googly — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:51:48 -0800

I want to create a complete backup of my gmail account. Is there an easy way to do this? I currently use gmail as my primary email account. Call it the "googly" account. I would like to create a complete backup, the "googlybackup" account, so that I have copies of everything in case the googly account gets compromised in some way.

Ideally, I want to transfer everything in the googly account right now into the googlybackup account - e.g., inbox, sent mail, and all archived messages, preserving all tags, etc. - so that the googlybackup account is a "snapshot" of the googly account. I know that I can manually forward and then retag everything, but that would take a looong time. Is there a relatively easy way that this can be done?

If I setup an MTA to merely forward incoming email without attempting to filter spam will my MTA be 'blacklisted' along with the server at the spam's origin?

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:46:27 -0800

I manage over 150 (and growing) domains. I would like to provide email addresses to users at those domains. Rather than provide Pop/IMAP access, I would prefer to forward email to the users' Yahoo/Gmail/etc email addresses. If I setup an MTA to merely forward incoming email without attempting to filter spam will my MTA be 'blacklisted' along with the server at the spam's origin?

Can Gmail 'redirect,' ala Mail.app?

merlinmann — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:56:49 -0800

Can Gmail do something similar to the "Redirect" feature in OS X's Mail.app? I'd like for my assistant to be able to Redirect (rather than Forward) time-sensitive messages that were sent to my public Gmail address.

Redirected email (as it works in Mail.app) resends the exact/original message you received, changing only the "To:" address to whatever you like. The message that new recipient receives is, for my purposes, indistinguishable from the true original.

This would make it so much easier for me to respond to the original message -- right now, when a message is forwarded, I have to fish the sender's address out of the quoted message plus trim out all the extraneous stuff before I can start composing a response. Hitting "cmd-r" in Mail.app would obviously be a lot faster for me.

Can you do Redirecting with a stock Gmail setup? If there's nothing official in Gmail to do this, can you suggest a Firefox extension or GreaseMonkey script that might help accomplish what I'm looking for? My friend is using Gmail with Firefox on Windows Vista.

Help with Bittorrent port fowarding

nivekraz — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:40:46 -0800

Just got Verizon FIOS and the wifi access point sucks. So I disabled the wireless portion on the fios router and plugged in a linksys wifi router. Wireless is now kick a** but my bittorrent is slow. I need help with port forwarding. The fios router is 192.168.1.1/24 and the new access point is 192.168.1.2/24 with the wireless network being 192.168.2.0 and the computer I want to torrent on is 192.168.2.101. On the fios router (.1) I have set port forwarding for port 65473 to forward to the linksys(.3). Then on the linksys, port forward for 65473 to computer (.2.101).

>> Fios Router 192.168.1.1 > Linksys to Fios Interface 192.168.1.3 > AP 192.168.2.1 >MacBook 192.168.2.101

This doesn't work. If I plug into fios router and get into the .1.1 network, it works. How can i get wireless bittorrent working?

Fios router is an Actiontech MI424-WR. Wifi is Linksys WRT160N.

Autoforwarding a single gmail address to multiple other addresses

scrump — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:08:16 -0800

How do I set up a gmail account that automatically forwards anything it receives to two other accounts? My wife and I used to have a handy couple@domain email address that automatically forwarded to both of us at other addresses. Predictably, that was set up using a .forward statement on a Linux machine.

Now we both use gmail more or less exclusively, and there doesn't seem to be a way to say "forward all the mail that comes to this account to these two different accounts". Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this?

20 Euro cents per minute is quite outrageous

cmonkey — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:28:29 -0800

Is there a better option for international phone forwarding than Skype? I would like to have a US phone number redirect to my German phone number, but Skype's rates to German mobiles are quite high. Are there any other options?

How do I stop a fraudulent mail redirection from the U.S. to the UK?

satellitebadger — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:12:29 -0800

How do I stop a fraudulent mail redirection from the U.S. to the UK? Someone I do not know has redirected their mail (debt collection letters) from their address in the U.S. to my address in the UK, without my permission.

Can it be stopped, and who do I tell?

Can I have my phone automatically forward incoming text messages to my email?

Maia — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:56:21 -0800

Can I have my phone automatically forward incoming text messages to my email?

Unwanted mail

anonymous78 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:27:26 -0800

I am currently getting mail sent to my apt. for at least 6 previous tenants. How can I make it stop? I live in Manhattan if that's relevant. They have all had their mail officially forwarded so it's just a few stray pieces now and then but it adds up to quite a bit over the course of a week.

I know all of them and so I generally save what looks important and give it to them when I see them. But it's annoying and I worry that I may inadvertently keep something that's time time sensitive. (Indeed, I've already done this.) Moreover, I don't think it's my responsibility.

Anonymous snail mail forwarding (both directions)?

Flunkie — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:51:38 -0800

Anonymous snail mail forwarding (both directions)? I AM NOT A CROOK. For various reasons, none illicit, immoral, or even not nice, I am interested in getting an physical address, like a PO Box or something, that will forward any mail sent there to my actual address. Plus, remailing services such that I can send mail that is postmarked locally near that address.

Moreover, I would like some degree of confidence that my actual name and address will not be divulged. I would like to be able to receive mail sent to that address even if it is sent to some name other than my own (and not just one name, but many names).

I understand that this is probably sounding pretty shady. Well, what can I tell you, it's not. An example of what I want to do with this is to perpetrate a long-term practical joke, not mean or in any other way negative, on some of my friends. For this, I need a return address that cannot be associated with me (by the people sending to it; I don't care if the forwarding service knows my name, nor legal authorities or whatever; I don't even care if, when they forward mail to me, they use my real name).

I am in the United States. I don't care if the address is there too; in fact, I would like it to be (at least) non-local.

First of all, is this even legal in the US? Can I legally send a letter purporting to have a different (fictional) name than I actually do? Can I give a return address using that fictional name? Is it legal to use a foreign service for this sort of thing?

Do any mail forwarding services allow a generic "anything sent to this box number will be forwarded to your address", regardless of the name included, so that I could use multiple such fictional names?

I have found some websites (such as this) that seem to be at least partially what I want, but this seems like something that I really, really should make sure is legal, and that the forwarding company involved is reputable.

Thank you.

Forwarding emails to your phone patents

lundman — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:41:07 -0800

ISP, OpenSource options that can forward emails to your phone/alternate-address, so that when you reply, the replies are sent from your email address (and not from your phone's email address), and threats of patenting said idea. Friend Bob sends email to Fred
ISP receives mail, forwards it to Fred's Phone.
Fred reads email on phone, and just hits reply to send a reply email.
ISP receives reply, and forwards it to Bob, re-writing the From address from Fred's phone address, to Fred's address.

To me, this is nothing special. I could see several ways to develop this,
1: with a 12345@isp.address encoding, where "12345" is mapped to original From. Means you have to store it somewhere, and for how long?
2: Encode the original from, (plain, or something more compact like bas64) BaSe64MsGAddREs@isp.address. But, email has a max (64?) so whatever you encode, PLUS your domain might be an issue.
3: Add an X-OrgMail: header line. Will all phones keep X-Header entries?
4: Encode the original email in domain: user@original.com.isp.address and has *.isp.address MX point to MX server. Since domain max length is greater than username, it should always fit.

So, this company is trying to sell us this service, I consider is simple/banal to the point that I would not ask for more money for the feature. But they claim to be going through the patent process for it so we should not even try to have this feature (although, we already do, but not using #4). I believe they are to use method #4.

I could imagine there are a huge amount of ISPs with this feature already in existence., maybe even using #4 as the method. There could even be OpenSource software that does it. Does anyone know of any? If I can show it is really an old-hat, then there should be no need to fear their threats of "patent pending". With all the crazy patents approved these days, one can not feel confident that trivial "ideas" like this don't get approved.

email forwarding to text message with character limit

Gregamell — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:54:08 -0800

so, i have a Gmail account, and have a filter that forwards specific emails to my phone via text message (__________@vtext.com). Only problem is, character limit! Is there some service that I can forward these emails to that will then split them up into text-message-sized bits to be forwarded to my phone?

Handling inflammatory email forwards?

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:39:37 -0800

What's the best way to handle inflammatory email forwards? Ignore or respond? I get inflammatory emails from family members on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Often the emails contain fabrications, and are aimed at some political figure or institution that I actually admire. My first instinct is to ignore the email, but sometimes I want to fire off a rant back at the forwarder...when they might have barely read it before forwarding to everyone in their address book. Has anyone found a good course of action for these?

When you forward a message through outlook, how can you tell who it was forwarded to?

supercrayon — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:51:32 -0800

This is probably the most obvious question in obvioustown, but when you forward a message through outlook, how can you tell who it was forwarded to? Outlook is showing that I have forwarded a message, but there's no record of it in my sent folder, and when I click on the little prompt "You forwarded this message blah blah, Click here to find all related messages", it only pops up the original message.

So essentially, Outlook is showing that the message has been forwarded, but I have no record that it has been, and now way to tell to who. Please hope me?

RHEL vs SLES: netstat -a

nomisxid — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:33:09 -0800

Why doesn't "netstat -a" work with forwarded ports on SLES 10x64? I'm doing some testing work on local port forwarding thru ssh. Everything is going along swimmingly as I develop my tests on my RedHat ES4 box. When I go to run my test against a SLES10 x64 machine, things don't work. I believe I have narrowed down the issue to a problem with "netstat -a" not working as expected on the SLES box.

On the RHEL4 box:

[x@localrh .ssh2]$ ssh -oPort=22 -n -L 3434:dragontail:23 x@dragontail sleep 15 &
[1] 26644
[x@localrh .ssh2]$ Authentication successful.
netstat -a | grep 3434
tcp 0 0 localhost.attachmate.c:3434 *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 ip6-localhost:3434 *:* LISTEN
[x@localrh .ssh2]$
[1]+ Done ssh -oPort=22 -n -L 3434:dragontail:23 x@dragontail sleep 15

But on SLES10 x64 box:

x@dragontail:~/.ssh2> ssh -oPort=22 -n -L 3434:localrh:23 x@localrh sleep 15 &
[1] 17294
x@dragontail:~/.ssh2> Authentication successful.
x@dragontail:~/.ssh2> netstat -a | grep 3434
x@dragontail:~/.ssh2>
[1]+ Done ssh -oPort=22 -n -L 3434:localrh:23 x@localrh sleep 15

I've verified that the forwarded ports are available and active on the SLES box, just like on the RHEL box, but I can't figure out why it's not showing up in my netstat. A quick googling for SLES and netstat didn't report any unusual behavior. Am I missing something obvious?

Verizon standalone email account?

cyrusdogstar — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:18:36 -0800

Does Verizon offer any method of preserving your '@verizon.net' email account, independent from having DSL service with them? First off, I realize the definitive answer for this lies with Verizon themselves, but I'm still exploring my options and aren't yet ready to spend time on the phone with their support or sales departments; so I'm looking for anecdotes/deeply-buried FAQs beforehand.

Secondly, here's the issue: we've had Verizon DSL for years, recently moved, and are having connection problems at the new place which may be due to our distance from the CO (and thus unfixable). So I'm thinking of switching us to cable broadband.

The hitch is that my fiancee's primary email address -- used to keep in touch with friends & family, and for career-related networking (she rarely has a long-term job and needs to stay in touch with local industry folks in order to find new work) -- is the Verizon one that comes with the DSL account.

I'm hoping that Verizon will, somehow, offer a standalone email service (especially since we'd still be using them for phone service) or at least some sort of residual forwarding service (i.e. keeping the email account active for another year or so and forwarding it to a new one).

Has anyone heard of Verizon doing such a thing? Are there other options I'm not thinking of?

Forwarding to a Cell Phone

scarlet — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:31:32 -0800

What is the best way to get a phone number with a specific area code, and have calls to that number forwarded to an existing cell phone? To avoid carrying around a second phone, I'd prefer to stay away from prepaid cell plans. I do currently have a Cingular plan, and since I am pretty sure I can forward my calls to it for free, I'd like to take advantage of that. So, what's the best way to get a phone number with a specific area code, and have it forwarded to my current cellular number?

Tracking down lost emails

gfrobe — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:11:25 -0800

Since this morning, nearly all emails sent to my address are not being received. I own my own domain and forward all emails to my ISP account. Domain company and ISP are both denying repsonsibility. How do I solve this? I own my domain (firstname@lastname.co.uk) which is registered through 1&1. Emails sent to that address are then forwarded to my ISP. This morning I noticed that I was not receiving emails to that address and throughout the day, I've sent myself about 20 emails from web based accounts such as gmail, hotmail, etc. I have received only two of them. A few people have also called to tell me that emails sent to that address are bouncing back.

Calls to both 1&1 and Telewest have resolved nothing as both are saying there is nothing wrong on their end. For the record, my ISP email address works fine - it's just the forwarded emails that are not being received. 1&1 have been particularly unhelpful and suggested that perhaps everyone (including myself) was simply mistyping my address. It's been a frustrating and wasted day of back and forth on the phone between them.

So what do I do now? Does that fact that a few emails have sneaked through mean there is perhaps a backlog somewhere and I should just should wait out? If not, is the problem more likely to be with my domain registrar or my ISP?

Lastly, does anyone know of a reliable UK company offering free forwarding that I can transfer my domains to? This episode has really put me off 1&1.