Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with imap

IMAP over HTTP?

DU — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:49:45 -0800

IMAP through an uncooperative proxy? I'm pretty sure my ideal solution is technically impossible and that simplest workaround is going to be unattractive from a convenience or elegance POV, but:

At work, I can check my personal mail through webmail (i.e. over http(s)). But I would prefer to use Thunderbird. However, the firewall/proxy doesn't allow IMAP. Is there a way I can do this anyway?

My original thought was to tunnel over SSH, but even assuming I can do that on this end, I'm not sure how I'd do it on the server end. (It's a hosted account thing, so I assume I have some latitude, but I don't have full control.)

A coworker ssh's (in a terminal window) to his home machine and runs Mutt or something there, but the whole point here is that I want all my mail to show up inside of Thunderbird.

He also suggested I could do port forwarding on my home machine. It sounds like maybe this old AskMe is the same thing. That seems ugly. Plus I hate to potentially screw up my home network by installing new firmware just to get it working. But maybe that's the only way? And if I do that, is openwrt still the best or is tomato the new hotness?

Oh Oh, wait a Minute Mister Postman (reliable E-Mail Providers)

mathiu — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:04:39 -0800

I've heard only good things about Tuffmail and Fastmail but I'm looking for recommendations on reliable E-Mail Providers with data centers in more privacy-minded countries (which excludes some parts of Europe and the US). I am looking to consolidate my different webmail accounts in one central repository. I'd look to access the server via IMAP/Exchange.

Storage space would be an argument, at best I could just let all my mail accumulate and pay for additional storage space.

Reliability trumps everything, especially the fact that there are backups/the venture won't disappear with all my written goodness.

Bonus: what is the "feature" called where I could keep the sender-address of the account that a certain e-mail arrived on when I respond to it using the "mother-account". I guess its more of a bug of the SMTP protocol, but could I "exploit" is using Apple Mail in combination with any provider?

Sync 2 IMAP Servers?

4chrisd — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:21:40 -0800

How do I sync two IMAP folders? I currently use Gmail for all my e-mail (personal & work). I currently have about 4,000+ messages archived in Gmail and I'll continue to add 300-500 per month. I also have a IMAP account with my webhost and I was wondering if there was any type of application or script that would connect to the Gmail IMAP servers and backup/sync all of my mail so I know that in addition to being in Gmail's cloud....it is also on my IMAP server in case something happens. Thoughts?

Adding IMAP to a Linux Email Box

roundrock — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:55:15 -0800

Do you know a reputable provider to add IMAP to a Linux email box? I'm moving to a new email provider and I need to add IMAP support to my old email server to transfer everyone's stored emails. I'm completely clueless as to the process, so I want to pay a provider to set it up. Is there a good company out there that will do this? I'm using a Linux Box with Squirrelmail and that's about all I know. HELP!

Advice on email hosting solutions that can accommodate lots of old email?

rkent — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:15:54 -0800

Looking for advice on email hosting solutions that can accommodate lots of old email. I'll describe some of my particular "desires" below, but maybe more than a specific host / solution, I am looking for ideas on how to best manage my email situation. I have medium-lots of old email, on the range of 15G or so, that is going to get evicted soon from my current independently hosted IMAP/Webmail host. I would like to integrate this massive pool of email rather smoothly with whatever I do going forward.

I want to say that I am interested in IMAP going forward, as well as webmail, as well as shell access so I can manually tarball and SCP my archives to backup. And I do want these things, as far as it goes. But more to the point I realize I've been stuck in an email rut, which I am about to get kicked out of regardless, and so I'm also interested in general advice on how to make this easy going forward, and if there are any other factors I should maybe be considering. If I'm going to make a big switch anyway, maybe I shouldn't just look for something as close to the old host as possible. Although any cheap IMAP/shell-access compatible solutions, with a fair bit of storage, will be graciously welcomed. Thanks for any advice.

My current folders are in Maildir format and I have full access to all files, folders, etc, if that is relevant to your recommendation.

I tried to be good and it went bad: help me recover my Gmail from the clutches of my computer.

foxy_hedgehog — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:50:57 -0800

After reading this AskMe, I decided to use Mac's Mail program to keep copies of my messages on my gmail account on my computer. However, I wanted to use the "IMAP" option to keep copies of all my mail both on the web, in gmail, and on my computer, in Mac Mail. Instead, something else happened and now I'm in trouble. If I understand the distinction between "POP" and "IMAP" correctly, it seems that Mail configured my Gmail account in "POP" format automatically when I set things up, so that it downloaded my messages from my Gmail account and then deleted them from web-based Gmail. Now, when I log into gmail on the web, I can't see or access any of my messages.

I've tried to reconfigure my preferences on Mail for IMAP, but Mail doesn't give you the option of changing an account from POP to IMAP (under "Account Information," it says, "Account Type: Gmail POP" and there's no option to change it). You can change the incoming and outgoing mail servers, but I tried this and it doesn't seem to change anything.

I thought about deleting my current mail account from Mail and then setting it up again, but when I tried to do so Mail gave me a warning message saying all my messages would be deleted.

How can I undo my mistake and get my mail back on the web? Is there a way I can re-upload my messages back into my Gmail web account? And how can I redo my settings properly to keep copies of my mail both on the web and on my computer?

Thanks so much in advance for any help or advice.

Mia

Time outs sending emails to gmail using IMAP

charlie7691 — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:33:08 -0800

How do I stop Outlook / Thunderbird timing out when pushing emails to Gmail via IMAP? I have folders containing up to 22,000 emails that I'd like to move from Outlook / Thunderbird to Gmail. I've tried the GML tool, and uploading via IMAP, and though IMAP seems the way forward (because it can replicate the folder structure too) it times out after uploading about 600 emails.
Although I could just send messages in 500s, the idea of doing this SO many times fills me with dread! Does anybody know how to stop IMAP timing out, or of some way to upload them (and their folder structure) more quickly?
I've got 1.3mb/s upload and fast PC, so connection speed shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks in advance,

osx applemail imap mbox emlx duplicate emails email messages

DLWM — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:33:51 -0800

If I make changes using a command-line utility to an mbox file that is the local cache of an IMAP account, how can I get those changes uploaded to the server? (Mac OS X 10.4, Mail.app, Perl script.) I use Mail.app for my Gmail and work email, both of which use IMAP. I have a local cache of everything that gets synced when I'm connected to the internet.

I have a bunch of duplicate messages within both of these accounts. I found a Perl script that will go through all the emlx files in each local mbox directory (i.e., the local cache) and delete dupes. But I'm thinking that when I connect again and Mail.app sees that there's a bunch of messages on the server that aren't in my local cache, it'll just download them again.

How can I get Mail.app to tell the servers that the messages that are missing on the local copy should be deleted from the server copy, too?

I've tried using this AppleScript that deletes the messages within Mail.app, but it's way to slow on my machine. The command-line Perl script is so much faster.

How can I get Mail and Gmail working for me?

veggieboy — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:47:38 -0800

I'm using Gmail with IMAP, and Mail.app (and an iPhone, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't matter for these purposes). How can I erase the old messages in the "Sent" folder on my desktop app without erasing them on Gmail? OK. Just thinking about this makes my head hurt. I apologize in advance if I have left out some crucial piece of information.

For years, I was very happy using POP. Then I got an iPhone and decided to switch to IMAP. I have everything almost to where I want it, with one glaring exception: the 10,000 messages in my "Sent" folder in Mail.app

Here was my POP-era behavior: Send a message, remove it from the "Sent" folder and put it in the "Family 2009" folder or what have you. Incoming emails from family also went there. That way, the Mail.app folder Family 2009 contained all family emails both ingoing and outgoing. Sometimes, a few messages would accumulate in the "Sent" folder until I filed them. All was well.

Now, I have those same folders on my desktop app and would like to maintain the same behavior. . . except that "Sent" now mirrors what is on Gmail itself, which is to say it contains 10,000+ messages — every message since I started using Gmail. The thing is, I already have those messages filed away in their respective Mail.app folders. And, while I could just erase them, I do not wish to also erase them from Gmail itself at the same time, because I like the idea that Gmail has every message incoming and outgoing archived.

I want to get rid of that enormous Sent folder on Mail.app while still having those messages on Gmail itself, and then I want all future sent messages to stay in the "Sent" mailbox in Mail.app until I file them, at which time Gmail would archive them.

God only knows if this makes any sense to anybody. It's been an authentic odyssey even getting this much working. I apologize in advance if my explanation is less than clear and I am happy to answer questions.

IMAP Client that shows email like an IM client IM client that can display and respond to IMAP-based email

phaedrus441 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:49:10 -0800

Does anybody know an IMAP Client that shows email like an IM client? IM client that can display and respond to IMAP-based email? Here in Japan, almost no one uses text messages, which turns out to be nice, because they send short little emails, and since my mobile email is IMAP for the iPhone (without push, but that's a whole other, annoying story), I can send and receive through any IMAP client (good for while I'm at home).

What I want is a way to send and receive these short emails without having to search back through a big inbox to see the whole conversation. I know Outlook and the like offere arranging by "converstation," but that's pretty terrible.

What I want is IM-style. Each little message is just a line in a chat, if you know what I mean. Is there an IMAP client that can do that?

Bonus points for OS X :-p

Please find my email! It's hiding.

pised — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:21:54 -0800

Where did my email go? Mail.app has lost an important email message that is stuck somewhere in between sending on my end and receiving on the receiver's end. How can I get it back? In the past couple of days, my Mail.app on my Macbook has been acting up -- it's not frozen, but it refuses to send and receive messages. I have to force quit (it won't quit on its own) and when that happens, it warns me that any unsaved changes (i.e. the email message I just sent which is now floating out in the interwebs) will be lost. When this happened yesterday, I lost a short email that I had to rewrite and send out again. It had been working fine for most of the day today until I sent out an important email to my thesis supervisor -- I hit send and the message disappeared, but didn't send. It's not in my sent folder (because it clearly wasn't sent) and it's not in my drafts folder (because it's not a draft). Mail.app is hooked up to my university SunJava IMAP email account, which I can get to, and I can send and receive mail in it; it's clearly a Mail.app issue.

When I log in to the web interface for the e-mail account, there is an 8K message in the "Drafts" folder with the correct subject line and recipient, but when I open it there is no text in the message.

Somebody, please, please, please tell me where my email message to my supervisor is hiding and how I can get it back.

Gmail, Exchange, Outlook, oh my! Please help sort this through.

zooropa — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:05:07 -0800

Gmail, Outlook, and Sync oh my! How do I sort through this? Last week, I left my job. I got to keep my smartphone (Samsung on Verizon Wireless running Windows Mobile 6). At my job, I had used the phone to sync with our Exchange Server for WORK, and logged into Gmail using the Web browser for PERSONAL.

Unfortunately, I was not able to save and backup my contacts and calendar before leaving. So all that's gone. Trust me, it's a bummer.

So I'm trying to re-create my setup and achieve productivity nirvana (or nerdvana). Here are the goals I'm trying to accomplish:

-- I would like to keep my Gmail account since I've used it for years and everyone knows me on it.

-- I want to remain flexible enough so that I can still sync to future employer's Exchange Server.

---------------------

Here is how it all breaks down:

MAIL:
-- Phone: Using Gmail (via IMAP)
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007 (via IMAP). I detest Gmail's interface (please, no flames). It's dogslow, but it works. Molto bene!

CALENDAR:
-- Phone: ????
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
How do I get my Calendar on Outlook 2007 to sync with the phone? Should I use a third-party app like Oggsync or syncmycal?

CONTACTS:
-- Phone: ???
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
Same deal. How do I get them all in sync? Google has Contacts, but I hear they don't sync all that well.

TASKS
-- Phone: ???
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
How do I get the Tasks on Outlook 2007 to sync with the phone? Should I use a third-party like Remember the Milk?

This seems like an awful lot of overkill.

So I just went and signed up for a domain and a Hosted Exchange account. My first thought was that I figured I could just use the hosted exchange account for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar, and use Gmail for Email. I'm starting to get second thoughts, though. Who pays $8-10/month just for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar? This seems overkill, too.

All I want to do is be able to keep my Gmail for email, but also use Outlook 2007 on my desktop. That's the key. I want to be able to continue to use Outlook 2007 for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar.

If anyone could help out on this, I would be immensely grateful.

cheers,
Michael

How to sanely migrate email messages from Apple's Mail.app to Google Apps' GMail

Wild_Eep — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:34:07 -0800

How do I move around 2000 messages from Apple's Mail.app (10.4) to a Google Apps (Premier) GMail account quickly and efficiently? Maintaining the received dates and any miscellaneous attachments is a must.

I'm helping a company move their 35 employees with traditional POP download-it-to-your-hard-drive-then-delete-it-from-the-server accounts to Google Apps-based GMail accounts. They opted for the Premier ($) version of Google Apps.

I know about enabling the GMail account's IMAP service, then adding the IMAP account to Mail.app, and then dragging in your messages. When I tried that, it took hours upon hours to move very few messages, often timed-out for no good reason, and even with the activity window open, didn't give very detailed feedback about the progress of the operation. The company has a "business-class" DSL line. Speedtest.net reports that they're getting 300 kbps upstream from their office to San Francisco. (I assume Google's servers are somewhere in San Francisco.)

I'm willing to convert the mailboxes to some other format (mbox, etc.) and use a PC tool. Google themselves provide a tool to suck in messages from an existing IMAP server (which doesn't help directly), or Google Email Uploader, which only seems to work with Outlook, Outlook Express, or Thunderbird. I've also heard about IMAPSync, but I'm not certain it will do what I want.

I do have a PC available, if needed. For the Mac, I do have Emailchemy available.

MS Exchange and IMAP

tucsongal — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:21:35 -0800

Help me communicate to my MS Exchange server admin: I want (full) IMAP access! At my current gig they use Exchange as the corporate email standard. I've been using Outlook for a few months when I got wind that IMAP was activiated on our Exchange server and other folks were using clients like Thunderbird with no issues... needless to say I was excited.

When I tried to use IMAP I was able to authenicate but the server reported that it could not find my INBOX.

When I wrote a script to dump all the folder that I *could* see via IMAP all that came back were all the 'public' folders.

When I ask for help no one at our help desk knows what the heck I am talking about.

My question is this: what 'majik words' can I say to my Exchange admin or settings has be changed for my account in Exchange so I can see my private INBOX via IMAP?

thanks!

How can I save the attachments from 10000 emails?

team lowkey — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:47:16 -0800

I have an IMAP email folder with about 10,000 messages. Each of the messages has a .jpg image attached. I want to save all of those images into a folder on my hard drive. Any ideas on the best way to do this? I'm not adverse to writing a script to handle it (on any platform), if that's the quickest way to get the job done. But if there's some easy solution out there, like a particular mail client that has this functionality, all the better. The mail is stored on a linux Zimbra server on which I have root shell access, if I have to go the route of MIME decoding the messages on the file system.

I thought POP was outdated - is it?

jak68 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:39:09 -0800

Email Filter: Why aren't I using POP instead of IMAP? Which do you use and why? I'm on an IMAP email account right now, accessed with Outlook 2007.

My email server automatically organizes received and sent emails into folders labelled by month and year. Thats great, I like that.

But every month I have to do a little ritual where I move out the older emails/folders in my email account into my Outlook local folders. (Because otherwise I run out of room; this is my school account which is my main account).

Its a little tedious, since Outlook wont allow selection of multiple folders, I have to move each folder out one by one, and I deal with a TON of email so the download process for each takes forever.

It occured to me that maybe I should be using POP configuation instead, set up to "leave messages on server" and "dont delete locally when I delete on server".

I've never used POP before, so a couple of questions:
--Wouldnt that basically eliminate this monthly ritual for me? I already have outlook doing automatic periodic local archiving labelled by month and year. POP config would ensure the emails are always local. (I wouldnt lose online access to the emails on the serveer either because of "leave on server" option). And when I'm ready to delete stuff from server and clear up space, I simply delete on the server (and my local copies are save because of "dont delete locally" option).

Does that make sense? Is anyone else doing that (for the advantages of saving/archiving/organization/management of vast amounts of emails)? And, if this is such a great idea, why isnt *everyone* doing it? Should they be? Isnt it a great way to automatically do the inevitable "move emails out to make room on server" routine? (Those of us who dont want gmail that is, who have business or school accounts as our main account but then have to deal with some kind of space limitation).

Multiple Users, Mail & IMAP

einekleine — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:38:16 -0800

At my work, multiple users access a single IMAP account via webmail. Is there any way I can configure my Mail.app so I can use this account without altering the mailbox on the server? I'd like to delete and move messages about on Mail while leaving the emails as they are for everyone else. Thanks!

Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts?

jeffderek — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:11:12 -0800

Whats the best desktop client to use for multiple Gmail accounts? I have 3 gmail accounts. One is my account that deals with real people, one is for mailing lists and forum notifications, and one is my work email. I'd like to access them via IMAP because I read all 3 on a desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and I want it to all stay in sync.

I originally used Outlook 2007 to do this. I liked the software, but multiple times a day I would get a popup message that said "IMAP Server has timed out". This is a documented issue with Gmail and Outlook over IMAP, and nobody seems interested in fixing it. I dealt with this for several months, and finally got fed up.

Now I'm using Thunderbird. I love it, but one of the accounts (my work account) regularly pops up a message asking me for my password. I type in the correct password, and it asks for it again, and then after a few times it gives up and says "Invalid Credentials." Sometimes restarting Thunderbird fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. I've tried clearing the CAPTCHA (google's suggestion for fixing the issue) and changing the frequency with which my accounts check for new messages so they all check at different times and are all more than 15 minutes every check.

All I want is a program that won't pop up an error once a day with a problem. I want a desktop client so I can read email when offline (I spend a lot of time with my laptop offline and need to access emails I have already received). Is there a client that will do this with GMail effectively? Both the Thunderbird issue and the Outlook issue seem well documented on the internet and no solutions have been found.

Thanks!

trouble synching sent mail on IMAP

bingo — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:29:46 -0800

Trouble synching sent mail via IMAP over multiple devices (all of them set up with IMAP). I have two macbooks, each running Mail.app. And I have an iPhone. All three are set up to work with my email account (which is through my job) via IMAP.

I have multiple folders and subfolders set up, and I frequently move items from the Inbox directly into a subfolder. This seems to be fine across the board: if I do it on one device, then that same email will be in that same subfolder on another device. Exactly as it should be with IMAP.

However, Sent mail is a whole different story. There is no telling whether an email I send at work will show up in my Sent folder at home. And what's more (and I have no idea if this is the same problem or not), I have multiple "Sent" folders, both at home and at work.

I don't remember creating multiple Sent folders. I don't know where these other Sent folders came from. Some are called "Sent" and some are called "Sent Messages." Some are at the same folder level as the Inbox, and some are at the level of sub-folders.

I suppose it's possible that the emails I send from work actually are showing up at home, but there are so many Sent folders that I have trouble finding it.

Also of interest: My iPhone actually has a different number of Sent folders (many more) than either of my Mail.app setups (home and work.)

Another possibly relevant factoid: Even though both home and work are using Mail.app on Leopard on Macbooks, the setup is not exactly the same. At home, the work account is one of two I'm using on Mail.app...the other is the account from the last job I had. There's no more mail coming in there, but I want to keep the email, so I still have it. That makes the overall folder structure a little bit different.

Anyway...what am I doing wrong? How can I make it so that I only have one Sent mail folder for this IMAP account, and so that it's exactly the same across home, work, and phone?

Where to put my personal e-mail?

grouse — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:34:45 -0800

What should I use for personal e-mail over IMAP? Soon my university will shut off the e-mail service I have been using for my personal e-mail over the last few years. I'm looking for a replacement through which I can quickly get e-mail through secure IMAP. It would be best if the service had some sort of server-side filtering, preferably with Sieve, or even procmail (slightly less preferred).

Gmail is pretty good and what I will switch to if I don't receive any better recommendations. Of course the search is great. I don't like two aspects, though. First, access over IMAP is slow, at least compared to other IMAP servers I have used. I would prefer something much faster. Second, I am somewhat concerned about Google knowing even more about me, although perhaps I should be just as concerned about any other provider.

I also probably could get an e-mail inbox through Comcast, although I am wary of Comcast in general.

I'm happy to keep using the university's forwarding service as my From: address, so getting my own domain isn't essential.

Cheaper is best obviously, but I'd be willing to pay for something that was superior to the free options.

Help me use GMail Better

arniec — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:25:14 -0800

My company recently switched from a standard POP mail server to having GMail as our MX server and hosting all our business accounts. Overall the benefits are quite positive, but I'm having some usage issues that bug me. Can you help me use gmail better? Specific questions inside. Part 1: I love the benefit of the IMAP mail system, allowing my inbox to be anywhere I am, rather than centralized around a specific computer. Previously I had my POP work account for 3 years and amassed thousands of emails coming in at about 4GB, all of which I must keep for reference of correspondence, e-mail addresses, etc. I had my mail sorted into folders, about 30-40 different folders depending on correspondence type. All of that mail was in Outlook until I recently became a Mac convert. Now it's all in Thunderbird.

So I can have ALL my mail available where I can get to it from anywhere, I'd like to migrate it all to GMail. I read that using IMAP I can just drag these old e-mails into my Inbox folder in Thunderbird, but given that I have about 40 folders, I'm not sure how to get them to GMail without just having a very large Inbox with a conglomeration of e-mails in it. I am guessing I could drag one folder to the Inbox, then organize that on Gmail, drag another folder, etc. but that leads me to problem #2:

Part 2: I know GMail uses labels...are there no folders? Would I need to drag in the e-mails, then label them all to use GMail's label system instead of my current folder-based system? And is that the most efficient way to do this?

Part 3: I am really NOT a fam of the "message threading" that GMail does. Often I will send solicitations to business partners and each subject line will be identical, the messages nearly so. However because the subject lines are the same, GMail takes e-mails from different business partners and puts them all in one thread, filling me with paranoia of sending the wrong e-mail to the wrong person or, worse, sending an entire e-mail chain from one business partner to another business partner which may contain confidential data. Is there any way to alter the functionality or, perhaps ideally, turn OFF this "feature" in GMail?

Part 4: As I'm still new to GMail, any "Power User" tips for me?

Final Notes: I still plan on using Thunderbird as my client of choice when at my work PC. I just want the ability to have ALL my mail accessible from ANY location as I feel it will enable me to work more efficiently, rather than having to hold some e-mails until I get back to my primary PC.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Yes, I know I sent that email four seconds ago...

freudenschade — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:33:59 -0800

Gmail IMAP + Thunderbird: I set up Thunderbird as my email client last week, and everything has been smooth sailing until today. When I opened T-bird, every email I've ever written was in my Inbox! Please make it stop! As of this morning, every email I send appears immediately in my Inbox (both in Thunderbird and the Gmail web interface). I created and ran a filter in T-bird that moved all emails "from" my address to "Gmail > Sent Mail" -- this moved all the old emails, but new ones keep appearing in the Inbox, and I'd really rather not have to run that filter all the time.

Notes about my setup:
- Google Apps Gmail
- Thunderbird 2.0.0.16
- Have IMAP for the same account set up in Outlook 2007, which I open occasionally to for email testing purposes
- Some filters set up within Gmail and T-bird, none of which have any settings regarding Sent Mail

I can provide other details as well if it would help. Any insight would be very much appreciated.

Can you tunnel via SSH to access Gmail via IMAP in Outlook when the ports are blocked?

izicwe — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:47:40 -0800

I like to think of myself as somewhat of a power user when it comes to mail servers, SSH, Gmail, and Outlook, but this one has me stumped! I use Outlook for both work and personal e-mail, but while on the network at work our ports are pretty locked down. How might I access my Gmail account via IMAP in Outlook while on a locked-down network? Ports 25, 110, 143, 587, 993, etc., are all blocked. In order to access personal e-mail, I connect via SSH (PuTTY) to my DreamHost mail server and tunnel POP/SMTP (ports 110 and 25) traffic over that SSH session. Is there any way I could use that SSH connection to tunnel to Gmail's servers for IMAP access as well? If not using that tunnel, is there another way? I can access Gmail through a web browser, but my objective is to be able to collect all my e-mail in Outlook as well. Thanks!

Help get my wife's e-mail to the Gmail lifeboat!

escabeche — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:00:52 -0800

Escabechette has years of old e-mail stored on an old school account that's soon going to close. We want to move all this e-mail to her gmail account. Apparently this is now easy because "GMail supports IMAP." But I haven't succeeded in finding instructions (on AskMeFi or elsewhere) which are suitable for someone, like me, who doesn't know what the word "IMAP" means. Is this really easy? And can you explain to this naif how to do it? More relevant data:

* Her school e-mail client is pine -- I think this means her mail is stored in "mbox" format.
* Our access to the school account is via ssh, so whatever I would do there would have to be on the command line. This makes it hard for me to see how I could use programs like GML (which does say it supports pine.) Alternatively, if there is some giant file somewhere in her account which contains all the mail, I could scp it to my Mac and work locally, if that's helpful.
* Ideally, the transfer would preserve dates and times, the folders in which the back e-mail is stored, and so on.

nokia n95 password encryption

raphael19 — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:29:10 -0800

Does Nokia N95 encrypts e-mail passwords that it stores for automatic retrieval? If it does, what is the encryption scheme? AES? Proprietary code? I am currently using IMAP functionality and i am curious if some malicious code run in web browser (or some other trick for that matter) could leak sensitive information such as the stored email passwords.

Regards.