Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mail

Should I trust Canada Post?

mellifluous — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:10:40 -0800

I need to get a letter from Toronto, Ontario to Berkeley, California by January 6. I sent it by regular air-mail yesterday afternoon. Is it going to get there on time or should I pay approximately $40 for guaranteed next business day delivery? Canada Post's website estimates the letter will get there in 4-6 business days, which is enough, but I'm a) unsure how reliable Canada Post generally is and b) the clerk at the post office warned me that things can be slower this time of year. She refused to give me any details about this, like whether "slower" means "give it another day or two" or "give it a week or two." The former is ok, but the latter is not.

I'm not going to starve or miss rent if I pay the $40, but that is a sizable chunk of money for me, and I don't want to spend it if I don't have to.

What say you, Metafilter?

Stranger gives me a camera - why?

lootie777 — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:48:24 -0800

I have received a (used) Sony Cybershot camera with a charger and usb cord in the mail. I have no idea who the sender is or why it was sent to me! What is going on here? The camera and various parts are wrapped in plastic bags from other commercial goods - ex. a cosmetic bag - and placed in a plain brown box with newspaper as padding.

My name and address is spelled perfectly, which is really unusual. I have family members who spell my first name incorrectly. It's been sent by USPS First Priority and the stamp on the box shows the same city the return address is from.

The return address has a first name, with what looks like a residential address (per google maps) in Southern California.

I don't know anyone in that area of the country, and the only person that I've known with that first name was an elementary school friend who lives on the other side of the country.

I turned the camera on, there are no pictures in the memory and no extra memory card that I can see. The camera is about halfway charged.

The camera is used, but in very good condition.

Why on earth would someone send something like this to a stranger? I'm a little freaked out!

Hivemind, is this some supercool new thing to do that I'm too dorky to know about? Or is it something more sinister?

Alternatives to Fedex and fax?

ms.codex — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:43:30 -0800

Need to send something to England from the US. Right away. Does this sort of document delivery service exist? I need to get a 25-page Word document to someone in England by Monday (I'm in Philadelphia). He doesn't have access to a printer or fax machine. One option is overnight international mail, but that'll cost a fortune and probably will take at least until Tuesday, since today is Saturday and such things tend to take at least two days. Actually, come to think of it, I don't mind paying a fortune, but it HAS to get there on Monday. Ideally I'd like to email it to someone in England and have them use domestic mail or a courier service to get it to him. So: is there a British service that will be able to open my email, print out my document, and then deliver it within England? And will accept international payment? And has a one-day turnaround time (or works on weekends?)? He's in Kenilworth, England, if it matters.

How much does it cost a Canadian to send mail to a US soldier in Afghanistan?

perpetualstroll — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:06:08 -0800

How much does it cost for a letter and/or a package to be sent from Canada to a US soldier deployed in Afghanistan? Posted for a friend:

My friend's being deployed to Afghanistan next week, and I want to be able to send him mail. So I need to know how much it's going to cost to do so. Now, this would be fairly simple if he was a Canadian soldier, but he's American. I've searched, and all I can find online is how to send from Canada to Canadian soldiers or from the US to American soldiers. Does anyone know how much it is to send a letter? And a package? I can't seem to find any information from Canada Post.

"Why is our mail sticky and ginger-scented?"

troika — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:46:23 -0800

Is it feasible to mail caramels? Or will the recipient end up with a weird melty lump? I want to mail some caramels (these ones, recipe found on askmefi!) to Florida (from DC) as a thank you, but I'm worried that the temperature change would cause some horrible unforeseen reaction and result in some really nasty mail.

Do you have any experience in mailing caramel? How did you do it?

Thanks!

Visa Problems

The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:23:50 -0800

I'm supposed to be at the Spanish Consulate in Miami getting a student visa tomorrow (appt. at 9:25am), but I don't have all the paperwork I need because some of it hasn't arrived from the school that I'll be studying at next semester(as a visiting student). What do I do? What can I do? Fun complications after the jump. So, i'm studying abroad next semester through Saint Louis University's Madrid campus. They (SLU) were supposed to send me the documents I need to apply for a student visa, but they have not arrived to me in the mail. These documents are (I believe) coming from the Saint Louis campus of SLU. Because of the time difference and the fact that I have an appointment with the consulate at 9:25am tomorrow and that I live in Tampa and i'll be driving to Miami (which takes about 5 hours), there's no way I can wait and call SLU in the morning to see what's up and/or potentially get them faxed to me.
I'm going to call the Madrid office when they open in 2 or 3 hours, and see if they can do anything, but what should I do in the meantime? Is there anything I can do, realistically?
Also, as a sidenote, what do you wear when applying for a visa? Should I put on a shirt with a collar/tie/etc?

how do i send booze in the mail

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:41:44 -0800

looking to deck the halls with homemade liquor (infused vodkas, lemoncello, something like that) - but now how to get it through the mail. i'm in oklahoma and i'm sending it to new york. this would be smallish bottles without professional labels.

(anon since these are gifts)

Will the USPS redeliver mail that has already been delivered?

kleenkat — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:53:48 -0800

Will the USPS redeliver mail that has already been delivered? I just got back from work today after being out Monday and Tuesday. I received a book for a class I'm taking in my work mail box, took the package out, then was sidetracked by a colleague. I accidentally laid the package down and forgot about it. Naturally, the woman who takes our work mail to the USPS every day thought it was something going OUT, and went and dropped it off at the drop slot since the USPS is closed today.

I plan to give them a call in the morning to find out if I can intercept, but I was wondering if I should just kiss my book goodbye? Since it's in the same town, I wonder if they will redeliver...? Does anyone know what happens when mail goes back to the post office (by accident) once it's already been delivered?

Thanks in advance!

Stabbing myself in the eye with a letter opener doesn't seem to be an appropriate reaction to this problem.

sugarfish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:28:54 -0800

I just spent another hour going through giant stacks of mail and shredding crap and I swear I can't take it anymore. All of our bills are paid online so half the time stuff never even gets opened. This leads to problems like letters from our HOA getting missed when like a month later I break down and go through stuff. And then what do we do after the bills are paid? What should we keep (paystubs, etc)? What's fine to get rid of? How long should we keep receipts for things like home or car repairs? Why do these mysterious statements keep coming from the retirement account?

We have no system whatsoever. I feel like I missed that day in learning-to-be-an-adult class. (Well, I missed a lot of days, but this is the most pressing one.) What does your filing cabinet look like? I need a filing cabinet, right?

I know some of the basic things we can do -- opt out of paper mail, etc, but is that okay for everything? Isn't it better that I have a hard copy of my credit card statement to compare just in case it changes down the line, or am I being a conspiracy theorist?

What about regular, day-to-day receipts? Do you just take time once a week to shred them, or what?

We are intelligent people but unfortunately neither of us is detail-oriented. We work long schedules and when we get home at midnight the last thing we want to do is go through another pile of mail that turns out to be usurious credit card "checks." (Seriously, I just shredded like a dozen envelopes' worth.)

Please hope me.

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?

Why hasn't a new version of POP3 been developed?

HappyEngineer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:13:51 -0800

Why is the POP3 mail protocol so slow and why hasn't a new version of POP been developed that fixes the speed problem? I'm pretty sure that it would be far faster to just download a compressed file containing all the messages and then unzip it and parse it locally. POP3 is fine when you keep up with your mail, but leave for a week and come back and I end up waiting quite a while to get all the mail downloaded.

How do I start using OS X Mail?

Junior687 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:46:45 -0800

How can I start using OS X .Mail App when I'm so in love with Gmail on the web? I recently purchased a Mac and I'm really interested in using OS X's Mail program. The only problem is Gmail is my bread and butter. It has a lot of different features and I love the labeling system. Is there a way to integrate labels, IMAP, and some other Gmail features with Mail? Will it hurt my current setup on the iPhone? What are the pros and cons? Thanks!

Little text manipulation help?

yesno — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:54:34 -0800

I need some help repairing some text files. I don't really understand regular expressions and so on enough. I have two badly formed mbox files.

One is missing the "From " indicator that a new message is about to begin. Instead, there's a "From: ." I need this second "From: " to stay there, as without it the messages all show up as having no sender when I import them into any client. Thus, I need a way to add a "From " to the line above each line where a "From: " occurs. As far as I know the "From " is just some mailer daemon's email that I don't really care about.

The second is the same, but the messages also show up has having a bad date. Currently, there is a field labeled along the lines of "Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 1:11 PM." Properly mbox files seem to look like "Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:53:22 -0600." While just changing "sent" to "date" fix that, or do I need some really good regexing?

How do I get US-address-only items delivered to Australia?

katala — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:22:10 -0800

Can anyone please recommend a reputable mail-forwarding service for someone living in Australia who wants to buy from US-only stores? Hi MeFites, I need to buy some items (headbands of all things!) which I can only find on US store websites and they will only ship to a US address (no international shipping provided).

Can anyone please recommend a good mail-forwarding service who I can have my items shipped to, and then they will ship them to me in Australia?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give!

Katala

Call the mail police!

Mr. Justice — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:02:38 -0800

I have discovered that someone I don't like very much made a mistake: he sent a large quantity of individually personalized mail at bulk mail rates via USPS. I believe this is a no-no, but ultimately I would guess it is a pretty minor no-no. What are the consequences of this? Are there civil or criminal penalties when this is discovered?

How to export AutoArchive e-mail exported & transferred from MS Outlook

willie11 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:40:40 -0800

Help me get my AutoArchived e-mail out of MS Outlook and the info from off Exchange server before work shuts it down tonight, please. I'm dumbfounded. Old job is shutting down my e-mail account today and I'd like to take all of my contacts, calender and saved e-mails for my own use. I know how to export the contacts as an excel file but I cannot find the "AutoArchive" folder on my hard disk.

The IT folks delete all messages from the sever after 9 weeks or so, but my desktop version of Outlook tells me that it autoarchives the messages. Where can I find these and how to I get them?

Also, what could I import them to? Gmail? My iPhone?

The iPhone (not synched with the server, which uses something called GOOD) seems to import contacts, calender etc from Outlook. Is there a way to upload the contacts, calender and ESPECIALLY the AutoArchived email to Gmail so I have them permanently? Or at least save the AutoArchived messages?

Many, many thanks for your help!

The Perfect Mail Client

tejolote — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:28:57 -0800

I switched to mac recently, and hate applemail. I don't think thunderbird will do everything I want, at least it didn't a few years ago. I want something like Pocomail, easily scriptable and enhanceable, and perfectly reliable (and easy and standard enough for me to fix on me own when there are problems). But Pocomail doesn't have a client for macs.

Also, I am going to have to gamble that whatever I pick will keep being updated and maintained over the years. I have a lot of mail and I really hate to move it around. In fact (I have some mail I've been unable to get to after a year now, but that's another question altogether).

Suggest mail applications for mac, preferably with some of the suggested parameters! Help me get to read (and sort) my vast tracts of mail.

Sending Mail from an Alias In Mac

sjuhawk31 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:49:21 -0800

Mac Mail: How can I send email from a different address without check that address inbox? I use Mail.app to manage my work email (myname@school.edu). Is there a clean way to send mail from an alias (project@school.edu) without adding that alias as an account and therefore needing to type in that account's password and be forced to check its messages, which are managed by someone else?

I have accomplished this in the past by adding another alias (news@school.edu) and using a non-public inbox as the incoming server for the account, but I find that extremely clunky and hope there's a different way around it.

Australia Post Alternatives?

LongDrive — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:27:19 -0800

Small business looking for Alternative to Australia Post for international shipping. Does one exist? What started as a simple side-project for two geeks has spun into a bit of a runaway phenomenon which leaves us in a peculiar financial situation relating to fulfilling our product.

We always knew Australia Post's fees for international postage were high, but were happy to eat the cost. But now we are dealing with a very large quantity, and the cost of postage pretty much eats all our profit, in some cases, costing more than the manufacturing itself!

We understand Australia Post offer discounts on contract, but you have to sign off on a large annual spend, and they don't even consider it until you have shown consistent spend for a few months.

We have considered:

-Drop-shipping (simply too many countries to do it effectively.)
-Printing and fulfilling overseas (a possibility in the near future)
-Borrowing a friends Australia post account (most likely solution)
-Finding some sort of mail house (discounts are pretty slim if any, and they have semi-dodgy ways of getting the post there to begin with)

Has anyone else in Australia been in this boat before? Are we missing something? Does anyone have specific referrals? Does Australia Post simply hate Small Business? Are we simply too far away?

Magically delicious.

cobain_angel — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:39:28 -0800

Help me send my friend in Ireland some very American things. Bobby's birthday is coming up, and I would like to send my dear Irishman some mail-resistant stuff that he wouldn't be able to find in Ireland in a store. An example is Lucky Charms, which he informs me, is NOT available in Ireland.

Any ideas?

Get Outlook to tell me how many emails I get in a month.

furtive — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:53:06 -0800

Get Outlook to tell me how many emails I receive in a month. I've got three folders with archived messages, separated by year.

I'd like to know how many emails I got each month in those folders, without having to do it manually (I have about 3800 emails in each folder).

I'm using Outlook 2003 and am willing to export things if necessary.

My e-mail won't send on one account. How do I fix it?

hdh — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:31:54 -0800

I'm having trouble with my Apple Mail program. I have a number of e-mail accounts (some with Optimum online, a g-mail, yahoo, etc.) Apple Mail has no problem at all reading and downloading any mail from any of the services. My problem is with Optimum Mail (Optonline.net). Mail refuses to send anything through that set-up. I've been on the phone for hours with Optimum and the settings are all correct. I've tried connecting directly to the cable modem and mail gets sent. This would make me believe that it is the Apple Airport Extreme router that is at fault. I've tried restarting it, re-initializing it and setting it up again and the problem continues. All my Optimum mail is picked up and can be read but it will not send anything through Optimum. It asks if I want to send it through another server (like g-mail or yahoo) and if I pick yes the mail sends. It happens on all my computers a G-3 and pre Intel iMac G-5 on Tiger and my Macbook on Leopard. Anyone else hear of this problem? Both Apple support and Optimum online say they have never heard of it. Talking for hours with their tech departments have found no solutions. Any thoughts would be apprectiated.

How to convert/open Outlook Express .dbx files from CD onto a Mac?

cocoagirl — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:00:34 -0800

I have a CD with mail archived from Outlook Express in .dbx files (misc.dbx, work.dbx, personal.dbx, inbox.dbx, etc.). It contains old reviews and resumes that I need details from. I now have a Mac (with Mail.app only) and I can't figure out how to open or convert them. I don't even need to import them into Mail--having them export to simple individual text files would be fine. I just want to be able to read the content. I don't remember how I got them into the .dbx format, but they are from an old work machine before I left my job. My research has turned up a few Mac support threads from 5-6 years ago with some conversion programs that don't seem to exist anymore or which assume you are starting the whole archiving process on a PC. This question from a year ago also assumes a PC on which to start the whole process. Apple's instructions assume you are moving messages via IMAP or from AOL.

What I'd love is a native Mac program which will let me open them with a simple double click to view the content as a text file. Too much to ask? I would be willing to buy/install another mail program (Thunderbird, Eudora? I'm out of the loop here) for a workaround. I do have gmail if that would help. But again, I just have my Mac and the CD. I suppose I would be willing go to a public PC and download a recommended program, but then I'm dealing with cleanup of personal data on the public machine.

So does anyone know how to unpack these files with a Mac and only a Mac? Explicit directions a plus--I'm not computilliterate, but nor do I do this sort of thing for fun.

Relevant details: Mail 3.6, Mac (Intel) OS X 10.5.7, unknown version of Outlook Express, but circa 2004

Google Apps calendar and gmail.com calendar: can they get along?

zippy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:44:45 -0800

How do I work with both my Google Apps Calendar and my Gmail calendar? Bonus points: on a G1/Android phone. I have a G1/Android phone linked to my @gmail.com account. I consider this identity my primary one for everything but work, and all of my important calendar events are linked to it.

I now have a Google Apps account for my company, foo@example.com. I am the admin for this domain, so can edit permissions company-wide.

I do not want to use the web interface to visit the two calendars separately. I want one destination where I can see and edit every event I care about (i.e., for both my example.com and gmail.com accounts).

Also, I have a co-worker on @example.com who sends me and customers invites. I do not want my @gmail.com address to show to customers.

Bonus points if:

1) there's a way to make this work with my G1/Android phone's built-in calendar.

2) the solution isn't too disruptive, and I can continue to use my gmail.com calendar as my main interface. I have family members who share their calendars with my @gmail.com address.

What hasn't yet worked:

I have tried sharing my @example.com calendar with my gmail.com address, but this only shares free/busy status and doesn't let me edit from gmail.com. I believe I have set sharing correctly from the Google Apps @example.com admin panel, but it doesn't seem to work.

What savory homemade goods survive the mail well?

eleanna — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:49:39 -0800

I want to send a homemade gift package to a friend. The wrinkle: He doesn't eat sweets. (more inside) I've searched for this without a lot of luck. I want to send a homemade gift package to a friend (as in I make the contents of the package). Normally, I'd bake cookies or brownies, but sugar in that quantity makes my friend sick (trace amounts, as in homemade bread, are fine). Artificial sweeteners also make him ill.

Last time I tried, I made homemade bread which got moldy in transit (Priority Mail, Chicago to DC), spiced nuts (which went over well), and cheddar/jalapeno muffins (arrived safely and still tasted good).

Other possibly relevant details:

* Friend is male, late 20s
* Friend really likes breads, muffins (not too sweet), ethnic, and spicy food (including very spicy)
* Friend does not like dried fruit

I'd like to find stuff that is interesting, different, tasty, and mails well.