Online Email with Seperate Read Only Access

October 27, 2013 7:34 PM

Is there an online email service that allows for multiple access accounts? I would like to give family/friends read-only access to my email, especially while traveling to help keep tabs on bills or urgent messages. Also this would allow for slightly more security while reading email from internet cafes. The simpler the better, but a POP service may work.
posted by garboils to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

In gmail, you can delegate someone to read your email and send email from you. I know you say you want to give the person read-only access, but it is actually ridiculously easy to do email spoofing, which is why you can, for example, ask Amazon.com to send your wishlist to someone else, with your address as the sender. (Another example is those e-invitations sites, which will happily send email from your email address without any verification.)
posted by ethidda at 7:57 PM on October 27, 2013

Best answer: Gmail delegation is great (and if they did try to respond, the email would show that they sent it on your behalf). Another alternative is to forward a copy of every message to another address while you're away, and give them the login info to that account. It would be easy to turn on/off forwarding when needed.
posted by beyond_pink at 8:00 PM on October 27, 2013

Can you not just set up filtered rules for forwarding some of your email to a designated person? If it were any of my relatives, I'd have better luck forwarding to their existing account than expecting them to check a specified alternate email address.
posted by instamatic at 8:02 PM on October 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah I think you want to set up a forwarding rule, not give them POP access. POP is incoming mail only (SMTP is for outgoing) but you'd then have to configure it on their side, which is sort of a pain and an extra step for either them or you vs. just forwarding.

That way it's easy to revoke when you get home, and they get access to only incoming mail rather than your entire archive, and if they reply on your behalf it'll be more obvious that it's not coming from you directly, which is closer to the read-only permissions you want.

I'd also consider doing a vacation autoresponder, letting people know your email is forwarded and who to contact with urgent matters if you are really going to be out of touch. (You can configure responses to only go to people in your Contacts.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:58 PM on October 27, 2013

Nthing setting up forwarding rules. That's way easier for both you and them.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:46 PM on October 27, 2013

Best answer: FastMail supports "Alternative Logins," which have can be given full or restricted access to the underlying account:

With restricted access, you can't permanently delete anything via the web interface, and you have no access to the Options screen - however you can still delete email to the Trash folder - giving enough usability for every-day tasks.

It's not truly read-only, but it's restricted enough to ensure that someone can't maliciously delete or hide messages.
posted by SemiSophos at 12:39 AM on October 28, 2013

Addressing the insecure internet cafe issue, I'd definitely look into setting up two-factor authentication for any email account you might want to check while you're traveling, assuming you have a smartphone or other device that you're taking with you. The authenticator app does not require internet access, so you should still be able to use it on the go, or you can set it up to send codes via SMS if you're able to receive texts while traveling. I know that GMail and Outlook.com both support this feature.
posted by Aleyn at 5:57 PM on October 28, 2013