Make Outlook 365 one-way
June 9, 2020 1:10 PM Subscribe
Once email has been downloaded onto my laptop, I want it stay there. Also don't want sent mail from my computer to appear on the ISP servers.
Is this possible for a mere user of Office365? (I know an enterprise can do this, but I doubt that a giant bank Office setup and mine compare in any way, except icons.)
My ISP switched to Office 365 a month after I paid for the year. For my entire life, my personal emails (and some freelance and volunteering project emails) have lived only on my computers and backups. This is how I like it and, in the case of some projects, a legal requirement.
Google is not helping. Can someone tell me or provide a link showing where I can set up office so that I can take things off the ISP servers? And so that when I sent emails from my laptop, they do not go to the ISP servers?
I saw what appeared to be a setting to retain things for X days. Either I'm not understanding what that means, or my ISP has disabled it. (Can't find it now. Tried it the week they made the switch.)
When it's time to renew, I'll find another ISP. For the next ten months. I'm stuck.
This new trend of trying to make all computing online is the worst. I dread the day when all games are online communities.
If this is simply not possible in the out-of-the-box home-user set up, can someone point to that documentation?
Is this possible for a mere user of Office365? (I know an enterprise can do this, but I doubt that a giant bank Office setup and mine compare in any way, except icons.)
My ISP switched to Office 365 a month after I paid for the year. For my entire life, my personal emails (and some freelance and volunteering project emails) have lived only on my computers and backups. This is how I like it and, in the case of some projects, a legal requirement.
Google is not helping. Can someone tell me or provide a link showing where I can set up office so that I can take things off the ISP servers? And so that when I sent emails from my laptop, they do not go to the ISP servers?
I saw what appeared to be a setting to retain things for X days. Either I'm not understanding what that means, or my ISP has disabled it. (Can't find it now. Tried it the week they made the switch.)
When it's time to renew, I'll find another ISP. For the next ten months. I'm stuck.
This new trend of trying to make all computing online is the worst. I dread the day when all games are online communities.
If this is simply not possible in the out-of-the-box home-user set up, can someone point to that documentation?
Best answer: If I understand, you want the POP and SMTP settings for Office 365, which are in this list. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/POP-and-IMAP-email-settings-for-Outlook-8361e398-8af4-4e97-b147-6c6c4ac95353
POP for getting your email; it is an email protocol that downloads your email from the server when you check it and the email stays in your local email client. SMTP is a sending protocol that relays your email through their email sending server, but it doesn’t sync your sent Email folder back up to the server, so you’ll just have the local copy. So POP and SMTP together let you do what it sounds like you want to do.
Apologies if I overlooked it but I don’t see which email client you’re using. If you go this route, you would remove the Office 365 account, and then set up your email address by manually entering the POP/SMTP information (as opposed to automatically add an Office 365 account, which will set it up to keep everything synced)
posted by michaelh at 1:32 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
POP for getting your email; it is an email protocol that downloads your email from the server when you check it and the email stays in your local email client. SMTP is a sending protocol that relays your email through their email sending server, but it doesn’t sync your sent Email folder back up to the server, so you’ll just have the local copy. So POP and SMTP together let you do what it sounds like you want to do.
Apologies if I overlooked it but I don’t see which email client you’re using. If you go this route, you would remove the Office 365 account, and then set up your email address by manually entering the POP/SMTP information (as opposed to automatically add an Office 365 account, which will set it up to keep everything synced)
posted by michaelh at 1:32 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you, AzrealBrown. I do have PST folders to hide mail once I've pulled it down. However, when I go back, my inbox still has some of the mails and this thing where my sent mail populate to the server continues.
(Have not been able to craft a rule that move all emails into those folders, yet.)
(Nothing ever leaves the internet, but if I cannot see it then I'm within compliance!)
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:37 PM on June 9, 2020
(Have not been able to craft a rule that move all emails into those folders, yet.)
(Nothing ever leaves the internet, but if I cannot see it then I'm within compliance!)
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:37 PM on June 9, 2020
Response by poster: Bazinga! I will see if the ISP lets me go to pop.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:48 PM on June 9, 2020
posted by Lesser Shrew at 1:48 PM on June 9, 2020
Depending on your level of interest, you can become your own email provider. Get a server online hosted by some cloud provider whose policies don't object. Install an email server. Buy a domain, and point it to your email server. Secure the server a few times, and make certain it can't act as an open relay, i.e. make sure it won't send email from anyone but you. You can set up filters to block out emails from major spam sources.
After that, you can choose to keep emails where you want them, off or on the server, or in secure storage on the server, whatever's appropriate.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:58 PM on June 9, 2020
After that, you can choose to keep emails where you want them, off or on the server, or in secure storage on the server, whatever's appropriate.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:58 PM on June 9, 2020
Keep in mind that Office 365's SMTP server will save a copy of message in your Sent Items folder.
Also for corporate tenants, Exchange Online is eventually disable single factor authentication for POP and IMAP in the second half of next year because it is a very exploitable service. Not sure if they are going to make this change for consumer services as well.
posted by mmascolino at 7:54 PM on June 9, 2020
Also for corporate tenants, Exchange Online is eventually disable single factor authentication for POP and IMAP in the second half of next year because it is a very exploitable service. Not sure if they are going to make this change for consumer services as well.
posted by mmascolino at 7:54 PM on June 9, 2020
What you're asking for is pretty unusual. All-mail-on-the-server has been pretty standard for most users for 20 years, in part because it provides a layer of redundancy, and now because it means that your computer, your iPad, your phone, etc., can all access the same corpus of mail.
For most people, this is a feature.
This isn't evidence of "push everything to the cloud." This is how things have worked for a long time.
Anyway, POP, as noted, still exists. Some ISPs will let you use it. But this way lies danger, so you'll have to be especially careful about backups, because your mail will be either on the server or on your computer, and there will be no easy way to do a "sync" of mail to a secondary device (like your phone).
posted by uberchet at 6:01 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
For most people, this is a feature.
This isn't evidence of "push everything to the cloud." This is how things have worked for a long time.
Anyway, POP, as noted, still exists. Some ISPs will let you use it. But this way lies danger, so you'll have to be especially careful about backups, because your mail will be either on the server or on your computer, and there will be no easy way to do a "sync" of mail to a secondary device (like your phone).
Also don't want sent mail from my computer to appear on the ISP servers.I'm not sure this is a realistic thing to ask for with modern systems, but you could ask your ISP.
posted by uberchet at 6:01 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
you can become your own email provider.
AFAIK this is one of the only ways to do what you're asking with any degree of certainty. I would also highly recommend against it; that way lies madness in 2020.
Unclear what you mean by "appear on the ISP servers" - is this just to-the-letter compliance with something? Would enabling end-to-end encryption in Outlook be enough?
posted by aspersioncast at 7:05 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
AFAIK this is one of the only ways to do what you're asking with any degree of certainty. I would also highly recommend against it; that way lies madness in 2020.
Unclear what you mean by "appear on the ISP servers" - is this just to-the-letter compliance with something? Would enabling end-to-end encryption in Outlook be enough?
posted by aspersioncast at 7:05 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
If security and privacy are the primary motivators here, you might want to take a look at secure, encrypted emails. If the email is passing through someone else's server you might have the feeling that it's secure because it's just "passing through" but the reality is quite different.
I haven't done this in years, but I suspect it's not hard to set up the required certificates for secure email in O365. This would allow you to access email on your phone and all of your devices without the need to worry about someone else snooping.
As was described above you could move to a local solution w/ POP, SMTP but doing just that with plain text email is likely less secure then the standard offering.
posted by NoDef at 11:07 AM on June 11, 2020
I haven't done this in years, but I suspect it's not hard to set up the required certificates for secure email in O365. This would allow you to access email on your phone and all of your devices without the need to worry about someone else snooping.
As was described above you could move to a local solution w/ POP, SMTP but doing just that with plain text email is likely less secure then the standard offering.
posted by NoDef at 11:07 AM on June 11, 2020
Response by poster: Pop3 is working, for now.
uberchet - Up until a few months ago, my ISP supporting cloud for business accounts or anyone who wanted that, but it was not the default for individual accounts.
aspersioncast - Appears on the servers is a retention issue - "appears" is the wrong word. I should have said lives or sits on.
My concern isn't snooper, per se. My personal concern is having things in one place and then for some emails, that concern is a obligation. And yes, I also deal with people are ixnay for even the enterprise version of several popular virtual meeting platforms.
Security is not an issue and I should have mentioned that.
Thanks, everyone!
posted by Lesser Shrew at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2020
uberchet - Up until a few months ago, my ISP supporting cloud for business accounts or anyone who wanted that, but it was not the default for individual accounts.
aspersioncast - Appears on the servers is a retention issue - "appears" is the wrong word. I should have said lives or sits on.
My concern isn't snooper, per se. My personal concern is having things in one place and then for some emails, that concern is a obligation. And yes, I also deal with people are ixnay for even the enterprise version of several popular virtual meeting platforms.
Security is not an issue and I should have mentioned that.
Thanks, everyone!
posted by Lesser Shrew at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
* this varies depending on your ISP's retention policy, nothing ever really leaves the internet
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:24 PM on June 9, 2020