Alternative Freeserve / Orange email “type” server....

Funkyfreddy

Hi All,

Wasn't sure to add to an existing thread or start a new one...try the latter.

I have a few Freeserve Accounts obviously set up many moons ago that I, like many still make/made use of – I used them in conjunction with several domains as I could just forward emails to my Freeserve account in the same format. I have maybe up to 30 “users” with some domains.

me @ mydomain.co.uk forwarded to me @ mydomain.fsnet.co.uk
you @ mydomain.co.uk forwarded to you @ mydomain.fsnet.co.uk

I could then retrieve each account selectively by using me @ mydomian.fsnet.co.uk for POP3 login....worked a treat.

Wondering if anybody might know of any hosting that would be similar, the likes of Gmail and even some commercial email hosting packages only give you one “Mailbox” and whilst I can forward emails easily enough to the one mailbox being able to selectively retrieve mail not quite so easy (that I can see).

I know I could use filters to route into folders but that still means grabbing all the mail that might have come in for evrybody.

If anybody has any suggestions that would be much appreciated.

Thanks

DavidP24

Hi

One google account can pick up emails from

me @ mydomain.co.uk

you @ mydomain.co.uk

or you could forward each account to one or many gmail accounts.

A gmail account can be configured to "send as" each of your account which would be fine if you were a sole trader for example.

One reason to use gmail is that it is very good at detecting spam, so you could collect email from gmail in a PC client like Outlook (included in MS Office) or Thunderbird.

If your hosting is currently forwarding to fsnet you need to stop that,

Ideally you "collect" the email using IMAP or POP3, the former shows you what is on the server, the latter gives you a copy of your emails on your PC. If a FSnet user had used POP3 before they would have a copy of all their incoming and sent emails. Now people are scrambling to get all that mail, I did one for somebody last week, 16,000 emails into Outlook, took some hours!

As it is you have your original emails on your original server, if you forwarded them rather than collected them, when you collect it is good idea to config to leave a copy on the server.

I you have other users, then you really want one gmail or Thunderbrird account per user.

I can recommend a hosting company that offers unlimited email accounts to be configured on server, it has basic webmail for each account, but usable, can also be configured as described above.

If it is just you and you want the accounts separate, you can log into each account via webmaiil and use something like Lastpass to keep track of logins.

Funkyfreddy

Thanks for the input David.

I'm the only user of each domain but make use of various users on each domain and use each user for specific contacts correspondence. Nobody else has access.

As mentioned the original Freeserve way of having any number of users on each “Address” (me@ and you@ for example) worked great for me because I could[can for a bit] selectively log on and retrieve via POP3 mail for each user.

When I eventually got various domains I dropped the .freeserve.co.uk or fsnet.co.uk from email addresses but continued to have them forwarded to Freeserve in the same format – still easy to selectively collect mail for each user.

I use various email clients on different platforms to collect and send email.

I can't see how I could do something similar with Gmail though – I can forward my mail to land at Gmail and collect it from there and perhaps add labels to split things about but for remote POP3 collection I'd still have to retrieve all mail that had landed on Gmail ?

I don't really want to create numerous Gmail (or similar) accounts for each specific user and I also don't mind paying for email hosting charges if I can find something that works in a way I am [sort of] familiar with although I appreciate I will probably have to accept some changes.

I don't make use of “Webmail” or IMAP and leave POP3 mail on the server and delete it at a later date.

Apologies if I'm not describing myself very well – I'd be interested in at least taking a look at the hosting you can recommend.

Thanks
FF

DavidP24

So let me clarify

Jim is a plumber who has a domain called

fantasticplumbers.com

To make himself look more professional and because he tends to wear many hats in his business he has setup

sales@fantasticplumbers.com
support@fantasticplumbers.com
accounts@fantasticplumbers.com

Now while he wears many hats and is the only one doing all the work, he has read emyth revisited and is building his plumbing empire on the basis that he will employ someone in these roles later down the road so wants to keep everything separate.

However for now, Jim wants one Gmail account to manage his email from these various company roles.

---

OK so that is the requirement, now let me explain a bit about email

Email addresses can be created in the hosting portal as described above however, with most email systems there is something called CATCHALL, it catches everything that has not been explicitly defined

boss@fantasticplumbers.com
admin@fantasticplumbers.com
lkjsladsl@fantasticplumbers.com

Spammers got wise to this and started sending spam to anything@fantasticplumbers.com changing it all the time.

So hosting companies came up with different solutions, some would just bounce anything not defined because they had to store the emails and they knew users were losers at maintenance.

Others allowed you to point catchall to one of the defined emails.

So considering what Jim wants to do, he does NOT want to use catchall, because if he defines explicit email accounts, then each account will have a dedicated mailbox and webmail, along with a separate login.

So having defined the accounts in the hosting portal, the next step is to configure Google to COLLECT and SEND email for each of these accounts

This is done under

Settings
Account and Import

This is explained in the link below, now for each account you can create a label,

'Recommended: Check the boxes next to the options below:
"Label incoming messages"

In Gmail a label is a cross between a folder and a tag, so Jim can have all his Sales email in what looks like a folder, he can also reply to those messages as sales@fantasticplumbers.com by changing the FROM field in the email as he is composing it, you configure this in Settings, account import

When replying to a message:
* Reply from the same address the message was sent to
* Always reply from default address (currently admin89@fantasticplumbers.com)


So all it takes is a little config to collect and send email for each of the three accounts

Later when Jim creates a separate domain for his heating installation business

fantasticheatinginstallation.com

He can do the same thing, create email accounts for each role, then config the same single gmail to collect and send all mail

I am a very task oriented person, I also prefer to PULL email that is important and dip in to email that is not so important when I get time.

So I have literally hundreds of email accounts based around tasks and tasks within businesses. So if I need to dip into a medical journal I will have an online email for that, I also have one for domain management and so on.

For the important ones I have various accounts across different providers and I collect the email with MS Outlook, I use rules to autofile all messages. I hardly see any spam maybe 2 messages a month and I deal with those accordingly, by reporting them to spamhaus and by telling gmail or the host it is spam, it then blocks messages from same IP or other fingerprint.

The reason you do it in gmail is to act as a spam filter and to allow you to create and send email when out and about. It also acts as a backup for your email.

When you download email to say Outlook you collect from gmail, it will have the same original header from sales@fantasticplumbers.com so create rule in outlook to store in folder called sales. You can config Outlook with accounts for each of the fantasticplumbers.com email addresses, however you set it to SEND ONLY and you put a BCC to your gmail account so that gmail has a copy of all sent mail, you create a filter in Gmail for that BCC'ed email and you set it to label and archive it so it is not downloaded again as a loop.

You can read more about it config of account import here:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?hl=en

Get back if you get stuck or need clarification

I will send you details of the hosting

You are lucky because you have your domain, many people have been using FSnet for years and have thousands of emails which they will lose if they do not get their skates on.

quoia

DavidP24 wrote: »

<snip>

</snip>
I will send you details of the hosting

You are lucky because you have your domain, many people have been using FSnet for years and have thousands of emails which they will lose if they do not get their skates on.

Me too please

Tell me about it :eek:

I'd also like to replace my "Orange" FSNET facility with something that "does the same"

By that I mean the VERY useful unlimited/infinite number of unique email addresses on a single account.

I took full advantage of the address format they offered .... differing from the normal ...

mymail<at>fsnet.co.uk

into

anything<at>mymail.fsnet.co.uk
anything1<at>mymail.fsnet.co.uk
9anything9<at>mymail.fsnet.co.uk
ETC.anything<at>mymail.fsnet.co.uk

... ET AL ... AD INFINITUM ... AD NAUSEAM :eek::rotfl:


"Back in the day" this was tremendously useful (before "REAL" spam filtering that mostly works came about) because using a different "INTELLIGENT" variation for almost every web registration allowed you to filter (and block if necessary) any variant that got "hijacked" and became a target for spam etc.
Filtering not on/by source address (which would/could be different every time) but on my own "fixed" destination email address.

You'd be surprised (actually PROBABLY NOT :rotfl:) which well known BIG COMPANYS (Blue chip with "WE NEVER SHARE DETAILS" T&Cs) where I'd entered my "UNIQUE" registration email, turned up weeks/months/years later sometimes being used for SPAM, but more often by other genuine but totally unrelated businesses.
Definitely allowed me to track who/where and occasionally when/how an address has been shared, stolen, hacked or leaked to a "wider audience" and take some steps to handle this.

I still do this (some obvious spam still gets through filtering) and sharing will go on forever, so I'd like to continue to do exactly the same.

So as I see it I need a domain for myself, with email forwarding (to probably GMAIL - it's as good as any - unless there's a better recommendation) using a CATCH-ALL on one of the registered email addresses, which achieves the anything@ requirement.

So any advice and help is most welcome.

One query on something you've already mentioned ... in your example

An email TO sales@fantasticplumbers.com can be replied to such that it is FROM sales@fantasticplumbers.com and not support or accounts or a generic address.

IF the anything@fantasticplumbers.com IS setup as the CATCH-ALL ....

does a reply to the email addressed to XYZ123@fantasticplumbers.com get replied to as ...

XYZ123@fantasticplumbers.com

OR

anything@fantasticplumbers.com ?

Or can it be either, just a matter of set up?

Cheers
Q

DavidP24

Yep I have used my own domains to control spam for years, I quickly realised that using any ISP asset was a mistake because they can change their terms of service.

When I have found myself spammed, if they are a big company I am on them like a rash, usually it is because they have been hacked or a member of IT dept sold list. When IT was migrated to India a lot of companies were lax about access control to their back end databases.

So is it any wonder that an economy where people are paid a dollar a day if they are lucky will steal and sell data.

I know for a fact that Amazon got hacked and did not tell anyone about it, we have seen eBay and of course TalkTalk allow themselves to be hacked. I say allow themselves because there is no excuse, protection exists from external and internal threats.

Gmail does have the disposable PLUS emailing, so if your email was quoia@gmail.com you can use quoia+anythingyouwant@gmail.com so quoia+MSE@gmail.com

Then using filters as described in my previous post, use labels to stick them into folders or even archive them immediately. This explains the + bit if you need to see images

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Plus-Addressing-in-Gmail

Catchall is badly looked upon now, I have loads of domains with catchall but most of my hosting companies have limited new ones being set up. When it is enables, it forwards all mail that is undefined to a one email, usually the admin of the account.

To begin with i would make sure that ALL your FS mail is in folders, then move one message to the inbox and mark it as unread.

Then you need to set up a gmail account to collect the emails, use pop3 and and configure it to delete the email from the server once you have collected it. Initially it should collect that one email.

You can then change gmail to add a Sales label for say Sales folder on FSnet, then go to orange and move all sales folder mark all emails as unread, move them to inbox and kick off a check mail in accounts folder on Gmail.

You could just stick all emails in root and mark them unread, then let gmail import them and then use filters in gmail after to move to label folders.

If you have configured it properly to delete as it goes, the emails will have been deleted as they were collected. If you are a belt and braces kind of person, before you run gmail, use thunderbird to download the emails to your pc or use GMX to collect them, both set to not delete.

Once you have downloaded all, you need to make sure that your gmail inbox is empty, then you move all the emails from the sent folder on FSnet to the root, mark them as unread, then kick off another collection on gmail but with a label of OldSent.

Then you setup your new mail domain, you can register fantasticplumbers.rocks for $3 then create email accounts for

sales@fantasticplumbers.rocks
accounts@fantasticplumbers.rocks
support@fantasticplumbers.rocks

etc

then config Gmail to collect (not forwarding)





You can see the whole procedure here

https://www.redstampmail.com/resources/configuring-gmail-to-pull-mail/fsnet.co.uk/

except for the last step because you DO want to send mail using the account






I have never done a reply from a catchall via gmail, via outlook you can SEND USING



The email arrives with the email you used and (sent by)

quoia

DavidP24 wrote: »

<SNIP>

Gmail does have the disposable PLUS emailing, so if your email was quoia@gmail.com you can use quoia+anythingyouwant@gmail.com so quoia+MSE@gmail.com



Catchall is badly looked upon now,



Then you setup your new mail domain, you can register fantasticplumbers.rocks for $3 then create email accounts for

then config Gmail to collect (not forwarding)



I have never done a reply from a catchall via gmail,
</SNIP>

SO 5-ish questions on the above.

Does replying to a mail delivered to quoia+MSE@gmail.com reply FROM quoia+MSE@gmail.com or quoia@gmail.com



Catchall "bad" - WHY?
When the mail is forwarded to gmail for instance does the "normal" intelligent spam filtering take place on receipt at gmail just as if the same email had been sent direct to an address at gmail.com ?


Register where? Cheapest, most reliable, preferred customer service, etc...? Your choice would be ?
$3 so an American site or is that a £3 typo?Is that annually or one off payment?
Does forwarding (or other domain based email service) command costs (monthly?) based on volume?

And a MAIL DOMAIN? (Not just a domain used with forwarding but that stores the emails?) ..... which ties in with ....

config Gmail TO COLLECT - so they are "stored"???
Why this way?



Replying to catchall via gmail. Care to try ?


thanks again
Q

DavidP24

quoia wrote: »

SO 5-ish questions on the above. Does replying to a mail delivered to quoia+MSE@gmail.com reply FROM quoia+MSE@gmail.com or quoia@gmail.com Replying to catchall via gmail. Care to try ?

1. No when you reply from a +plus addressed mail it comes from the main address of the gmail account.

quoia wrote: »

Catchall "bad" - WHY?
When the mail is forwarded to gmail for instance does the "normal" intelligent spam filtering take place on receipt at gmail just as if the same email had been sent direct to an address at gmail.com ?

2. Catchall is bad for the hosting company, they have to store the message, many people leave messages on the server as a backup so they can go into webmail. Once a spammer realises that you have catchall they can spam you at 1000 different addresses. Spammers sell emails on the dark web, catchall allows them to turn 1000 addresses into 1,000,000 they will all pass delivery testing and so all be valuable. Every email has to be processed, run through filters, stored, it all adds up.

quoia wrote: »

Register where? Cheapest, most reliable, preferred customer service, etc...? Your choice would be ? $3 so an American site or is that a £3 typo?Is that annually or one off payment?

3, I was recommended https://www.name.com for domain registration some years ago by a good tech friend and they are good, Namecheap good for first year. Note this is for domain registration not for hosting and yes $3 for a year on rocks tld no typo on currency but more on year two, best to go with proper tld if you want stable price. https://www.one.com will do free hosting for a year with unlimited emails, but then in a year you will have to migrate, they charge about £11 for for the domain reg in the first year, so nothing is really free as you know.

quoia wrote: »

Does forwarding (or other domain based email service) command costs (monthly?) based on volume?

4. I recently referred someone to same friend for hosting because he got me a good deal but he just told me things have changed and the prices are not so good with that provider, albeit that they are best for anyone doing web dev business. I know of a company that does free hosting but they limit the number of mailboxes to 5 so that would not suit your purpose unless you were using the SEND USING of Outlook rather than the explicit account as described in my earlier post above. Some hosting companies have volume limits but nothing you would need to worry about as a consumer, of course if you are going to be a spam magnate then you may have a problem, but if that were the case you would be using someone else's infrastructure to send your emails.

quoia wrote: »

A MAIL DOMAIN? (Not just a domain used with forwarding but that stores the emails?)

5, Any domain can be used with mail, it is the hosting that determines the ability to store on server, you can play around with the MX records at the domain registrar and in theory you could host it on your own server at your home if you wanted but an expensive way to do it.

quoia wrote: »

config Gmail TO COLLECT - so they are "stored"??? Why this way

6. It does depend on which service is doing the forwarding, but typically if you forward you mess with the mail header which may be critical in the event of legal matters or if a hacker writes to you as someone else. Collecting is better because otherwise Gmail will see the spam as coming from YOUR server and report your IP's as spammers on the SBL. Forwarding also screws up SPF (verifying the mail came from the actual server that matches the IP address it was sent on).

quoia

That's fantastic, thanks very much, really appreciated

A lot to think about and not too much time left to make a decision.

Just one thing - not 100% sure if you answered it or not ....

Replying to catchall via gmail. Care to try ?

... looks like same answer as the + mail account. Yes?

And I wouldn't be averse to using SEND USING in OUTLOOK to achieve the replying from the "correct" SENT TO address - it's quite unlikely to be an everyday event (not multiple times daily anyway that would deter me from this extra complication or step when replying) - so the 5 mailbox free hosting could be a option - whilst adopting the CATCH-ALL option to facilitate unlimited addresses.

Not actually used the "full blown" OUTLOOK, was quite familiar with OUTLOOK EXPRESS many many years ago before I switched to the WEBMAIL service of Orange. Can't remember if SEND USING was part of Express - don't think I came across it if it was :doh:

Thanks again
cheers
Q

DavidP24

Yes Q1 answered your question, I did try it, hence my answer.

Outlook Express is total crap, If you do not have an Office Licence I suspect Thunderbird can do same, you could PM user on here called AndyPix if you want an old Office licence, he has loads.

For send using create a user called MailAdmin so it will say sent via MailAdmin