[selowitch]

Now that I have a new iBook to go with my G4 tower, I want to start to think intelligently about how I want to handle my e-mail henceforth (Yeech --- did I really say "henceforth"? Somebody shoot me).

I have multiple e-mail accounts, each with a lot of subfolders, and I'd love to be presented with the same e-mail arranged the same way on both machines regardless of which one I'm using.

It would be great if when I delete something on one machine, it's deleted on the other; if I move a message on one machine (to a subfolder), it will appear that way on the other machine. In other words, I want total e-mail mirroring.

What do I need to do to achieve this? Do I need an IMAP account? I currently use Entourage on the G4 but don't really want to pay for another license for the iBook, therefore I'm thinking of downgrading to Mail.app.

[Mithras]

Yeah, IMAP is the way to go. You'd need the biggest IMAP folder you can find an email service to support.
I use http://fastmail.fm myself, which for something like $20/year gives you 600MB and an excellent webmail client as well.

I think you can use Entourage on both machines -- as long as it's not simultaneously. Which is annoying.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by Mithras:
I think you can use Entourage on both machines -- as long as it's not simultaneously. Which is annoying.

If Mail.app or Eudora can do it simultaneously, then to heck with Entourage.

[Rev-O]

I essentially do what you are talking about across a G5, G3 iMac, and G4 iBook using mail. It's more labor intensive, I suppose, because I manually do what you want the application to do.

All three machines has basically identical folder structures, and access to all email accounts. I've designated my imac as my central email machine, as it is most centrally located in my house. All email I might want to keep is organized and stored on this machine. My other two computers have somewhat of a mixed bag of stuff that pertains to applications and software found only on each machine. More important emails are stored on all three computers. This way, I have emails pertaining to one machine on that machine, important emails everywhere, and a large collection of quasi-important crap on my iMac. It isn't as elegant a solution as you describe, but it works just fine for me, and is free.

[midwinter]

The client you use is really irrelevant. You need an IMAP account.

[selowitch]

Originally posted by midwinter:
The client you use is really irrelevant. You need an IMAP account.

True. But it's still on my mind at the same time.