[bbales]

I have used Entourage ever since switching to X 3 years ago -- primarily because it exported all my E-mailer files and Mail didn't. Plus, at the time, Mail seemed pretty lame.

I'm thinking of switching. This was because I liked how my .mac mail could be downloaded on either my PB or my desktop. I have always pretty much just done e-mail from my desktop because if there's a way to keep the two machines in sync, EASILY, I don't know it yet. This is a big issue for me, too; I work from home and it would be a major convenience to have the two machines in sync, no matter where in the house I'm working. Just today, someone called and I had yet to read my e-mail, so i didn't know what she was talking about. (Fortunately, it was not a client.) However, all of a sudden, today it occured to me taht the feature I like -- is a function not of my e-mail program, but of the ISP. So, switching to Mail won't mean that SBC all of a sudden enables me to keep my mail on the server until I download it, the way .mac does.

I am right about this, right? Does anyone who uses a relatively standard ISP (which Ameritch is, let's face it) have an easy way to do e-mail in two spots. I don't recall ever seeing a good answer on this.

Of course, another option is to use my .mac account all the time, but for various reasons I don't want to do that. And I suppose I could set up rules that all my ameritech mail bounces to the .mac account, but that seems somewhat time-consuming as well.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by bbales:
I have used Entourage ever since switching to X 3 years ago -- primarily because it exported all my E-mailer files and Mail didn't. Plus, at the time, Mail seemed pretty lame.

I'm thinking of switching. This was because I liked how my .mac mail could be downloaded on either my PB or my desktop. I have always pretty much just done e-mail from my desktop because if there's a way to keep the two machines in sync, EASILY, I don't know it yet. This is a big issue for me, too; I work from home and it would be a major convenience to have the two machines in sync, no matter where in the house I'm working. Just today, someone called and I had yet to read my e-mail, so i didn't know what she was talking about. (Fortunately, it was not a client.) However, all of a sudden, today it occured to me taht the feature I like -- is a function not of my e-mail program, but of the ISP. So, switching to Mail won't mean that SBC all of a sudden enables me to keep my mail on the server until I download it, the way .mac does.

I am right about this, right? Does anyone who uses a relatively standard ISP (which Ameritch is, let's face it) have an easy way to do e-mail in two spots. I don't recall ever seeing a good answer on this.

Of course, another option is to use my .mac account all the time, but for various reasons I don't want to do that. And I suppose I could set up rules that all my ameritech mail bounces to the .mac account, but that seems somewhat time-consuming as well.

To have your mail in synch in two places at the same time, you need your ISP to support IMAP. Most don't currently offer this -- they're typically POP only.

Entourage can keep stuff in synch -- it supports IMAP accounts. .Mac supports IMAP or POP... when you create a .Mac account in Mail.app though, it defaults to IMAP (and fills in most of the settings for you)... with Entourage you must manually specify IMAP and add a couple more lines of info, but then it will work fine.

If your ISP doesn't support IMAP though, you're SOL on the synchronization.

[bbales]

Originally posted by CatOne:

If your ISP doesn't support IMAP though, you're SOL on the synchronization.

I'm not at all sure why it took me until today to sink in that it wasn't .mac, it was the .mac account! I was so afraid your answer was the case. It just seems to me that this is an integral part of computing these days, and to not be able to sync is a big negative.

But I guess I should take that up with SBC!

Thanks for confirming my fears.

[eggman]

Wait a sec... even with POP servers most email clients give you the option to leave incoming mail messages on the server, which can allow multiple computers opportunity to fetch all mail messages over time.

This applies to received mail, but not to sent mail... for which you would need an IMAP server that retains sent messages in a folder... but one can get around that by doing a BCC: copy to yourself of any outgoing messages that you'd want to archive on all your systems.

In Entourage, under the Tools:Accounts option, after selecting your account in the dialog box, there's a tab titled "Options". On that options page, one of the options is "leave a copy of each message on server". If you check that option, your incoming mail messages will remain on your email server for other your other computers to fetch.

There's also an option to have those emails deleted from the server after a certain number of days and/or after you delete them from your computer (which can be useful in cleaning the spam out so you don't get it twice...).

[tooki]

Or just get an email account from an email service that offers IMAP, and set your ISP email to forward to that.

tooki

[CharlesS]

You know, in my experience, ISPs sometimes have the option to connect via either IMAP or POP even if the default settings they give you are POP.

Why not dig around on SBC's support site or ask them if they support IMAP?

[bbales]

I e-mailed SBC and found out I can change the settings to leave mail on the server, and then delete when/if I want to.

So -- that now allows me, in theory anyway -- to do what I wanted. I haven't had time to play around with it. On ething that does come to mind is that sending is different from receiving, and my sent mail is sometimes as important as the received stuff.

So I'll have to look into that, too. This, at least, lets me receive mail at both machines and have it be the same. So that part is great.
Thanks for the suggestion.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by eggman:
Wait a sec... even with POP servers most email clients give you the option to leave incoming mail messages on the server, which can allow multiple computers opportunity to fetch all mail messages over time.

This applies to received mail, but not to sent mail... for which you would need an IMAP server that retains sent messages in a folder... but one can get around that by doing a BCC: copy to yourself of any outgoing messages that you'd want to archive on all your systems.

In Entourage, under the Tools:Accounts option, after selecting your account in the dialog box, there's a tab titled "Options". On that options page, one of the options is "leave a copy of each message on server". If you check that option, your incoming mail messages will remain on your email server for other your other computers to fetch.

There's also an option to have those emails deleted from the server after a certain number of days and/or after you delete them from your computer (which can be useful in cleaning the spam out so you don't get it twice...).

Correct, you can get main from two places with POP, if you leave it on the server. What IS very difficult, though, is keeping things in synch... the "read" status isn't changed, and if you create folders, you can't do it on the server.

IMAP is a bunch more convenient. I doubt SBC offers IMAP, if it were me I'd ditch the ISP's account and use .Mac. I have my ISP's account just forward all mail directly to .Mac and I'm done with it. I never gate out the ISP (Comcast) account anyway... only stuff I get is promos from them (which I just used to upgrade to 6 Mbit/768 Kbit DSL).