Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

dhanushan · Mar 2, 2003, 02:02 PM

I have Mail on 2 computers- one at work and one at home.

Unfortunately, as I have a cable modem at home (thus, slow upload speeds) it is not feasible to keep the entire Mail folder (i.e Username/Library/Mail) sync'ed between the two computers (I have T1 at work). As I have years worth of emails in carefully organized mailboxes, the Mail folder is about 350MB in size and growing.

Is there any way to "selectively" synchronize these folders. That is, it would be nice if I could only syncronize the changes that occur to the mailboxes each day rather than synchronize the entire Mail folder each day--- Kind of how iSync schronizes iCal and AddressBook.

TIA,
Dhanu...

larkost · Mar 2, 2003, 08:12 PM

rsync is your friend!

PS.. As a native Madizonian..."Eat Good Food" for me!

midwinter · Mar 2, 2003, 11:06 PM

I assume you're using a POP3 account? One of the things I've just done is move ALL of my email work over to two IMAP accounts, and I've placed all of my folders in those IMAP accounts. I can start an email on one machine, save it as a draft, then move to anotehr machine and call it right up. No need to sync anything.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Scott

dhanushan · Mar 3, 2003, 05:23 PM

larkost and midwinter, thanks for your suggestions. However, I don't know how to implement either one. If you can provide more info or direct me towards a resource online...

Thanks,
Dhanu...

midwinter · Mar 3, 2003, 06:11 PM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
larkost and midwinter, thanks for your suggestions. However, I don't know how to implement either one. If you can provide more info or direct me towards a resource online...

Thanks,
Dhanu...

Dhanu,

I'm out of my depth on the technical stuff here, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, here goes: POP3 and IMAP are types of email servers, and the kind you get will depend upon what your internet service provider gives you. If you have a .mac account, you've already got one. If you're not sure, and you use Mail in OS X, you can select preferences>accounts, then double-click on your email account. Under the "account type" tab, it will say IMAP, POP, or .Mac.

The real-world difference between IMAP and POP is that IMAP servers allow you to deal with ALL of you mail on the email server without having to download it and then sort through it in your email application. You can set up folders within your IMAP account on the mail server itself (and not just in your email program), and those folders will appear in whatever email program you have configured to check that account. Additionally, you can opt to keep sent mail and drafts on the IMAP server, which means that you'll have them available to you on all of your computers that are configured to check that account.

Even better is this: if you respond to an email from one computer, it will register as replied to on another. Very handy (I work on two machines on a daily basis, and this has made my life LOADS easier since I no longer have to wonder if I responded to someone or not).

At any rate, most ISPs are going to give you POP3 for email, so you'll probably have to go elsewhere for IMAP mail if that's the case. I'm not aware of any free IMAP mail services, but you never know.

There's always .mac if the money's there.

If you do have a .mac or an IMAP mail server, let me know; I'll be happy to walk you through how to configure Mail (or Entourage or whatever) so everything's synced up.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Scott

hudson1 · Mar 3, 2003, 06:42 PM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
I have Mail on 2 computers- one at work and one at home.

Unfortunately, as I have a cable modem at home (thus, slow upload speeds) it is not feasible to keep the entire Mail folder (i.e Username/Library/Mail) sync'ed between the two computers (I have T1 at work). As I have years worth of emails in carefully organized mailboxes, the Mail folder is about 350MB in size and growing.

OK, I think we can probably stop right there on your setup to predict that you're not looking at any simple solution. Ideally, IMAP is the way to go for what you are trying to do. I have the same kind of need and that's what I use. IMAP, I found, is the wave of the future.

On the other hand, you have an extreme need that's centered on the size of your mail files. 350MB is way larger than any IMAP service will permit. My hunch is that the approach that you want to take to meet all of your needs will require that your T1 connected machine act as your own mail server. That's out of my league as far as setting that up but you might be able to find someone here who has done it. I doubt many have, though. Hope it works out.

Failing that, though, is there any way you can live with a small mail file on the server with everything archived on one of your machines? I'm guessing not by the way you posed the question.

dhanushan · Mar 4, 2003, 10:46 PM

.Mac probably wouldn't work for me as I have over 300 MB of mail... and I need to have access to it all.. :o)

I have a 1GHz MP G4 Server tower running MacOS X Server 10.2. Currently, it is only running a file server. I guess I could set it up to host an IMAP account. Only thing is that I wouln't know how to set it up.. any resources available online?

Thanks for all the suggestions anf info.

Dhanu...

midwinter · Mar 4, 2003, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
.Mac probably wouldn't work for me as I have over 300 MB of mail... and I need to have access to it all.. :o)

I have a 1GHz MP G4 Server tower running MacOS X Server 10.2. Currently, it is only running a file server. I guess I could set it up to host an IMAP account. Only thing is that I wouln't know how to set it up.. any resources available online?

Thanks for all the suggestions anf info.

Dhanu...

Is there any real reason that all of this has to be email? I mean, surely there's a better way to archive all of this information....

Could you give us a sense of what kinds of information you're dealing with and why it needs to be maintained at 300 MB of email as opposed to some other format?

Sorry to be nosey, but maybe we can figure out another way for you to deal with all this.

Cheers
Scott

dhanushan · Mar 4, 2003, 11:31 PM

Why email...? I'm in medical research... many of these are emails with brainstormed ideas with attachments of proposals, budgets etc. Some others are simply a series of emails dealing with administrative discussions... In the email form it is easy to recollect the discussions I have had, access the appropriate files sent by my collaboraters etc.. Hope this helps...

Thanks again,
Dhanu...

awaspaas · Mar 4, 2003, 11:37 PM

Setting up an IMAP server on your work machine is a smart solution which would definitely work for you. Unfortunately, without Mac OS X server, setting up a mailserver is not a trivial thing... at all.

dhanushan · Mar 4, 2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by awaspaas:
Setting up an IMAP server on your work machine is a smart solution which would definitely work for you. Unfortunately, without Mac OS X server, setting up a mailserver is not a trivial thing... at all.

I do have a MacOS X Server... I just don't know how to setup the mailserver...

Dhanu...

awaspaas · Mar 4, 2003, 11:42 PM

Might I share how I deal with this problem? I use an IMAP server so I have current access to my mailbox on my home and work computers. At the end of every month, I copy the contents of the server's mailbox onto each local machine. This is easy to do in Mail.app, just make a new folder in On My Mac and option-drag the contents of your mailbox to that folder. When I've downloaded everything to each machine, I clear out the mailbox. That way the mailbox doesn't get overfull, but I still have access to all my past messages on both machines, because they're stored locally.

However, this only works for me because I don't meticulously organize my mail (way too much work for me!). I simply archive it monthly and rely on Mail.app's searching to find messages. If you consistently file away each message into topical-based folders, this is probably not the solution for you. Just though I'd share anyway though.

awaspaas · Mar 4, 2003, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
I do have a MacOS X Server... I just don't know how to setup the mailserver...

Dhanu...

Oho! Now we're talking! Sorry I missed the message where you said you have Server.

This we can deal with! I don't have the stuff in front of me now to look at, but if nobody's explained it by tomorrow, I'll step you through it. Not hard at all...

dhanushan · Mar 4, 2003, 11:46 PM

Originally posted by awaspaas:
Might I share how I deal with this problem? I use an IMAP server so I have cur....

Doesn't seem ideal for my needs but thanks nevertheless!

Dhanu...

dhanushan · Mar 4, 2003, 11:52 PM

Originally posted by awaspaas:
Oho! Now we're talking! Sorry I missed the message where you said you have Server.

This we can deal with! I don't have the stuff in front of me now to look at, but if nobody's explained it by tomorrow, I'll step you through it. Not hard at all...

Sounds great!

Thanks,
Dhanu...

dhanushan · Mar 5, 2003, 11:44 PM

Is there any good books or online resources that explain the options when you config Mail Services on MacOS X Server? I got IMAP to work on the server.. but it would be nice if I could understand all the different settings and options...

Dhanu...

ls -al · Mar 6, 2003, 05:52 AM

I have my entire ~/Library on a removable Firewire HD (Firelite 40GB), you can setup symlinks to the HD. I take the portable disk with me when I travel around...

dfiler · Mar 6, 2003, 12:19 PM

A simplified explanation of POP and IMAP:
These are two different ways of talking to your mail server. Most mail servers offer both protocols but not always. POP3 downloads messages to the mailboxes on your machine and then views them. IMAP leaves your mailboxes and messages on the server.

IMAP is generally used if you plan on using email from many different computers. IMAP stores everything on the server so your mailboxes will always be up-to-date no matter which computer you are using to check your mail. However, it is significantly slower then POP.

Neither method really satisfies my needs... yet there is a configuration that seems to have served me well.

It is as follows:
My work and home computers are both configured to use POP rather than IMAP. (Eudora at work, Mail.app at home) Normally, this would mean that if you check your mail at work, your home computer would never receive a copy of those messages. The secret is to configure both email programs to download but not delete the messages until 2 months after they were received. Thus, both machines have all my incoming messages unless one of them wasn't turned on for over 60 days. Since this is a yahoo account, if I check my mail via a web browser, I have access to the previous 60 days of messages.

hudson1 · Mar 6, 2003, 08:25 PM

I know that everyone's situation is different, but for me I find IMAP access to not pose any issue on download speed. If you haven't done so already, under the Edit Account selection in Mail preferences, be sure to check the the Advanced tab to see that you've selected "All messages and their attachments" for keeping messages locally for viewing. This is what turns IMAP into a great thing instead of just glorified Webmail.

dhanushan · Mar 7, 2003, 08:56 PM

Thanks, but I know the difference between IMAP and POP accounts. What I'm looking for is some resource that would explain the various options/settings offered by Mail Service on MacOS X Server.

beverson · Mar 7, 2003, 11:48 PM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
Thanks, but I know the difference between IMAP and POP accounts. What I'm looking for is some resource that would explain the various options/settings offered by Mail Service on MacOS X Server.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=122015

From this page you can download a PDF of the OS X Server Admin Manual. I haven't looked at it myself, but from reading other places it should give you some hints as to how to set up your IMAP server.

That being said, I doubt it's really that tough. I am not experienced with OS X Server, but again from reading and talking to folks who are, it's pretty easy and fool proof. Just switch on the mail server and leave the default settings maybe? I don't know (though it sounds like some others here might). My largest suggestion would be not to move all of your important mail over to it until you're sure it's configured the way you want and working correctly. Switch it on, create a dummy account, and send and receive some test messages with that dummy account.

One thing people here have not mentioned or questioned -- do you have this machine running as a server for other things (Web, etc.)? Also, is it behind a firewall or no? These could complicate matters of course. Additionally, I'm guessing that you have an e-mail address through an ISP or a school or something and you want to keep using that address. If so, you'll probably use this IMAP account as merely a "storage" account if you understand what I mean...move messages from your POP account there for storage, reference or retrieve them from there when you need them. Not the most elegant solution necessarily, but it can get all of your 300 MB of messages in a central location for you, which seems to be the biggest concern. And you can use rules in Mail.app to route incoming POP messages to particular folders in this IMAP account, etc.

Good luck.

dfiler · Mar 8, 2003, 08:35 AM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
Thanks, but I know the difference between IMAP and POP accounts. What I'm looking for is some resource that would explain the various options/settings offered by Mail Service on MacOS X Server.

If you're talking about OS X's built in 'mail server' then you can read up on sendmail. Sendmail is the 500 pound gorilla of unix mail servers. Almost nobody fully utilizes sendmail since it is truley mind-boggling in scope. So much stuff is built into and on top of sendmail that administrators still discover new things after years of use and configuration. Hundreds of commercial products are based upon sendmail. Some of these offer graphical frontends to many of sendmail's switches and configuration files.

Is sendmail what you were asking about? If so, I can dig up the links I used while learning how to configure it.

dhanushan · Mar 9, 2003, 10:51 AM

Originally posted by dfiler:
If you're talking about OS X's built in 'mail server' then you can read up on sendmail...

Actually what I am looking for is the explanation of the settings offered my "Mail Service" on MacOS X Server. I just want to know what the different settings mean and when the should or should not be enabled etc.; a dummies guide if you will..

Dhanu...

dfiler · Mar 10, 2003, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by dhanushan:
Actually what I am looking for is the explanation of the settings offered my "Mail Service" on MacOS X Server. I just want to know what the different settings mean and when the should or should not be enabled etc.; a dummies guide if you will..

Hmmm... guess i'm not much use then. I've never worked specifically with Apple's GUI wrapper of sendmail.

It may be useful to understand what the settings in apple's frontend are being mapped to. I suspect that much of what is written about the 'Mail Service' is written from this perspective. If Apple has successfully tamed sendmail, I would be greatly impressed. Many other commercial GUIs fall short, breaking when settings are tampered with manually or by another GUI config tool.

dhanushan · Mar 14, 2003, 07:37 AM

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Dhanu...