[madgreek]

On my sisters eMac I have set up two accounds -- one for her and one for her kids. She has two kids that I set up with e-mail accounts but the problem I'm finding is how to let each kid have their own separate e-mail. Is there a way for when Mail starts up to ask which person wants to check their e-mail?

In other words; when kid.1 wants to check her e-mail it automatically does so because she is the default account. But how can kid.2 log on and just check his e-mail.

[JLL]

Make one Mac OS X account for each kid.

[theory]

Go to mail preferences. Make an account for
kid 1 and an account for kid 2. Make sure
that the in the advanced tab the "include when
checking for new mail" is unchecked in kid2's
account that way when mail 1 is launched only
mail for the first account is retrieved while the
other mail can be retrieved on demand.

[madgreek]

JLL,

I was hoping to avoid having to do that because of the complexity of setting it up. If I could find a way to duplicate the one kids account and then have the ability to rename each accounts name and short name that would work. But I see no way of doing this. If I just delete that one kids account and transfer their Home directory folder to the new account then I've found -- after try that at work -- that I have all sorts of permissions problems.


theory,

If I set up the Mail account that way it still seems like all mail to both kids would come in the same mailbox so that each would see the others mail that is sent or received. Is it possible to set it up so each kid had their own mail box and would have to use their password to get into their own mailbox?

[Sharky K.]

permissions is easy to change with the info window.
Permissions are set by the one who copies the files. I would do the following
Make a backup on cd or external hard disk (backup is always nice to have) then create two accounts. and then copy in those accounts the documents from the cd or external hd. This can also be done other ways but I believe this is the most easy way for you.

[cwasko]

Originally posted by madgreek:
I was hoping to avoid having to do that because of the complexity of setting it up. If I could find a way to duplicate the one kids account and then have the ability to rename each accounts name and short name that would work. But I see no way of doing this. If I just delete that one kids account and transfer their Home directory folder to the new account then I've found -- after try that at work -- that I have all sorts of permissions problems.

I think the complexity of trying to get Mail to only view one account at a time within the same login is by far more complex, if even possible. Going down the route of separate logins at least is a well defined path, and is truly what should be done in this case.

[hudson1]

There are a couple of things that you can do that may or may not meet your needs.

In the account preferences pane, leave the password box blank. Also, deselect "Include this account when automatically checking for new mail" on the Advanced pane.

Also...

If it's an IMAP account, on the Advanced pane where there's a drop down box referring to offline viewing, try selecting "Don't keep copies of any messages".

If it's a POP account, I don't think there's any way to hide a message that's already been downloaded. That may not be a criteria that you need.

[kafka]

Although all of these suggestions are helpful, I'm not sure it has to be so difficult and convoluted...

Maybe try this:

It's a shareware app called MailSwitch.

"MailSwitch is an Apple Mail launcher that allows the creation of multiple separate Mail users. This application creates a separate set of mailboxes for each user, allows Mail access to these mailboxes by way of a login window."

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14839


Hope this helps.

[madgreek]

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll try that MailSwitch program first before redoing the accounts.