How can I read my email on more than one machine?

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Another alternative, and the one I use, is changing my POP configuration in my mail client.

In Thunderbird and others, you have a choice of whether or not to delete messages from the server after downloading them. With my laptop, I merely check "leave messages on server" in the "Server Settings" section of the "Account Settings" dialogue for the particular account.

If you have your own domain and can create multiple e-mail accounts, you can also create a separate mailbox that only gets downloaded by your desktop. You go into the "Copies & Folders" section of the account settings for that account and check "BCC these e-mail addresses", then put in that address. That way, any e-mails you send are copied to that account.

That's what I did. When I log on to my desktop, all the e-mails sent to that secondary address are retrieved, marked read, and placed in my sent-mail folder.

So, while my laptop doesn't get/keep copies of every e-mail I send or receive with the desktop, the desktop gets and keeps copies of every e-mail I send or receive with the laptop.

It gives me one "master" mailbox, and occasionally, I copy it over to the laptop, overwriting the laptop's less complete mailbox.

I actually use the method of file sharing here. We have 3 computers, my Mum wants to be able to use her email on 2 of them. So, using my networked hard drive, I put the profile in there, set Thunderbird to use that and it works like a charm. I just told her not to have it running on both at once which isn't an issue.

When I used Windows remote desktop was the best option. For now all my email is forward to my gmail account. I have a couple of domains and unlimited forwarding addresses, if something were to happen to my Gmail account all I have to do is change the alias to a Pop account.

One option that you seemed to miss, is checking the leave mail on server option. With POP3 leaving the mail on the server would enable to download the mail multipule times and most clients remember what messages they've already downloaded. The only downside is you have to remember to manually delete the messages on the server weather by a webmail interface or through a your mail program.

Another option for the really geeky people who have their own home server is to write a script to transfer the database to the server on shutdown and to copy the db to a local folder on boot. This would only work for accessing mail on 1 machine at a time but who needs to read their email on more than 1 machine at the same time?

There's a better answer than all of these, IMHO -- which is to use MS Exchange for your email. Exchange integrates tightly with Outlook, and automatically keeps all of your Outlook-equipped PCs in total sync. You don't even have to do "send/receives" - it does real-time sync. And this means not just email, but also other Outlook objects like your calendar, contacts, notes, etc. It even syncs things like whether an email has been read or flagged. You have complete and virtually identical Web access via OWA (Outlook Web Access). Your mail, calendar, contacts, etc. are all stored on the server, so if your machine crashes you can instantly recover everything. And the final touch is that Exchange now supports true "push" email to Windows Mobile phones like the Treo 700w (which I have) -- fully synched with the server and nothing to download. Trust me, this is as close to "email nirvana" as you're going to get.

Problem is that Exchange Server has usually been used only by larger corporations for employee use. But now, there are several vendors offering "hosted Exchange mailboxes" (just search that term in Google). I've tried both 1&1 and 4SmartPhone, and ended up choosing the latter for a few minor reasons -- but both are the same price and both work great. The cost is only $6.99/month for a mailbox, which includes 1 gig of server storage (I keep every email I receive or send), antispam and antivirus scanning, etc. It even includes a free copy of Outlook 2003 if you don't have it already.

Although you get a new email address for your Exchange account, you don't have to really use it -- I simply forward everything from my multiple other accounts (Gmail, Earthlink, business, etc.) to my Exchange account and it's transparent. In Outlook, it's even easy to reply or send email "from" those other accounts so they don't show your Exchange address.

If you really want to do it right, pick up a personal domain with email, and route all your incoming mail to Exchange. 1&1 offers a personal domain for just $5.99 a year, and you can set up as many incoming email addresses as you like -- all forwarded to Exchange.

So for a whopping $90 a YEAR, I've achieved "email nirvana" with lifetime independence from any particular ISP. It's easy to set up, painless to use, and I'll NEVER go back to POP3, IMAP4, or only Webmail again.

I've tried virtually every other solution that was suggested in this thread, and they all have shortcomings. After using this setup for close to a year, I have discovered NO downsides at all.

Hope this helps --
Rob Vonderhaar

Microsoft almost make this easy. If you want to be able to send and receive Outlook email, add dates to your diary etc and keep the data synchonised between a PDA and a PC then just use ActiveSync. If only you could use it with your laptop and home PC it woud be perfect. But sadly ActiveSync won't sync btween two full Windows machines.

Maybe the next release of Outlook will offer this :-)

I want to make POP3 address for remote location accounts.
for example: pop.mydomain.com

I use XP media center and outlook express. I have my wife as the mail e-mail so when I open outlook express it opens to my wifes e-mail. I then have to switch identities and go to my e-mail account. How can I create a link on my desktop to go directly to mine without have to read her e-mail.She uses this computer more.

I have a client that Added their exchange account to their laptop and it removed their email files from their desktop? Does anyone know of a way to get this back or change it to where it works with both being opened a the same time?

Greetings,
I moved the outlook pst files to a Network Attached Storage device and all instance of Outlook reference these pst files (4 pst files one for each user). The NAS device is available to all 5 computers. There are 4 user accounts setup one on each computer. Setup this way it doesn't matter which computer one logs onto, the mail is the same including calendar, flags etc because the user is accessing the same outlook pst file. The mail is not stored on the POP server, so I don't have to worry about going over my quota, only problem is that a user is not able to open two instances of their e-mail, since there is only one pst file per user account.

outlook web access looks good I will try it thank you alan

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