How to handle E-Mail on multiple devices

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Taqyon

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I used to have a pop account that's serviced by outlook on my desktop. I made peace with the fact if I want to read my mails on my phone, I'll need to shut down Outlook before leaving my desktop otherwise all the mails get drawn from the server to Outlook and my phone would not receive it. I can of course setup outlook to leave a copy on the server, but this means I have to sift through mails I've already processed again on my phone before finding the "real" new mails.

Since getting my tablet, I now have 3 locations (not counting my laptop) to receive email. IMAP seems to be the way to go, but it's terribly slow on Outlook, especially now that my folders are getting larger.

I can't believe that we've had email so long and we don't have a proper solution for this problem.

What are you guys doing regarding mail on many devices?
 
POP doesn't make a provision for the multiple device scenario, aside from the Leave Copy on Server which doesn't really solve anything.

IMAP is your only option. If its too slow configure the settings more aggressively (only d/l headers etc)
 
Same boat as you...
I use Gmail's labels to try and minimize the problem... I've got an auto forward from all my mail boxes to go to Gmail.
Then once an email has been read from where ever, I apply the "read" label and remove it from the inbox.
Then if my phone, tablet or laptop sync, it'll only pull down the new emails.

2 issues though - if you're not using IMAP/always connected, the emails only get marked as read when the device sync again. My phone sync's every hour, which works for me, but it may be too long for others;
and because my phone only downloads the first 10k of an email, reading only that bit on my phone still marks the email as read and you have to sift through your "read" label to dig it out.
 
Taqyon said:
I used to have a pop account that's serviced by outlook on my desktop. I made peace with the fact if I want to read my mails on my phone, I'll need to shut down Outlook before leaving my desktop otherwise all the mails get drawn from the server to Outlook and my phone would not receive it. I can of course setup outlook to leave a copy on the server, but this means I have to sift through mails I've already processed again on my phone before finding the "real" new mails.

Since getting my tablet, I now have 3 locations (not counting my laptop) to receive email. IMAP seems to be the way to go, but it's terribly slow on Outlook, especially now that my folders are getting larger.

I can't believe that we've had email so long and we don't have a proper solution for this problem.

What are you guys doing regarding mail on many devices?
Click to expand...

Don't use outlook? I use webmail almost exclusively since web based email applications have almost the exact same functions Outlook would have. Checking my mail on any device then is pretty much piss and you really have no excuse because these days you get 10gb mail boxes. I have one with Rackspace and it's brilliant. You could even just use Gmail and POP your current emails to there etc to switch over to web-only mail.
 
Send/Receive settings

AcidRaZor said:
Don't use outlook? I use webmail almost exclusively since web based email applications have almost the exact same functions Outlook would have. Checking my mail on any device then is pretty much piss and you really have no excuse because these days you get 10gb mail boxes. I have one with Rackspace and it's brilliant. You could even just use Gmail and POP your current emails to there etc to switch over to web-only mail.
Click to expand...

You can also modify your send and receive settings for your folders to only synch certain folders, and as the one person before said to only dl headers etc........

I use IMAP on multiple devices and all work perfectly fine.
 
Thanks guys. I think IMAP is the only way to go still. Strange no-one recommended Exchange.

This morning though while Seacom was acting up, my Outlook hung every time I click on a mail. Now it's better. I suppose I should move my mail server to a local server. But bandwidth costs so much still.
 
I use a number of addresses on a number of devices. I've tried a few alternatives, including IMAP and in the end settled on -

- auto-bcc filter on home pc, blackberry and ipad
- filter on blackberry and home pc to ignore mails from myself (can't do this on iOS)
- filter on work PC to move all emails received from my addresses to the Sent folder. It actually shows the Recipients name you sent the mail to.

Bottom-line - my work PC is the main email device and also the repository for all mails sent via the different devices. I regularly backup the pst files.

It's not perfect, but works reasonably well for me.
 
MightyQuin said:
And how would Exchange be a problem? It will solve the issues. If you do not have access to Exchange then check if your ISP has a Hosted Exchange service available. Simple really...
Click to expand...

Real option, that. I think it might be better than IMAP.
 
SiriS said:
I use a number of addresses on a number of devices. I've tried a few alternatives, including IMAP and in the end settled on -

- auto-bcc filter on home pc, blackberry and ipad
- filter on blackberry and home pc to ignore mails from myself (can't do this on iOS)
- filter on work PC to move all emails received from my addresses to the Sent folder. It actually shows the Recipients name you sent the mail to.

Bottom-line - my work PC is the main email device and also the repository for all mails sent via the different devices. I regularly backup the pst files.

It's not perfect, but works reasonably well for me.
Click to expand...

Two words - Yikes.

I've setup IMAP on all my devices and I have all email sent, received, trashed, everywere. It shows which have been read, replied and deleted in almost real time.

But freeeeking slow if the internets is troublesome. Also quite resource intensive server side.
 
Webmail solves all these issues.
gmail has I feel one of the best web interfaces once you get used to it.
Also extremely easy to find an old email even 2 years back.
could not manage without it and it is free.
 
gmail is exchange enabled (activesync) and push afaik (imap idle) or am i wrong?
if you specifically want ldap for some reason, sign up for a google apps paid account.
outlook < 2010 is a waste of time with imap. not sure about 2010 version.
i use thunderbird 3 with lightning (calendar) built in and with the gcontactsync and provider for google calendar addons.
you can import multiple calendars and addressbooks and set up multiple smtp profiles to send everything via gmail with the correct outgoing address.
it takes a while to setup, but once done, that's the end of that.
you can even back up your profile and move the settings, with the cache if your computer gets nicked or you move to new hardware.
 
Taqyon said:
Real option, that. I think it might be better than IMAP.
Click to expand...

It would, but that depends on your access to it and how your Exchange is set-up. If you dont have access to Exchange and for example the company don't run it with POP access from outside it might cause an issue. It can also introduce extra security issues if your company doesn't have Exchange secured properly, but that is my personal views and a totally different subject.
 
Taqyon said:
Two words - Yikes.

I've setup IMAP on all my devices and I have all email sent, received, trashed, everywere. It shows which have been read, replied and deleted in almost real time.

But freeeeking slow if the internets is troublesome. Also quite resource intensive server side.
Click to expand...

Not elegant, but at least I have a central record of all mails sent, which is very important to me. IMAP was a complete disaster.
 
rory said:
Webmail solves all these issues.
gmail has I feel one of the best web interfaces once you get used to it.
Also extremely easy to find an old email even 2 years back.
could not manage without it and it is free.
Click to expand...

GMail is great to manage my gaming profile and to sync contacts and calendar between Outlook & Android. Beyond that I hate fiddling with a web app if a fully functional Windows and / or android app gui is available, integrated with local apps and local storage of mails and attachments. When the net is slow or down GMail is pretty much useless. Maybe when Google's OS-Within-A-Browser is matured (which I still think is a step backwards to the mainframe era) I'll take another look.
 
Elimentals said:
It would, but that depends on your access to it and how your Exchange is set-up. If you dont have access to Exchange and for example the company don't run it with POP access from outside it might cause an issue. It can also introduce extra security issues if your company doesn't have Exchange secured properly, but that is my personal views and a totally different subject.
Click to expand...

True, I've heard horror stories.
 
murraybiscuit said:
gmail is exchange enabled (activesync) and push afaik (imap idle) or am i wrong?
if you specifically want ldap for some reason, sign up for a google apps paid account.
outlook < 2010 is a waste of time with imap. not sure about 2010 version.
i use thunderbird 3 with lightning (calendar) built in and with the gcontactsync and provider for google calendar addons.
you can import multiple calendars and addressbooks and set up multiple smtp profiles to send everything via gmail with the correct outgoing address.
it takes a while to setup, but once done, that's the end of that.
you can even back up your profile and move the settings, with the cache if your computer gets nicked or you move to new hardware.
Click to expand...

I love the promise of Thunderbird. I've stripped my M*er for Outlook 2010 about a month ago, not being able to find anything until it's OS-based indexing is finished, which is never, so I switched to Thunderbird. Loved it to start with, but more and more issues appeared, such as sometimes forwarding an email and the attachments don't go with. Or not storing my IMAP trash in the correct folder, or at all. Lightning would sometimes not be able to create a calendar entry, etc. So I had to go back tail-between-the-legs.
 
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