Inbox

by Glenn Delahoy
(C) Copyright 2004-2005. All rights reserved.

Configuration Scenarios

Using the Accounts and Preferences, Inbox can be configured to work in a variety of ways. Here's a few of the likely situations that may give you some ideas on how it can best work for you.

Scenario: I want to bring email from all of my various uplinks (ISPs/mail servers) into a single inbox on my email client. I don't want any filtering.

Solution: This requires collecting email from each of your accounts and storing locally in a single folder then your email client can collect everything from a single Inbox account.

+-----------+              +-----------+                +-----------+
| account 1 |              | account 2 |                | account 3 |
+-----------+              +-----------+                +-----------+
     |                           |                            |
     +----------->---------------+---------------<------------+
                                 |
                             +-------+
                             | inbox |
                             +-------+
                                 |
                             +-------+
                             | client|
                             +-------+

Add each of your email accounts to the Accounts list but give each one the same account name. This field is used to identify the base folder for the account's mail folders. If each account has the same base folder name then mail from each account is stored in the same location. This field is also used as the login name for the internal pop server.

In each account preferences set the following options:

In the program preferences set the following options:

Set the fetch interval to taste. Now point your email client to collect mail from the Inbox POP3 server using the first account name and password listed in the Accounts. Inbox acts as your single mail server and delivers all of your mail to your client. For more information see the notes later.

Pros: You don't need to set up multiple accounts in your email client, all email is stored in one folder.

Cons: All replies will appear to come from the one email address setup in your client, no filtering, you have to redirect your email client's POP3 server to the Inbox POP3 server.

Scenario: I want to filter out unwanted mail from my various uplinks before I download mail using my email client application.

Solution: This requires connecting to each of your accounts, analysing each email and deleting anything that matches your reject criteria.

+-----------+              +-----------+                +-----------+
| account 1 |->-rejected   | account 2 |->-rejected     | account 3 |->-rejected
+-----------+              +-----------+                +-----------+
     |                           |                            |
     +------------+--------------+---------------+------------+
                  |                              |
              +---+---+                      +---+---+
              | client|                      | filter|
              +-------+                      +-------+

Add each of your email accounts to the Accounts list. In each account preferences set the following options:

In the program preferences set the following options:

Set the fetch interval to taste. No changes are required to your email client application. Inbox acts as a remote mail filter and removes unwanted mail from your various mailboxes.

Pros: You avoid downloading useless email, it gets removed directly from the server. No changes required to your email client.

Cons: You need to enter filters manually, not hard, just takes time. Because your email client and Inbox are working independently, there's no guarantee they'll be in sync and consequently you may download unwanted mail before Inbox has filtered it. If you use Outlook you may be able to avoid entering filters manually by using the Outlook tool. You can also mitigate this by setting your client poll time to much longer than Inbox. For example set the client to collect mail every 10 minutes and Inbox to fetch mail every 5 minutes.

Scenario: I want my email collected and filtered but I only want it to happen when my email program is ready to collect mail.

Solution: This requires Inbox to fetch your mail when you connect to its POP3 server, perform filtering then send the mail on to your email program all at once.

                           +-----------+
                           |  uplink   | rejected
                           |  account  |--------->-------- deleted
                           +-----+-----+
                                 |
                           +-----+-----+
                           |  filter   |
                           +-----+-----+
                   accepted      |   unknown
             +--------<----------+------>-----+
             |                                |
         +---+---+                     +------+-----+          +---+---+
         | inbox |---------<-----------| quarantine |----->----| trash |
         +---+---+          accepted   +------+-----+ rejected +---+---+
             | proxy
         +---+---+
         | client|
         +-------+

This is pretty much how Inbox works by default but with the Proxy option switched on instead of the regular fetches. Add each of your email accounts to the Accounts list. In each account preferences set the following options:

In the program preferences set the following options:

Redirect your email client application to collect email from the Inbox POP3 server. Inbox acts as a mail proxy; when your mail program connects to Inbox it immediately connects to the uplink account, filters and downloads mail then delivers the accepted mail to your email client.

Pros: You avoid downloading useless mail, it gets removed directly from the server. Allows point and shoot filters. Only downloads mail when your email client is ready to receive it.

Cons: You have to redirect your email client's POP3 server to the Inbox POP3 server for each account.