Inbox

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

Redirection Scenarios

Scenario: I'm going on holidays and I want someone else in my department to handle my email but I want to keep the email as a record.

Solution: Go to the Redirect page of each account you want to redirect and set the following options:

Now click the Add button underneath the Redirect To Address list and enter the email address of the person who will be handling your email and click the Apply button. All email that comes to this account will now be sent on to the new address. If the person who will be taking your email happens to also be an Inbox account, you can leave off the domain part of the email address. For example, "glenn@delahoy.com" becomes simply "glenn" where "glenn" is the name of another Inbox account. Inbox will then simply copy the email into that account's inbox folder instead of sending it out via a smtp server.

Pros: Easy redirection of email while keeping a copy for yourself.

Cons: Inbox has to stay running while you're away.

Scenario: I want to set up an Inbox account to act like a mailing list where incoming email is distributed to many people.

Solution: You need to set up a real email address for the mailing list where Inbox will fetch the original mail. Set up an Inbox account that will fetch mail for this address. Go to the Redirect page of the new account and set the following options:

Now click the Add button underneath the Redirect To Address list and enter the email addresses of all the people you want to put on the mailing list and click the Apply button. All email that comes to this account will now be distributed to the new addresses. Any participants of the mailing list that also happen to have an account on Inbox can be entered without the domain part of the email address. For example, "glenn@delahoy.com" becomes simply "glenn" where "glenn" is the name of another Inbox account. Inbox will then simply copy the email into that account's inbox folder instead of sending it out via a smtp server.

Pros: Quick and painless mailing list tool.

Cons: Requires a real email address, no automated subscription, no moderation, *all* email that hits this account and is accepted will be distributed. Not sure how well it handles large volumes. If you have filtering enabled, you may also need to create an Accept filter for each address in the mailing list. Filtering can be switched on and off for each account.

Scenario: My ISP only gives me a couple of email addresses but there's a lot of people here that need email. How can I make one email address work for many people without everyone reading everyone else's email?

Solution: First set up an Inbox account for the one real email address that will fetch all email for that account and enter all the required Fetch information. Next set up additional Inbox accounts for everyone that requires email but switch off the Fetch option. So you have one account that fetches and many that don't. Next go back to the one account that fetches email and set up the following redirection options:

Now click the Add button underneath the Redirect To Address list and enter the Inbox account names for all the accounts that don't fetch and click the Apply button. These will be simple account names without domains. In order to direct email to a specific person, the sender must enter the Inbox account name of the person in question followed by the actual email address. The resulting recipient might look like "To: John <glenn@delahoy.com>". All email that comes to this account will now be distributed to the individuals. Any email directed to a non existent Inbox account will simply stay in the fetching account.

Pros: Quick and painless creation of multiple email accounts using a single email address. If filtering is enabled for the fetching account, all recipients benefit from the filtering rules.

Cons: The senders must remember to address the email in a particular way. This can be mitigated by prompting them to enter the correct name and address into their address book. This is known to work correctly for Outlook, Outlook Express and Mozilla Mail and should work with most other email clients.