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Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

I used to collect my mail using SMTP, but I am thinking now the smartphone age is upon us, I might as well just forward everything to gmail, which has very good spam filtering and push notifications (rather than smartphone battery sucking polling).  I can also import all my old email there too. (i'm not going to use Plusnet's IMAP, because of the stingy space allowances)
I have been trying to configure mail settings to achieve this, but having trouble.  I can't see to get anything sent to the mail box forwarded, only specific aliases.
I just want anything (including catchall) sent to my gmail, from either my plusnet or my hosted domain name.   How do I set this up?
*@mydoman > mygmail
*@plusnetusername.plus.com > mygmail
Thanks.
12 REPLIES 12
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

Just set up a redirect from the Manage My Mail page
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

Hmm, having real problems trying to get this working.
In my Domain Names control panel, I have changed
Quote
"Email Settings"  to "I wish to collect my mail using POP3"

In my Advanced Mail Settings, I have changed:
Quote
Select email delivery method  to POP3/IMAP

In my standard Mail settings, Redirects i have set:
Quote
email@myusername.plus.com
Re-directs to: my.username@gmail.com

Sending to email to any of these, and they don't seem to currently turn up anywhere right now....
email@myusername.plus.com
blahblahblah@myusername.plus.com
email@mydomain.com
blahblahblah@mydomain.com
What am I missing?  The redirect is confusing, as it implies that only messages sent to email@myusername.plus.com will get redirected, but I want everything redirected, as I have been using different prefixes on my email address for years (to track who sells my email to other companies...)
Of course it doesn't help that my old IMAP inbox is stuffed with 30,000 spam messages that's accumulated since the last time I used it....  Just deleting them all now, which is a tiresome operation (the webmail client chokes and times out of course.....)
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

A little bit of progress:
the email@  redirect works, but everything else fails.
email@myusername.plus.com                                             PASS   Arrived at my Gmail correctly.        
blahblahblah@myusername.plus.com                                FAIL   went to my Plusnet IMAP inbox  
email@mydomain.com                                                            PASS   Arrived at my Gmail correctly.        
blahblahblah@mydomain.com                                               FAIL    bounced
So how do I fix this?  Clearly I can't create a sepeate redirect for every concievable prefix I have used in the last 5 years....
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

I don't think you can redirect emails which don't have a recognised address - this means that trying to redirect emails which are picked up via the catchall probably won't work
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

So I am stuck with Plusnets IMAP then, with no way out?  Cry
Is there any other way, like pointing Plusnet MX records at Google?  In the meantime I have setup Gmail Fetcher to read the messages from the Plusnet server via POP3, but it's not ideal, I don't know how often it polls, and it fixes the ones that end up in my Plusnet inbox.
However I am still missing everything that gets sent to:   anything@mydomain.com
Investigating Google Apps, which I can direct the MX records too, but the domain authentication process seems to be a nightmare with Plusnet....
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

OK, finally a solution, bit hacky, but it seems to work.
Setup a free Google Apps account, and pointed my domains mx records to google servers.  This for many people would be enough, however you can't use apps accounts for many Google services, so they are gimped for personal use. So I set up a blanket forward for all emails to my "proper" Gmail account.  There is also a setting to set what account unknown prefix (recipients) on my domain get sent to, so I set that to the main mailbox name.
Now everything sent to my domain email ends up at my existing gmail account.... 
The old plusnet email that I have some stuff still coming to (but 95% spam) I have left being delivered to my Plusnet inbox, I setup Google's mail fetcher to periodically upload from the Plusnet mail server to my gmail.  This isn't as instantaneous but the bulk of my important emails doesn't use this anyway, and I will eventually turn this off once I work out what I need to change email addresses on.
SO that seems to cover all bases..  Now all I have to do is get all my existing email from my Dovecot MailDir on my local server into gmail.    I am planning on using this script: http://scott.yang.id.au/2009/01/migrate-emails-maildir-gmail/
Although I might setup a 3rd "throwaway" gmail account to test it out first 🙂
It's a shame Plusnet's email is not flexible enough to be able to just forward everything...  But still, I seem to have a solution, thanks to Google Apps....
MJN
Pro
Posts: 1,318
Thanks: 161
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-08-2010

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

Quote from: ClashcityRocker
Now all I have to do is get all my existing email from my Dovecot MailDir on my local server into gmail.

If you're running your own mail server why not just continue with that and the use the likes of fetchmail to pull in your mail from the domains you don't host yourself? Instant push notifications through IMAP's IDLE feature work very well.
Mathew
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

I only ran my own mail server because Plusnets IMAP allowance was so stingy, I wanted to be able to access anything I have ever received.  With power comes responsibility as they say..  and whilst I made occasional backups to a DVD, it's not ideal.  With Gmails 10GB limit (which will likely be increased with Microsoft's unlimited offering), the superior indexing, and no need for data backup, along with all my email in one place at one time, and a single contact list, it made sense to go 100% Gmail.
I know some privacy nutters/Google haters will shudder, but I don't care, I have nothing to hide, and if Google are going to show me adverts, they may as well be relevant...
MJN
Pro
Posts: 1,318
Thanks: 161
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-08-2010

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

That's fair enough - you pays your money you takes your choice.
In terms of going ahead eyes wide open however, I would strongly disagree that there's no need for any backup, particularly for data held magically in the 'cloud'.
My own mail server (along with all my other data) is backed up offsite automatically overnight (using rsync) to my brother's machine and a mate's NAS box. It's dead simple and works well. You could do well simply backing up to an external HDD. Not much good in a blazing house fire granted, but better than relying on a 3rd party with no SLA.
Mathew
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

That python script works a champ.   If you are going to use it, make sure you read the comments, and try it out on a test account like I did.   I commented out a couple of lines, and tweaked the sript to import everything from my existing mail to a new folder/label
It's now off doing it's thing, and might have uploaded 12 years worth of emails by sometime next week  Smiley Smiley Smiley
PS.  Love the IPV6 Catfeeder.  Epic page, truely geek.
mgillespie
Grafter
Posts: 222
Registered: ‎08-04-2007

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

Surprisingly quick, 20,000 emails from 12+ years all imported into Gmail in 8 hours, all attachments intact, all the dates intact.
postfix/spamassassin/dovecot now decommissioned, everything pointing to gmail.
Jobs a good'un....
MJN
Pro
Posts: 1,318
Thanks: 161
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-08-2010

Re: Forwarding all my email to gmail permently. (including my hosted domain address)

Gulp...  Wink