Redirecting from existing mailboxes.

[#1]

I've never had to set up any redirects before from my PN boxes until now, and I had always assumed that you can set things up so that incoming emails to existing boxes can be diverted, just as you can do with many third party servers. However, I now need to, and I have tried and failed, so I am probably missing something? 

On the redirect page is the statement "The redirect can't be the same as a mailbox you currently have on your account". So does this mean that I can't actually get incoming emails to existing boxes to an external one?

I can set up a redirect to a different (one which I choose in the redirect process) mailbox, but not an existing one. Any help appreciated. 

Edit: I have tried entering an existing mailbox into the "Redirect name" space, and put a yahoo mailbox into the destination box, but it just returns me to the same page with nothing set up.

[#2]

Edit:

I should have said "from a different one" in this sentence..

I can set up a redirect to a different (one which I choose in the redirect process) mailbox

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Hi @nozzer 

I've discussed this with @JOLO and unfortunately the (odd) way that the redirect function works is that the Plusnet email address you're wanting to redirect from can't exist on your account as a mailbox, because when the redirect is setup it will effectively create the mailbox like an alias, then redirect any mail sent there to an email address of your choosing.

So you'd need to delete the mailbox you're wanting to redirect from, but in doing so you'd lose any emails on the server associated with that mailbox and wouldn't be able to access it anymore.

Sorry for the confusion and if that's not what you'd be wanting. 

[#4]

@Gandalf 

Thanks for this. It's a very strange way of setting up redirects. Seems self-defeating in a way! 

[#5]

No problem. Yeah I agree it does seem to be an odd way of doing a redirect. 

[#6]

It's a very strange way of setting up redirects. Seems self-defeating in a way!

Actually it is the usual way of setting up email forwarding - email addresses are either a proper mailbox or a redirection not both.  Very few platforms (Plesk is the only one I have encountered) which allows forwarding on a 'real' emailbox.  There are significant operational issues on having forwarding on real email boxes - people who are not clear about what they are doing never bother to cull the content of the real mailbox, believing that they have deleted the email in the redirected mailbox and all is OK.

What is it you are seeking to achieve here?  Are you by channce wanting to access your emails in someother regime, like for example Yahoo.com?  If yes, then there are alternative approaches.

[#7]

I have an IMAP Plusnet mailbox (call it one@me.plus.com) and want to redirect personal emails to a new personal domain (me.com).  I use Outlook 365 to access emails.

Can the issue of losing existing emails be overcome by saving the one.ost file (which contains all the downloaded emails) as a one.pst file?

Then delete the one@me.plus.com account. 

Create a new email account two@me.plus.com and give it an alias one@me.plus.com.  Set up a redirect from the alias one@me.plus.com to copy future emails to me.com?

Finally replace the two.ost with the saved copy of the original one.pst thus making the old emails still available. 

Would this work?  If not where does it fail?

Thank you

[#8]

I have an old almost unused email address me@gmail.com and a new (untracked address) at me@protonmail.com.

Gmail allows non-spam email to be automatically redirected and displayed virtually identically in the two mailboxes.

The two mailboxes actually appear to have the same name.