Advice for downloading LOTS of email accounts?

[stanw]

I have around 15-20 different email accounts that have been collected over the years for signing up with various services, SPAM, etc. I'm thinking of setting up Mail to download all of these different accounts, though I'm afraid of the tidal wave of emails that I'm going to have. None of the email accounts are active ones I use, though I just want to make sure that nothing is being sent to me of any importance without having to log into each account separately.

1. Is there a way when setting it up in Mail to only have emails from a certain range of time download the first time?

2. Any advice for trying to set something up like this in Mail? A system or way to filter my emails?

Thanks!

 

[Bending Pixels]

You might want to start by figuring out which ones you really need and which to drop. Next, if possible, use the email's web based interface to see how much junk is there.

Mail, along with any other email client - will have difficulty in managing that many email accounts. You might be able to set up a rule for what you want, but I think it would be easier to first figure out which email accounts you really want to keep and clean up the email from those via webmail first.

 

[charlyham]

If your email accounts can be configured to forward mail, set up a gmail account and forward the mail from each of your old accounts to the new gmail account. you can then check all the mail in one place and not bother trying to download all that mail to your computer.

 

[flynz4]

I have all my email accounts forward to my iCloud account... so I retrieve all of my email on a single account.

I also have iCloud send a copy of all emails (without deleting from iCloud) to an archive account on Gmail.

This allows me to ruthlessly delete emails as they arrive, knowing that I can always log into Gmail and retrieve them with a simple search. This allows me to help achieve a "zero inbox" lifestyle.

/Jim

 

[stanw]

Thanks for the replies!

I prefer forwarding the emails to a single account to check there, rather than downloading all of that email...great advice!

Do you download all of these emails that are forwarded to the single Gmail account to your phones so you can check it there also? What do you think of doing that?

 

[charlyham]

Thanks for the replies!

I prefer forwarding the emails to a single account to check there, rather than downloading all of that email...great advice!

Do you download all of these emails that are forwarded to the single Gmail account to your phones so you can check it there also? What do you think of doing that?

I have the gmail account configured on my phone so I can read the mail from all the accounts that forward to it.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

I'm surprised to do it that way. Mail can easily handle multiple email accounts. No problem at all. And it will show them in a nice unified inbox. Yet if you want you can filter it any which way you want it or just see a single inbox at a time.

Quick and easy and actually when replying you have a choice of which email you do that from. Something you'll throw away as a capability when you forward it to another mailbox.

I would and am, just using mail.

 

[jimthing]

I have all my email accounts forward to my iCloud account... so I retrieve all of my email on a single account.

I also have iCloud send a copy of all emails (without deleting from iCloud) to an archive account on Gmail.

This allows me to ruthlessly delete emails as they arrive, knowing that I can always log into Gmail and retrieve them with a simple search. This allows me to help achieve a "zero inbox" lifestyle.

/Jim

Yeah but if something goes wrong in the forwarding system, this can get a lot more complicated if you're using a lot of different email providers, surely with the potential of emails getting stuck in the account without forwarding if the individual accounts are not each maintained in their respective webmail interface settings. You have to "maintain" all the forwarding systems across accounts and that can be more of a pain than just consolidating to a couple of accounts without using any forwarding, for the average user.

Although people who need to pickup email from a huge number of different emails related to one topic often use such systems for that topic only.

E.g. say I run website called "MyWebsite.com", and want to use different emails for differing site contacts, I may have them forward to one address, if I manage them all myself anyway currently.

admin@mywebsite.com
help@mywebsite.com
spam@mywebsite.com
=> all forward to: myname@mywebsite.com, for convenience.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

If yours are all from the same domain, why not just use an alias opposed to forwarding the mail? It doesn't seem to make any sense to do it the way you've described it.