Email options - need some help setting up

[Wingnut330]

Hello all,

I am a newb so any help is appreciated. I have about 5 email accounts that I would like to be able to check via IMAP. I have no idea to start. I have been using my existing setup for years and am not well versed in this kind of stuff.

So, i'm curious what my options are and I have what appears to be a somewhat complicated scenario. I have a iMac, MBA and an iPhone (soon) and I want to be able to check mail on all of them.

1. Setup my .Mac account to get all of my mail there and then view them on my iMac.

2. Setup up Mail then forward everything to my .Mac account.

It seems like I should be getting all my accounts to get mail at the .Mac account, then download it to Mail on the iMac then sync that with my MBA.

Am I on the right track or making this too difficult???

 

[Wingnut330]

Anyone?

 

[agentphish]

Sounds like a good idea, if you can get everything to auto-forward to your .mac account, which uses IMAP, and then use all of your devices to connect only to .mac via IMAP that sounds logical to me.

 

[jeffmc]

if all accounts are IMAP which is sounds like they are, you don't need to forward anything that's just creating a lot of un needed confusion.

you will need to set each account up on each device however.

mail on your air and your imac will handle 6 imap accounts no problem and even allow you to sort them so that you view one inbox but all 6 accounts get pooled in there.

your iphone will also handle all the email accounts individually.

imap will sync changes you've made as well.

example: if you view an email on your imac then open and check your email on your iphone, your phone will download the message and then mark it as being read because your imac already told your mail server that it had been viewed.

same goes for most other mail operations.

 

[Wingnut330]

jeffmc - thanks for the info. How do I do this if all of my accounts are POP accounts?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

jeffmc - thanks for the info. How do I do this if all of my accounts are POP accounts?

Keep in mind that auto-forward is typically set up on the server (through their webmail interface, for example), not in Mail. Other than that, I think you've got the right idea as to how to handle all your accounts.