UKH

Could use some help from the hive mind with email server settings.

I use Namesco for my self-employed business website and also email.  I use the gmail app on my phone to read it via POP3 and Thunderbird on my PC, again via POP3.  This works well enough because Thunderbird has an option to delete from server after 14 days.  So it doesn't matter if gmail or TB get to the message first - they both have plenty of time to download it, and then 14 days later TB deletes it from the Namesco server.

I know I really should be running this via IMAP instead, but for some reason I just cannot get Namesco to play nicely with IMAP.

I've just set my wife's new account up in the same way, but she wants to use gmail both on the phone and on her PC - Thunderbird does not play nicely with calendar invites, which are important to her. 

The problem is that I cannot find a way to replicate Thunderbird's 'delete after 14 days' trick.  Neither her phone app or PC client are deleting from the server, and as a result it's filling up.

Any ideas?

Hope I understood you right and this makes some sense - TL-DR if gmail if involved it does not allow remote deletion of messages from it’s server. Your wife will need to find another email client.

I use a forward to a gmail account and as far as I know gmail doesn’t ever give the option for pc/phone/tablet to delete from it’s server after x days. The only way is to go and log in to gmail account direct and delete there.

AFAIK all the email settings/options on pc/phone/tablet are usually nowadays automatically sent and set by the email client eg gmail in my case. Some can give the option to edit, others don’t.

My domain provider has changed it’s email server (long story, but I’ve kept it so far as it duplicates what is sent to gmail which is what I now use) and even with that I’ve gone from being able to delete after x days with the previous domain email client they used to now not having the option to do so with the new email client they provide. I just go in to the originating email client account every so often and manually delete all older messages.

Ah - so it's not that I need to delete from the gmail server; I need gmail to ask the Namesco server to delete.  Otherwise the inbox at Namesco gets full.

But I'm starting to think that you're right, in that gmail (neither the PC or phone versions) are capable of going back to the Namesco server and telling it to delete after a certain period of days.  

I've found a rather clunky workaround.  I've got Thunderbird running on her PC, and that is set to download and send the 14 day deletion instruction.  So she's now running three separate clients - gmail on phone, gmail on PC and Thunderbird on PC, with the latter having no purpose but to automatically delete things from her Namesco server!  I'm sure there has to be a better solution...

As I understand it used to be that gmail actually instructed the other server to leave messages and I would assume that this is the default and will still be the case.

You could just do what I do with the domain email server to avoid using TB, and go to the Namesco (in your case) server and manually delete emails every so often. Just need to schedule it!

One advantage of leaving it longer than 14 days is if anything happened to the downloads and they weren’t backed up, they would still be available to re download until you manually delete. The latter is also handy if you change phone/tablet/pc as they will be available on the new device directly.

You really do need to switch to IMAP: using POP3 nowadays seems antediluvian.

What exact problems are you having with IMAP?

In gmail via the web interface you should be able to go into settings there and turn off "Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server." and then it'll remove them immediately. Not sure why you'd need to leave them there 14 days, once they're in gmail then there's not really any value in keeping them on the pop3 server too.

Because distinct clients from various platforms are wanting to access the same email account.

But in this case the desired access is gmail on both phone and PC I think, so just getting the email into gmail should be sufficient? For his own account that wouldn't work (well, actually I'd probably get it into gmail for that too, and have thunderbird access gmail by IMAP), but for the one he's setting up for his wife then everything just needs to make it onto the gmail servers.

No. Gmail is just the client in this circumstance.

Wait, I've just figured out what's going wrong. I hadn't realised the gmail app had a way to locally connect to a pop3 server. Instead of having the gmail app use POP3 from the app, I'd integrate the new email address more fully into an existing gmail account, by setting up through the web interface. Then it's the gmail servers that connect via pop3 to the existing address and grab all the email across to their servers, and then the web client as well as the phone app will be accessing a single copy on the gmail servers. So then you'll have somename@gmail.com as the account you log into on gmail, and business@email.com will end up in the inbox for somename@gmail.com (pretty sure you can set it to tag it in some way or filter into a separate folder if you want). You can set it so you can still send from business@email.com, but gmail will be hosting the account fully. You'll have to put up with the adverts that gmail puts in. And have a gmail account that you may or may not already have or want.

Right, yes, that's what I just figured. Best solution is probably to not do that.

Thanks, all.  Sorry for radio silence - we were busy shouting at a rugby match...

It simply won't connect.  Both from the phone gmail app and the PC gmail website, it fails to authenticate.  I have spent an age trying to get the IMAP settings correct, and I think there's some fundamental issue with Namesco itself.

That makes perfect sense to me, and I had thought that would be the obvious thing to do.  But the phone and web versions of gmail seem to work differently. 

The Android gmail app is quite happy to accept that it needs to go to business@email.com and collect emails, and it shows that as a separate account within the gmail app, alongside her personal@gmail.com account.  But the PC web version will not do that.  The best I can get it to do is to use the 'check email from other accounts' option within setting -> Accounts and Import' for incoming emails, and the 'Send email as' option for outgoing.

I feel like I'm missing something - I would really have thought that having either gmail platform collecting mail from business@email.com would allow both platforms to have access.  But perhaps POP is so outdated that this functionality is no longer there?

Honestly contemplating just scrapping the whole Namesco account and starting again within the gmail ecosystem, but we (stupidly) prepaid quite a few years as it was much cheaper.

I know a lot about mail, and networking - but I know nothing about Namesco.

What does Namesco claim to support? And does that depend on whatever exactly you've paid for?

The phone app as you have it set up right now isn't bringing the emails onto the Gmail platform, it's just showing them in the app, as a separate account. The way you describe doing it on the Web version is what I'd do, because the emails then end up on the Gmail servers. No need to do any setup on the phone for that to work, because it's configured at the Gmail account level, but email from both accounts will be in a single inbox. You can then use filters or labels to separate them as they arrive.

They're a domain name registry and hosting company.  I actually signed up with a company called FreeParking for this, but Namesco took them over a few years ago.  I'm trying to get some support from their online ticket system but it's as effective and responsive as you might expect...

Yep, understood.

So I don't seem to be able to get that to work; the web version is happily showing the emails from (and sending as) business@email.com, but they aren't being incorporated in a way that allows the phone app to see them as well.  And, critically, the gmail web version doesn't seem to be able to tell the Namesco server to delete once downloaded, which is the root cause of the server going over quota.

Perhaps I need another attempt at getting IMAP to work.

Have you ordered the SMTP service? https://www.names.co.uk/support/articles/activating-authenticated-smtp/

SMTP has nothing to do with reading mail - which is the subject matter here.

Just a thought if this maybe an option ….

Do you have to use the namesco email server for your wife’s emails (contract or other reasons)?

If no, can you set up  incoming email forwarder(s) at domain level for your wife’s emails (essentially to by pass the namesco email server)? If so, set up forwarder for her incoming emails to go direct to her gmail account. It “maybe” that they will be incorporated better as they should be treated as any email directly entering the gmail system?

Yes you’re quite right. 

Reading your posts, and especially about the poor service from Namesco, I would scrap the current setup and go full on with Gmail, as long as your wife is happy with that as a platform. Store everything in gmail; if necessary create separate email accounts for business and personal use, and so on.

Otherwise, in my crystal ball, I see you listening to Complaints and endlessly trying to fix them ...

If Gmail isn't suitable for some reason, go to the dark side and use Outlook 365. It may be the devil's work, but they all love it, and the calendar integration is very good.

I hope it all comes out well in the end!

Well, personally, I would think twice about doing serious business with someone emailing from a gmail account. 

On the other hand, Microsoft just replaced the free Windows Mail bundled with the OS with a free Outlook version which seems fairly full featured. Going down the Outlook route might be worth investigating. 

Thanks, all.  No, there's no contractual reason to stick with Namesco - it's merely that we paid for a few years up front.

I did wonder about setting up email forwarding from the Namesco server into her Gmail account; if I can find a way to tell the Namesco server to delete once it's forwarded, that could work.  Using 'send as' from her Gmail, so that outgoing messages appear to come from her business email address, works perfectly well.

She does pay for Office 365, but she loathes Outlook!

One thing to check (and I may be stating the obvious here: if so, forgive me) is that, under the settings for the mailbox that you're wanting to use (in the Users and Email Rules, Users and Mailboxes bit of the Names.co.uk web interface) the "IMAP enabled" check box is checked.  It's not, by default, and that caused me a bunch of pain initially!