Fetch Mail

sheprd · 4 Aug 2019, 01:52 AM

I once could fetch mail from another acct but have forgot how to do it. Would some one please refresh me on procedure. Think i must set up a Fetch Identity but not sure how to do that. any help much appreciated

somdcomputerguy · 4 Aug 2019, 02:08 AM

I believe that's under Settings | Import.

- Bruce

sheprd · 4 Aug 2019, 03:14 AM

Thank you so much Sir

n5bb · 4 Aug 2019, 07:28 AM

For a general account (not Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com, or iCloud), do the following:

In Settings > Import & Setup, choose the IMAP button at the upper right.
Enter the email address and the password for the service you want to import from. Note that for some services (such as Yandex and Fastmail), you need to set up a special client access password for this purpose.
You will then be given a choice on how you want to download the messages. You can choose a on-time bulk download of all existing messages, only fetch new messages which arrive, or both.
You can configure the fetch time with one of these settings:
- Fetch every 5 minutes when logged into your Fastmail account, otherwise every hour
- Fetch only when your Fastmail Inbox folder is refreshed

I just tested this with a Yandex account and it worked fine.

Bill

sheprd · 4 Aug 2019, 08:03 AM

Thanks Bill I have a Yahoo account. Seems i used to have Fetch set up where i could Fetch from like AOL accts Not to sure cause it has been several years ago but its since FM made the changes in interface. I was trying to Fetch from Yahoo to FM. No big deal I don';t really need to Fetch, just wanted to experiment around some. Thanks again i appreciate the help you have been to me over he years

xyzzy · 4 Aug 2019, 11:27 AM

Before worrying about the FM mail fetch I would suggest trying to log into the yahoo account directly first to see if your account and password still work.

sheprd · 4 Aug 2019, 09:12 PM

Thanks XYZZY I appreciate your response Yes the yahoo acct is still active though i don't use it much. I don't think FM is a big fan of Fetch mail. They don't give much info on it.

Berenburger · 4 Aug 2019, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheprd

I don't think FM is a big fan of Fetch mail. They don't give much info on it.

Indeed, since the last update it is totally ‘hidden’.

xyzzy · 5 Aug 2019, 04:45 AM

Not totally hidden but IMO they really screwed up the UI for it. The least they should have done is include an "Add" to the Mail Fetch list. They let you view the list. They let you edit the entries. That's like the older "Identities & Fetch" UI. But they don't let you add new Mail Fetch entries from there.

Another complaint is switching to using IMAP fetch and not giving the user a choice between IMAP and (the original) POP fetch. Some email services have different options for POP vs. IMAP access if they support that at all. For example, look at gmail's "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" settings. In the "POP download" settings they allow you various options when POP fetched (e.g., mark as read in gmail's inbox) but not IMAP fetched.

I suppose the alternative to Mail Fetch is to have the other service just forward emails to your FM account since there may be other options for those as well in the other service.

FWIW when this new UI came out I submitted a ticket on these two items. They said they forwarded the comments to their UI group. Haven't heard any feedback since.

One final point about mail fetch vs. forwarding specifically as it applies to yahoo. I have an ISP that uses Yahoo as it's email service provider and thus uses yahoo's servers (albeit using unique server names). The yahoo servers, at least accessed through my ISP, are a bit unreliable in that FM's periodic access to their email fails about 30% of the time (haven't really kept the statistics). Result is a "Mail fetch retrieval error" sent by FM (IMAP Command : 'login' failed. Reason was : IMAPTalk: Connection was unexpectedly closed by host). No other mail fetch I've set up to other services displays this behavior, nor oddly enough does my Thunderbird accessing those same servers via POP. So I switched to using forwarding for that account as the 100% reliable alternative.

Note when FM was doing POP fetch the failures also occurred but then there was a unique failure message indicating a timeout error. So maybe the yahoo failures are because of being under heavy load. Still wouldn't explain why my Thunderbird email client has never shown any access failures for all the years I've used it accessing those same servers. I once asked FM about this and they really didn't have an explanation either.

sheprd · 5 Aug 2019, 05:22 AM

Thanks Berenburger and XYZZY You have cleared things up right much. However having yahoo forward mail to FM is not an option as they don't have an auto forwarding feature

n5bb · 5 Aug 2019, 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheprd

...However having yahoo forward mail to FM is not an option as they don't have an auto forwarding feature

Why do you believe that? A simple web search for "Yahoo forwarding" shows otherwise. I set up Yahoo forwarding to Fastmail in 2005 (14 years ago) and it's still working well. See:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN29133.html

Bill

sheprd · 5 Aug 2019, 07:10 AM

Sorry Bill I did not know ,Yahoo forwarded mail. I have had it for maybe ten years Thanks frr bringing it to my attention

xyzzy · 5 Aug 2019, 07:31 AM

Since yahoo writes and "maintains" the email for my ISP, what is provided in the webmail for mine is provided in yahoo's webmail. As linked to above they definitely have forwarding.

Note that when yahoo forwards they still place a copy of the forwarded message in the yahoo account's inbox. There's no option to suppress that and there is no longer any option to flag them as "read" in the yahoo inbox as there once was prior to yahoo switching to their "new" and "improved" (???) webmail.

IMO when all is said and done yahoo is a pretty poor email service. It's one of the reasons I switched to a real email service like FM. The other being yahoo is a subsidiary of OATH (which is a subsidiary of Verizon). After reading the OATH terms of service (follow link in section 4 to Privacy Center, Information You Provide to Us) you might never want to use them for anything private again. It really bugs me (and many others) that my ISP, a completely separate company and competitor to Verizon, forces its users to agree to the OATH TOS simply by using the email.

By the way the only reason I forward email from my ISP to FM is for testing purposes and in case my ISP doesn't use my contact email address for some reason and sends directly to the ISP's email address. That's never happened though. And no one else other than me even knows that ISP email address exists. So I never get anything in it except when I was playing around with the mail fetch vs. forwarding.

sheprd · 5 Aug 2019, 10:56 AM

Thanks XYZZY I have never used Yahoo much and probably never will I much prefer FM

xyzzy · 5 Aug 2019, 11:57 AM

Good idea!

4 Aug 2019, 01:52 AM	#1
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Fetch Mail I once could fetch mail from another acct but have forgot how to do it. Would some one please refresh me on procedure. Think i must set up a Fetch Identity but not sure how to do that. any help much appreciated

4 Aug 2019, 07:28 AM	#4
n5bb Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Irving, Texas Posts: 8,926	Fetch setup details For a general account (not Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com, or iCloud), do the following: In Settings > Import & Setup, choose the IMAP button at the upper right. Enter the email address and the password for the service you want to import from. Note that for some services (such as Yandex and Fastmail), you need to set up a special client access password for this purpose. You will then be given a choice on how you want to download the messages. You can choose a on-time bulk download of all existing messages, only fetch new messages which arrive, or both. You can configure the fetch time with one of these settings: Fetch every 5 minutes when logged into your Fastmail account, otherwise every hour Fetch only when your Fastmail Inbox folder is refreshed I just tested this with a Yandex account and it worked fine. Bill

5 Aug 2019, 07:31 AM	#13
xyzzy Essential Contributor Join Date: May 2018 Posts: 474	Since yahoo writes and "maintains" the email for my ISP, what is provided in the webmail for mine is provided in yahoo's webmail. As linked to above they definitely have forwarding. Note that when yahoo forwards they still place a copy of the forwarded message in the yahoo account's inbox. There's no option to suppress that and there is no longer any option to flag them as "read" in the yahoo inbox as there once was prior to yahoo switching to their "new" and "improved" (???) webmail. IMO when all is said and done yahoo is a pretty poor email service. It's one of the reasons I switched to a real email service like FM. The other being yahoo is a subsidiary of OATH (which is a subsidiary of Verizon). After reading the OATH terms of service (follow link in section 4 to Privacy Center, Information You Provide to Us) you might never want to use them for anything private again. It really bugs me (and many others) that my ISP, a completely separate company and competitor to Verizon, forces its users to agree to the OATH TOS simply by using the email. By the way the only reason I forward email from my ISP to FM is for testing purposes and in case my ISP doesn't use my contact email address for some reason and sends directly to the ISP's email address. That's never happened though. And no one else other than me even knows that ISP email address exists. So I never get anything in it except when I was playing around with the mail fetch vs. forwarding. Last edited by xyzzy : 5 Aug 2019 at 07:37 AM.

4 Aug 2019, 02:08 AM	#2
somdcomputerguy Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Rupert, WV Posts: 879	I believe that's under Settings \| Import. - Bruce

4 Aug 2019, 03:14 AM	#3
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Thank you so much Sir

4 Aug 2019, 08:03 AM	#5
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Thanks Bill I have a Yahoo account. Seems i used to have Fetch set up where i could Fetch from like AOL accts Not to sure cause it has been several years ago but its since FM made the changes in interface. I was trying to Fetch from Yahoo to FM. No big deal I don';t really need to Fetch, just wanted to experiment around some. Thanks again i appreciate the help you have been to me over he years

4 Aug 2019, 11:27 AM	#6
xyzzy Essential Contributor Join Date: May 2018 Posts: 474	Before worrying about the FM mail fetch I would suggest trying to log into the yahoo account directly first to see if your account and password still work.

4 Aug 2019, 09:12 PM	#7
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Thanks XYZZY I appreciate your response Yes the yahoo acct is still active though i don't use it much. I don't think FM is a big fan of Fetch mail. They don't give much info on it.

5 Aug 2019, 04:45 AM	#9
xyzzy Essential Contributor Join Date: May 2018 Posts: 474	Not totally hidden but IMO they really screwed up the UI for it. The least they should have done is include an "Add" to the Mail Fetch list. They let you view the list. They let you edit the entries. That's like the older "Identities & Fetch" UI. But they don't let you add new Mail Fetch entries from there. Another complaint is switching to using IMAP fetch and not giving the user a choice between IMAP and (the original) POP fetch. Some email services have different options for POP vs. IMAP access if they support that at all. For example, look at gmail's "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" settings. In the "POP download" settings they allow you various options when POP fetched (e.g., mark as read in gmail's inbox) but not IMAP fetched. I suppose the alternative to Mail Fetch is to have the other service just forward emails to your FM account since there may be other options for those as well in the other service. FWIW when this new UI came out I submitted a ticket on these two items. They said they forwarded the comments to their UI group. Haven't heard any feedback since. One final point about mail fetch vs. forwarding specifically as it applies to yahoo. I have an ISP that uses Yahoo as it's email service provider and thus uses yahoo's servers (albeit using unique server names). The yahoo servers, at least accessed through my ISP, are a bit unreliable in that FM's periodic access to their email fails about 30% of the time (haven't really kept the statistics). Result is a "Mail fetch retrieval error" sent by FM (IMAP Command : 'login' failed. Reason was : IMAPTalk: Connection was unexpectedly closed by host). No other mail fetch I've set up to other services displays this behavior, nor oddly enough does my Thunderbird accessing those same servers via POP. So I switched to using forwarding for that account as the 100% reliable alternative. Note when FM was doing POP fetch the failures also occurred but then there was a unique failure message indicating a timeout error. So maybe the yahoo failures are because of being under heavy load. Still wouldn't explain why my Thunderbird email client has never shown any access failures for all the years I've used it accessing those same servers. I once asked FM about this and they really didn't have an explanation either.

5 Aug 2019, 05:22 AM	#10
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Thanks Berenburger and XYZZY You have cleared things up right much. However having yahoo forward mail to FM is not an option as they don't have an auto forwarding feature

5 Aug 2019, 07:10 AM	#12
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Sorry Bill I did not know ,Yahoo forwarded mail. I have had it for maybe ten years Thanks frr bringing it to my attention

5 Aug 2019, 10:56 AM	#14
sheprd The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: VA, USA Posts: 2,789	Thanks XYZZY I have never used Yahoo much and probably never will I much prefer FM

5 Aug 2019, 11:57 AM	#15
xyzzy Essential Contributor Join Date: May 2018 Posts: 474	Good idea!