Comments on: Email Forwarding and why it’s a bad idea http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/04/email-forwarding-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/ interesting thoughts and other stuff... Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:42:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: admin http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/04/email-forwarding-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/comment-page-1/#comment-857 admin Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:49:53 +0000 http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/?p=70#comment-857 Paul, I understand your situation of course - it's not an uncommon one, and in no way am I suggesting that you use an email that doesn't match up with your domain - you're right - it wouldn't look professional. The issue here is that many of these 3rd party mail providers (like hotmail or aol) that people forward to, use some of the most aggressive (and very automatic) anti-spam filters and rules etc... so a LOT of what gets sent to them gets marked as spam (much of which is not spam). To answer your 2 questions - Yes - using IMAP will likely help your scenario of working on multiple computers (it's how we allow multiple staff to access our info@ account etc). No - It's a well know Cpanel "issue" (that all cpanel hosts would love resolved) that forwarded emails do NOT get parsed by Spam Assassin. Makes no sense I know, but there are some technical reasons why Cpanel haven't implemented a solution to this yet. Short term solution is as follows: 1. Add a POP3 account for each forwarder 2. Set up a filter on that POP3 account to discard any mail with a spam score greater than xx 3. Set up the forwarder Then and only then will spamassassin filter the incoming mail before forwarding it on. You will of course have to then consider how to "empty" the mailbox every so often to prevent it going over-quota after time. Hope this all helps :) Paul,

I understand your situation of course – it’s not an uncommon one, and in no way am I suggesting that you use an email that doesn’t match up with your domain – you’re right – it wouldn’t look professional. The issue here is that many of these 3rd party mail providers (like hotmail or aol) that people forward to, use some of the most aggressive (and very automatic) anti-spam filters and rules etc… so a LOT of what gets sent to them gets marked as spam (much of which is not spam).

To answer your 2 questions – Yes – using IMAP will likely help your scenario of working on multiple computers (it’s how we allow multiple staff to access our info@ account etc).

No – It’s a well know Cpanel “issue” (that all cpanel hosts would love resolved) that forwarded emails do NOT get parsed by Spam Assassin. Makes no sense I know, but there are some technical reasons why Cpanel haven’t implemented a solution to this yet. Short term solution is as follows:

1. Add a POP3 account for each forwarder
2. Set up a filter on that POP3 account to discard any mail with a spam score greater than xx
3. Set up the forwarder

Then and only then will spamassassin filter the incoming mail before forwarding it on. You will of course have to then consider how to “empty” the mailbox every so often to prevent it going over-quota after time. Hope this all helps :)

]]> By: Paul Frost http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/04/email-forwarding-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/comment-page-1/#comment-856 Paul Frost Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:08:42 +0000 http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/?p=70#comment-856 I manage 12 domains/websites and have email addresses connected to each one and have them forward to my Gmail account. I use several computers (mac & PC) so having my mail "in the cloud" is the only way to keep it all together and updated. It would not look very professional to have an email address that didn't match the domain. Am I right in thinking that IMAP would help my situation in managing mail from several computers? If so is IMAP available from you? Does forwarded mail go through the SpamAssasin filters before it gets forwarded? I manage 12 domains/websites and have email addresses connected to each one and have them forward to my Gmail account.
I use several computers (mac & PC) so having my mail “in the cloud” is the only way to keep it all together and updated.
It would not look very professional to have an email address that didn’t match the domain.

Am I right in thinking that IMAP would help my situation in managing mail from several computers?
If so is IMAP available from you?

Does forwarded mail go through the SpamAssasin filters before it gets forwarded?

]]> By: admin http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/04/email-forwarding-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/comment-page-1/#comment-711 admin Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:22:47 +0000 http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/?p=70#comment-711 Hi Tim, not 100% sure what you're meaning here... the ONLY reason we pass emails onto the ISPs is because the clients have setup (in their control panels) email forwarders to do just that... Personally, I'd be delighted (and have considerably less issues) if clients chose NOT to forward the email onto their ISP's but until they stop (either through realising the issues, or by us deciding to ban such activity) it'll keep happenning... some people just cannot seem to think past using hotmail for all their email! Hi Tim,

not 100% sure what you’re meaning here… the ONLY reason we pass emails onto the ISPs is because the clients have setup (in their control panels) email forwarders to do just that… Personally, I’d be delighted (and have considerably less issues) if clients chose NOT to forward the email onto their ISP’s but until they stop (either through realising the issues, or by us deciding to ban such activity) it’ll keep happenning… some people just cannot seem to think past using hotmail for all their email!

]]> By: Tim Dawson http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/04/email-forwarding-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/comment-page-1/#comment-710 Tim Dawson Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:13:33 +0000 http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/?p=70#comment-710 I understand the point you are making. However, wouldn't a better solution be to filter the e-mails arriving at your server(s) rather than pass them on to the ISPs ? We use e-mail forwarding to split e-mails sent to Holiday Mull and forward to the various officers. The alternative of having to put their own e-mails on the Holiday Mull web site isn't very appealing, and the methods for cloaking real e-mail addresses all seem to carry a downside. Tim Dawson I understand the point you are making. However, wouldn’t a better solution be to filter the e-mails arriving at your server(s) rather than pass them on to the ISPs ? We use e-mail forwarding to split e-mails sent to Holiday Mull and forward to the various officers. The alternative of having to put their own e-mails on the Holiday Mull web site isn’t very appealing, and the methods for cloaking real e-mail addresses all seem to carry a downside.

Tim Dawson

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