Change vqME from POP to Forward

--VQ-- · Site Admin Joined: 06 Jan 2003 Posts: 474

How does Mail Get to vqME from Other Addresses?

There are two ways to route incoming mail to vqME. The better method dramatically improves your experience.

When you configured vqME, the setup program asked: "Do you know how to forward mail from your ISP or email service to your vqME address?" If you said "No", vqME began checking for mail by continuously POPping your regular address - just as if someone was sitting at an email program and clicking "Check Mail" without ever stopping.

This POP process is intended for recipients to retrieve mail into a PC from their mail service. But when used to transfer mail between servers, it has significant disadvantages:

We check for mail every 15-30 minutes. When you are waiting for mail (for example, if you are on the phone with an important client), you may not receive it immediately.
To retrieve mail on your behalf, we must use the password for your email service. It is preferable to avoid storing passwords on any server.
Our POP process limits incoming messages to 10MB including attachments. Larger messages are left at your ISP or mail service.
The continuous POPping of mail - even when you are asleep or on vacation burdens your ISP or mail service. Many ISPs and mail services make it difficult for vqME to retrieve mail on your behalf.
Your email program (and our webmail screen) sorts mail according to the date and time it arrives at our server. When we POP mail that has been at another mail server, the time stamp is no longer a reliable indicator of the order in which it was sent.

For these reasons, it is far better to configure your other email services to forward mail into our server as it arrives rather than having us check for it continuously. [Instructions for Comcast users] [Note to RoadRunner users]

How to Correct this Setting

First, look at your Profiles and Protected Addresses. If all addresses have the word (Fowarded) to the right, then you are done. You have already configured the best method for routing mail to your clean vqME mailbox. But if any of your addresses say (Pop) to the right, write them on a piece of paper and also note the vqME address into which that mail is delivered (it is the nearest vqME address above the POP address.

Now, log into your ISP or service that maintains your regular address and look for the feature called Email Forwarding . This is typically set from a user-account page, but some services put the feaure in the webmail area. Look for Email Options, Settings or Preferences.

Set Email Fowarding to the vqME address from which you pick up clean mail. This is either your vqME User ID or a corresponding vqME Profile address.
Verify that you are not forwarding a catchall address - or forwarding mail for the entire domain! That violates a policy that is strictly enforced.
If you see an option "Leave Mail on Server", do not choose it (or if it says "Delete Forwarded Mail" select it). This will prevent mail from building up at your ISP and exceeding your storage allowance. If you normally leave mail at the server, you can still do this with an email program setting which leaves a copy on the the vqME server.

Finally, change your vqME setting from POP to Forward, like this:

Login to your protected address page
Locate the email addresses you wish to change. Click the word POP to its right
Select choice #1: "I know how to forward the above email address"
Click Next » Next » Skip » OK

In the unlikely case that you wish to revert to the POP method of inbound mail routing, this tip explains the process.

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