I don't think it would be very hard to convince them that "Ogged" was yout real name. Just say that it's from some ethnicity that people are vaguely aware of, like Kurdish or Georgian. It doesn't even have to be your ethnicity - life is complicated.
"which leads to their being no filing system"
If you edit it away and erase this comment, we can pretend it never happened.
I have similar difficulties and no advice.
Although I loathe to suggest a Microsoft solution as I will surely be hissed and booed at by many commenters, I've found Outlook (the full version, not Express) to be helpful with this. I've got three different email accounts set up with it and they all automatically file into different folders and subfolders. All I have to do is press one key and it goes out and grabs my mail from all three accounts at once and switching between the accounts for sending mail is super easy.
Isn't that a horribly dangerous "come, world, infect my computer!" way to retrieve email, Becks?
Much safer never to check one's email.
How do you keep up with all of them now? Do you just keep like 5 browser windows open at all times?
Everytime I have to sign up for a new email address (I think I have maybe 5), I route it all through my main gmail account. I set up the non-gmail (or other gmail) address to forward to my main gmail account, and then set it up so I can respond from gmail under that address. It's especially good to set the option where it automatically sets as the outgoing address whatever address you were written at, so you don't accidentally reply from the wrong address.
Then if you want to never see certain emails, you can set up a filter on them and have them go direct to archive. Really, gmail's filters are awesome.
Anyway the long story short is that I have a bunch of email address, but for practical purposes it feels like one.
Do you just keep like 5 browser windows open at all times?
Every few weeks, I think, "Oh crap, gotta check that one too." (I don't use them for many things, so this is generally ok.)
I don't get the advantage of Outlook over Thunderbird, which can do what you describe, if I'm understanding you correctly (I do use Outlook at work; it's not at all bad.)
I just use one (kid@bitzer.com) for everything. A friend sent me a gmail account, and I set it up, but I've only used it twice, maybe, when the servers at bitzer went down this one time.
Bitzer maintains decent spam filters, and then Eudora also filters into a 'junk' mailbox, fairly reliably, though I do review it before I delete all.
I would be completely lost if I didn't have all correspondence coming into the same box. It's my calendar, my memorandum-book, my diary, my journal, etc.
I can see how m leblanc's system would work pretty well for me, if I ever needed to get an additional address.
GMail's filters make it pretty convenient to view multiple email addresses, at least as far as I'm concerned. I have all my old addresses forwarding to that one.
5 -- you can do the same thing with Mozilla Thunderbird, and you will not have to be laughed at by the cool kids.
Is spamgourmet not up to the task you're describing? It can provide alternate domains (e.g. xoxy.net) that all route to the same account. And it requires no setup to make a new address. I'm pretty sure it's been discussed here before, so I won't bore everyone by recounting its virtues. But I find it to be a pretty essentially part of the internet.
For something like the Yahoo list where I don't want the address to expire, I'd probably use plus addressing in gmail to help me filter it (like tom+yahoocancergroup@gmail.com). Some services don't recognize the plus as part of a valid email address, which is a pain, but it generally works and makes it very easy to filter things in gmail. If the service in question doesn't work right, you can always set up a forwarder somewhere else and have it send mail to your plussed account@gmail, although that's a bit of a pain.
If I really need anonymity, I'll set up a chain of one or more email forwarders on different free email services (creating the accounts over Tor). But I've cut back on the amount of kidnapping I've been doing recently, so it hasn't come up as much as it used to.
Who bothers with kidnapping these days? Isn't it much easier to just nab someone's electronic identity.
Semi-related Q: I access several of my e-mail accounts through Thunderbird. Yet sometimes the "Get Mail" command does not fetch the e-mail for all of the accounts. Other times it does. Is this a known bug?
"I've found Outlook (the full version, not Express) to be helpful with this."
I feel ill.
Witt -- if you press Ctrl-Shift-T that will get all mail. I'm pretty sure pressing the button that says "Get Mail" will only retrieve mail for the currently active account.
8 is what I do as well, after having literally 100s of email addresses (a catch-all account at my domain).
Now, they all forward to gmail, which was working very well although its spam filters seem to be groaning under the weight these days.
Wow, you aren't kidding about spam. GMail's filters are so good that I hardly notice it, but I just looked and there are 845 messages in my spam folder (and they delete automatically after 30 days). Jeez.
Gmail people: how do you back up your mail?
Only 845? Mine always seems to hover around 5000. But there are a lot of pages out there that have my un-garbled email address on them.
20 -- the folks at Google take care of that for me.
Back up? Why would I do something like that? Google is a lot better with data integrity than anything I have is... oh, okay.
In gmail, go to Settings->Forwarding and POP->'Enable POP for all mail', then use Thunderbird or Outlook to download it all.
I just use my normal university account for pretty much everything. I have a couple of other accounts for spam/signups, etc. but that's it.
I don't care that much about anonymity, tbh.
I don't back up my mail. Although some of my accounts are "replicated" in gmail, so all the messages are still sitting there in the original account.
Frankly, I use my gmail to back up my computer more than I use my computer to back up my gmail. I send important documents to myself, so I know that I'll have them on the go, and they'll be easier to find (although with Spotlight now on the mac it's nearly as easy to find stuff on my computer as it is in my gmail account. Go Apple!)
I don't back up my mail.
Oh, dear lord.
He also does not back up His mail.
Alright, ogged, maybe I'm an idiot. What do you suggest?
No, seriously, Google's servers are a safer place for your data than what you have at home, in all likelihood. They can afford better redundancy than I can -- I'm sure your GMail account is on a RAID array and not just sitting on one hard drive which could go kaput from a cosmic ray in the wrong place. For that matter, your laptop could be stolen, your home could be broken into or burn down, recorded CDs are notoriously flaky, etc etc.
Then again, if a nuke hits Mountain View, all bets are off.
For He so loved the world He gave his only-begotten email address.
At least do what Neil suggests in 24. If you're keeping everything in one mail account, you're totally fucked if that crashes or is somehow lost, and wonderful as Google is, better safe than sorry.
m. leblanc in 8: and then set it up so I can respond from gmail under that address.
This sounds awesome. How do you do this?
OK, it probably doesn't use a RAID array, but it is definitely on redundant storage, probably triply redundant. It might even be redundant between data centers.
34: Go to "Settings"-->"Accounts"-->"Send mail as". Then it sends an email to the account you want to send from to authorize it, you log in to your other account and authorize, and presto. Then you can select the address you want to send from in a drop-down list when you are composing mail.
As for computers being reliable, last year my hard drive totally died, and my friend had her house broken into and her laptop stolen, so I'm not relying on my laptop for shit except to get me connected to the internet and surf this fine weblog.
Oh yeah, and to keep all my 3000 photos. Although I upload the best of those to Flickr anyway.
Thanks, 37 -- that is good to know.
If you're going to keep backups it seems like paper copies in a fire safe would make the most sense. At least nobody would want to steal those, besides unauthorized biographers.
select the address you want to send from in a drop-down list when you are composing mail
Yes, but don't use this is you want to remain anonymous, because the headers will still contain your primary gmail address.
My work blocks gmail, as well as my comcast.net address--I'm totally blind to all personal correspondence during the work day. It's frustrating.
I am looking at one such message, and all it says is "mailed-by: gmail.com"
Which doesn't give away anything.
Really? Are you sure? Shit.
Just checked, so pretty sure, yeah. Unless someone has a way to mask that.
paper copies in a fire safe
You know what's frustrating? Trying to find an affordable fire safe sized for legal documents. Everything is set up for 8.5 x 11. So the deed to my house is just sitting in a totally burnable cheapy file cabinet.
Go ahead and mail me something, leblanc, and I'll send you back a screenshot of the headers I see (of course, if I'm right, I'll know your True Identity).
Whatever, I think you already know my true identity anyway. Ok.
I'm ready for my screenshot, Mr. Ogged.
I'm curious as to how that experiment turns out. Do let us know.
Most mail reader don't show you all the header information, but many allow you to look at it. I suspect Gmail is just setting the REPLY-TO header, as that is what it is there for. Email `spoofing', which is what you are really talking about, isn't supported by most mail clients directly.... even if you know what you are doing with that, it's difficult to do undetectably, if that's what you are worred about.
51: `show you' s/b `show you (by default)'
I route things to two gmail accounts. i have a little firefox plugin that lest you keep multiple gmails active at once.
and i'm quite disappointed to realized "Ogged" is just a made up thing, not authentic Iranain culture.
Ooh I want that firefox plugin. What is it?
I'm curious as to how that experiment turns out. Do let us know.
I was hoping for the drama of leblanc coming back in tears, but the short version is: I could see the account she was sending from.
Well, huh. That sucks. Let's hope that anyone who might want to out me uses gmail, because I can't see the full headers at all in the gmail interface.
You've ruined everything, ogged, with your knowledge.
I join 54 in asking yoyo to be more specific about the plugin s/he references in 53.
I can't see the full headers at all in the gmail interface
I think you will be able to see them if you act as follows: Open the message; click the little drop down arrow at the right of the subject line (next to the link that says "Reply"); select "Show Original".
There it is. Thanks, Clown.
Well, now my whole email strategy is fucked.
I'll figure it out when i get home; i'm boarding from school at the moment.
44 and 51 are incorrect -- the header that's set is the 'Sender' header, which is not normally displayed but that doesn't mean jack, of course.
Seat belt extensions are so totally the kind of comfort gizmos that immigrants fall in love with, and knowing and asking about them is a small "I understand this country's customs" thing (ironic, heh). Powerlinians no doubt have Macgeyverite fantasies about A-rabs using them like piano wire to choke people, or maybe as nunchucks, or even lines to swing from overhead bin to overhead bin.
Multiple email accounts are so totally the kind of comfort gizmos that immigrants fall in love with, and knowing and asking about them is a small "I understand this country's customs" thing (ironic, heh).
I have had, at various times, as many as a dozen email addresses. Right now I have five. No, six. Anyway, I use them for very specific purposes and - crap, seven - and all but the purely personal, "real me" email address and the work email address can, at any given time, simply wait. Losing the entire contents of those inboxes wouldn't cause me to shed a single tear.
Alright, since we're asking general email related questions now:
Anyone know how to get their Gmail password back if they've lost it? I can still check that account through Thunderbird, but if this computer ever crashes, it'll be gone for good. (And no, none of the "recover your password" options have worked. Thing I hate about Google: no people anywhere to answer even a simple question.)
You can check it through Thunderbird, so Thunderbird must have the password stored. I don't know if there's an easier way to get it out, but I know you could use a packet sniffer such as Ethereal to capture the password when Thunderbird sends it. I think gmail's POP servers use secure authentication, though, so you'll have to turn that off in Thunderbird first, and you might even have to enter a different POP server name since I don't think gmail's POP servers have the unsecure port open. Just use the one for your ISP or whatever, Tbird shouldn't be able to tell the difference. Then change the password.
Neil's solution is the right and fairly awesome one, but if you don't want to sniff packets you might be able to find the password in plaintext by grepping the Thunderbird directory for the google pop server address. Since it's cross-platform I doubt it keeps that stuff in the registry (it might, though -- that's easy to search, too).
Leave it to the true geeks to think packet sniffers and grepping first. In Thunderbird, go to Tools, Options, View Saved Passwords, Show Passwords.
63: By 51, I mean that the SENDER is sent to the account you actually sent from, but REPLY-TO is set to the one you want it too come back to. Most mailer will show you the REPLY-TO one as if it were the sender, by default. I haven't checked it in gmail output, but this would be the correct way to do what gmail is trying to do, so I'll be surprised if it is different. It useless as a covert strategy, as m.leblanc found out, but that isn't why it is there.
You can't find it in plaintext, however you can find it in Base64 encoded form, which is trivially reversible. In your Tbird profile directory, check the 'signons.txt' file, and use a Base64 decoder like this one to turn it back into a password.
I back up my gmail occasionally by using the POP access features. Once a week or so I just check that account from Mail.app.
Thanks! One down, one more to go. I have another old email, this one from a former job, but it had to be through Outlook (company machine). Same problem. Any suggestions?
(Lest you think me a total idiot, I only have this problem because I'm a fan of long, nonsensical passwords full of numbers. I should just use my damn birthday.)
Ok, this sounds slightly insane, but this is what I'm thinking of doing.
1. Set up a non-ogged and non-realname domain (w/ private reg.).
2. Set up a non-ogged and non-realname gmail account.
3. Forward all ogged and realname mail to gmail and the new domain.
This way, I have an instant backup of everything, because every messages goes to two places, and I can use either the domain or gmail for smtp without revealing anything. I would have IMAP, with folders, which I much prefer to tags, but I would also have fast search of all my mail in gmail.
Drawbacks? Improvements?
(The only problem at the moment is that Unfogged's redirection is unbelievably slow--there's about a ten minute lag).
fast search of all my mail in gmail
That is easily the best thing about gmail. And the massive storage. I just never delete anything, and I can decode my whole life through searches. One time a friend and I were filling out applications for a fellowship, and she asked me "when did we do [certain relevant activity]?" It was over a year ago, and by searching my gmail I was able to find the email that said "Don't forget to do [activity] tomorrow!" It's amazingly helpful.
This comment, however, is not helpful to ogged's question, but I just like talking about how much I love gmail.
Why forward? Why not just also download all your gmail using POP?
What would that get me? I'd make the occasional local backup, but otherwise, I'd have my mail both at newdomain and at gmail.
It doesn't have to be local (I'll use Thunderbird, and make a local copy occasionally, but I don't care about offline use, if that's what you're asking).
Well, it appears that gmail manager thingy is only for Windows. Drat.
Also, I set up POP access. Happy, ogged?
I wonder how damn many domains are registered by squatters and people who'll never use them. So annoying.
86: I'm pretty sure there is another firefox plugin that works everywere. Try searching the firefox extensions?
I did that for like five minutes, then I got bored. Maybe I'll look later when I'm bored of being bored.
Seriously, what is the point of backing up all your email? Let's say google dies and it's all gone.
Boo fucking hoo. You tell your boss or whoever you owe money to that google had a massive server explosion--which they'll have read about in the news anyway--and it's slightly inconvenient, but you're hardly going to get fired. You call your various friends and explain that you lost their email addys in the huge google server explosion.
Yeah, my email disappearing would be like my storage shed burning down. When it comes right down to it, I wouldn't really miss any of it.
OMG, you have a storage shed? Wow, just think of all the things one could put in a storage shed...
Seriously, what is the point of backing up all your email?
This doesn't have anything to do with work. Like kid bitzer in 10 above, I keep everything in my email--pretty much any piece of information I think I might need again--phone numbers, dates, names, web pages, whatever--goes into my email. I would be utterly and completely screwed if I lost my email. There's also the fact that it's a great record of one's life and friendships. I've kept most of my email going back about ten years.
Well, I keep all my old email too, out of sentiment, but honestly I very seldom go back and look at stuff. I think once it's come in useful when I needed to look some old information up. But other than that, eh.
Using your email as a notebook, though, okay, I guess that makes sense. But then again, it's kind of stupid: the advantage to the scraps of paper + various files on various laptops + old backup disks + old address books + various phones with numbers programmed in + etc. filing system is that a certain amount of redundancy is automatically built in.
"86: I'm pretty sure there is another firefox plugin that works everywere. Try searching the firefox extensions?"
YEah, i only recently changed to this one. perhapsthe old one works on other platforms? it didn't switch so effortlessly, or show you all your mail on a tooltip, but it was useful