Marco Luthe Online!

I must admit: I do not like eMail software that has to be installed any more – neither Thunderbird nor Outlook nor any other software that is available.

Why? Because I like the interface of Google Mail a lot. No matter where you are: you just need a simple browser and you have access to all your emails with a very sophisticated, browser based technology that is permanently updated and improved.

[Well, it seems like an automatic BCC functionality still hasn't been integrated - that's fine, I do not need it any more...]

To backup my emails, I use Thunderbird Portable, because the full version would need to be installed properly – and I do not like that, as I said earlier. With Thunderbird Portable, just add your Google Mail account as IMAP, then go to “File -> Offline -> Download/Sync Now” – and Thunderbird Portable will download all your emails for offline usage resp. backup purposes without having to install the full version – plus: you can easily move the eMails AND the portable app on a USB stick.

I use Google Mail for every eMail I write, and all my different eMail accounts are redirected to my Google Mail account. Today, I made an interesting observation:

• I added a new eMail address on my website, which is just a redirection to the regular one which is then being redirected to my Google Mail account.
• Then, I wanted to see if that newly created eMail address worked, so I wrote a test mail using my Google Mail address (and the interface).
• You would suppose that the same eMail then shows up in your Google Mail inbox, because that is where it was redirected to in the end, right? Unfortunately, that eMail never showed up in my inbox (although it was redirected right back to that Google Mail account).
• I contacted my website provider – they said that the eMail had been properly handed over to the Google Mail server. It should therefore appear in my inbox unless it was filtered as spam.
• So I waited a while and also checked my spam folder – nothing.
• Then I sent an eMail to one of my other website eMail accounts that are redirected to Google Mail – and that worked! Also, eMails sent via the web interfaces of my other eMail providers worked fine, also.

And here is the “impossible-to-anticipate” solution to this problem:

Google Mail only shows those eMails in the inbox where the eMail address that you are sending it to (which is then being redirected right back at ya) is authorized to be used with Google Mail via registration under “Preferences”.

Comprende? OK, I will try to explain:

Let’s say “A” is your Google Mail account. “B” is an eMail address on your website redirected to “A” which is already authorized to be used by “A”. “C” is the eMail address that you newly created on your website. It will be redirected to “B” (which – as we know – is redirected to “A”).

You can send as many eMails from “A” to “C” as you want – it will show up in the “Sent” folder, but not in the inbox. If you send an eMail from “A” to “B”, it will show up in the “Sent” folder as well as in the inbox. The difference is that “B” is authorized to be used by “A”. Authorize “C” to be used by “A”, and it will work as well – at least, it did in my case.

Actually, this is a pretty odd behaviour… or is it not?