Catch-All Email for a domain

[The Other Guy]

Live chat told me that HM no longer supports a "catch-all" address for a domain. What I've done for years on another hosting site is this: when I get to a website that requests an email address from me, I make one up on the spot (usually "<their-name>@<my-domain-name>". When or if I got email from them my catch-all email box captured it along with all email that wasn't sent to a valid email address for my domain. I now have an unknown number of these out there with companies I don't want to stop receiving occasional email along with the regulars like hotels, airlines, car rental, etc. How can I do the same thing here. I currently have two domains at HM if that makes any difference in devising a solution. Obviously the sender shouldn't receive a no-user-with-that-name message.

Thanks

[shadmego]

If you remember the names of the email accounts you created, you can set up forwards to real email accounts.

[The Other Guy]

Ahhh. . . there's the rub. I couldn't come up with all of those name that I created (let alone all the ones my wife did). I'm really thinking that the mail that comes in for a non-existent user being dropped into a catch-all email is cleaner for my admittedly screwed-up situation.

I have done exactly as you suggested for some of the more frequently used ones but that isn't a complete solution.

Thanks,
T O G

[shadmego]

The only other suggestion I can make is to go through your email client (if you keep emails like I do) and look for emails from those websites you want to continue to get mail from. Look at the header field "TO" and create the forwards based on what you find there.

Tedious, but it's the only option I can think of other than simply giving up those website emails ...

Sorry for the "bad" news?

~regards, and welcome to the community!
Shadmego

[Gathor]

The only other suggestion I can make is to go through your email client (if you keep emails like I do) and look for emails from those websites you want to continue to get mail from. Look at the header field "TO" and create the forwards based on what you find there.


I have used the same spam-system as "The Other Guy", so the problem is that I have 100s of email addresses that I might get an "important" email on some day. For some I think I might even not have gotten an email yet. And the hole point is that you should not need to create the email address before you can receive an email on it.


Today I use the services of sneakemail.com, but as I don't like their domain name I wanted to setup a "system" of my own with catch-all so I could get some shorter email addresses.


I don't understand why the catch-all option have been disabled and is there any plans to activate it again ?

There are some free hosting company that do support cath-all email, so if I setup an account with them how will the email domain forwarder work :
- Will the sender (From) still be the original sender?
- Will I be able to see what domain that the email was original sent to?

Or will it be better to change MX setup for my domain then use email domain forwarding ?

[Gathor]

I have got catch-all up and running now :

- I did sign up with Google Apps
( http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.html )

- Changed my MX at HM to point at the Google mailserver.
(Just followed the descriptions I got from Google)

- Activated catch-all with Google

Took about 1 hour until all where up and running with catch-all.

The free account with Google apps have a limit of 100 emails, but I can still create emails accounts for my sub-domains here at HM so that should not be a problem.

[Cavebear58]

I'm in exactly the same situation. It seems such a shame to be using what seems a good hosting company only to have to use someone else for the email handling.

Thanks for the thread though - it has helped me understand what is going on.

Best wishes
Graham.

[nabob]

Although technically not a "catch-all" service I've had great success with this service: http://mailnull.com.

It's free and permits easy on-the-fly creation of temporary e-mails that can be configured to last forever or expire after a set time.

Good luck.

[Techgy]

If you want full control over the Email you get take a look at a product called "Choicemail". It's at http://www.digiportal.com

It's not freeware, but well worth the cost. I've been using it for many years and I get no spam - 100% guaranteed. You can also create temporary Email addresses which you can delete if you start getting junk mail.