Email Forwarding...

[Baldy95307]

I know how email forward works (in principle) but as a new customer of Hostmonster, I'm faced with at least one perplexing statement of how they implement it.

Having run the gamut of other hosting companies whose support and knowledge of email was generally smaller than Hillary's chance of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, I've noticed a conflict in the usual configuration methods: if one wants to establish forwarding, some hosts first require an account to be established; other hosts state explicitly than only the forward need be establish and if both an account and a forward are established, then the server gets confused.

Lo and behold, Hostmonster steps forward and apparently allows either configuration. Thankfully they add comments about why one would establish both an account and a forward (it would leave a copy of the message on the server).

But here is where I get confused (and maybe the person at Hostmonster that wrote the following). Hostmonster added the following tip regarding email forwarding: "If you only set up a forwarder, and no account, you'll only be storing one copy of each mail."

Hmmm, STORING one copy? Where would it be stored? If the mail is forwarded to anywhere else, why would Hostmonster still be storing a copy when no account was created?

I believe that the tip provided by Hostmonster should read "If you only set up a forwarder, and no account, you'll will not be storing a copy of each mail.

OK, somebody now pat me on the shoulder and say "Good catch". Or somebody pat me on the shoulder and say "You are really confused. Try less caffeine."

[shadmego]

The wording may have been a little confused. One of the greatest challenges for techies is to write tutorials or explain things in terms everyone can understand.

I believe the tutorial (and thus the statement) is assuming you are going to forward a non-existent email address to an existing one. Thus, you will not be storing a copy of the email in two places, as you would if both email accounts were real.

In fact, after reading your proposed rewrite, it still sounds a bit confusing. It might be better to say something like:

"If you only set up a forwarder, and no account, then a copy of the email will only be stored at the final destination."

The above statement allows for the possibility of someone forwarding emails to, say, a Gmail account where the spam filtering is among the best for free email account. <-- Gratuitous plug for Gmail even though I don't work for them! ;)~

~regards, and welcome to the community!

P.S. You still deserve a pat on the back ...

[Baldy95307]

I agree....


"In fact, after reading your proposed rewrite, it still sounds a bit confusing. It might be better to say something like:

"If you only set up a forwarder, and no account, then a copy of the email will only be stored at the final destination."

I still think it is somewhat unique that Hostmonster will allow forwards to be applied to BOTH existing and non-existing accounts. As previously stated, my experience with other hosts stipulate one method or the other, but never both. I kinda like it!:D