Download just your messages from shared email account

Helpline Q&A Directory

I use Outlook Express 5.0 on a laptop and my desktop PC. Both are set up to use the same email account, but I have two email addresses. Is it possible to set up the computers so that the laptop downloads messages from one address, while the PC downloads only from the other address?

Yes. You didn't say what the two addresses are, but we assume they are something like fred@username.isp.co.uk and bill@username.isp.co.uk. Freeserve supports an unlimited number of addresses like this. You can download everyone's messages by logging in to the POP3 server as username.freeserve.co.uk, only Fred's messages by logging in as fred@username.freeserve.co.uk, or everything but Fred's messages by logging in as -fred@username.freeserve.co.uk.

Since you don't use Freeserve, however, you will have to ask ISP if it supports a similar system for downloading messages to a specific email address. If it does, a simple change to the account properties in Outlook Express should achieve what you want. If not, you will need to get clever with Outlook Express message rules.

You can't tell Outlook to only download messages for Fred, but what you can do is tell it to leave messages for Bill (and anyone else) on the server. In this way, you can avoid downloading messages addressed to a user who collects their mail using a different computer. Those messages will remain on the server until that user logs on to download them. Outlook Express will download the rest. Here's what to do.

1. In Outlook Express, click the Tools menu, Message Rules and Mail. In the Message Rules dialog box check that you are on the Mail Rules tab, then click the Newà button.

2. In the New Mail Rule dialog box, under '1. Select conditions for your rule', scroll down and check 'Where the To or CC line contain people.' Under '2. Select the actions for your rule', check 'Do not download it from the server'.

3. Under '3. Rule Description' click the hyperlink 'contains people'. The Select People dialog box will appear. In this dialog box, type the name of the person whose messages you don't want to download (as it appears in their email address) and add it to the list by clicking Add.

4. You can add more than one name to this list. When you have added the names or addresses of all the people whose messages you don't want to download, click ok to close the Select People dialog box.

5. Under '4. Name of the rule', type an appropriate name, and then click ok to add the rule to the list.

After you have set up this rule, Outlook will check the headers of all the messages on the mail server each time that it connects to them. If the email To or CC fields contain any of the names you put in the list, they will not be downloaded from the server and you won't see them. It's as simple as that.

Note, however, that some messages are Bcc (blind carbon copied - see also tip, Discover who you sent Bcc emails to), which means that the recipient's address doesn't appear in the header. For example, mailing list messages and junk mail don't usually contain the intended recipient's address. These messages will be downloaded by whoever logs on to the server first.

The only generic solution is to use powerful software such as the VPOP3 mail server (www.pscs.co.uk), which allows you to define rules that process the message envelope instead of the To and CC headers.

A possible solution in Outlook Express would be to add to the Select People list whatever appears in the To field of the mailing list messages you want to leave on the server. In that case you might need to modify your message rule whenever another member of your family joins a new mailing list.