Re: portable e-mail, now Trying to do too much (was Re: the introduction problem, etc.)

Michael Richardson <mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca> Fri, 20 May 2022 23:49 UTC

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From: Michael Richardson <mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca>
To: John R Levine <johnl@taugh.com>, IETF general list <ietf@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: portable e-mail, now Trying to do too much (was Re: the introduction problem, etc.)
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Comments: In-reply-to "John R Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> message dated "19 May 2022 20:37:04 -0400."
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Date: Fri, 20 May 2022 19:49:33 -0400
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John R Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
    >> > 1993 wven though it's gone through a whole lot of different
    >> providers > in the past two decades.  Mail domains are extremely
    >> portable.
    >>
    >> Right. Mail *domains* are extremely portable.  Now, explain to me how
    >> to move mcharlesr@gmail.com to yahoo or protonmail.com?  ".forward"
    >> used to work, but DMARC policy makes this impossible now.

    > These days everyone supports IMAP so if you have enough access to set
    > up a .forward, you have enough to set up IMAP access in your mail
    > client.  I realize it's not exactly the same thing, but for most people
    > it's at least as good since it keeps the two mailboxes separate.

Right.  So map the analog back to phone numbers, the answer is to just keep
an extra handset in the house for the old number.

What you just said, about access to ".forward" being the same as just
installing your own IMAP server is elitist nonsense.
Plus, there are hundreds of mechanisms similiar to ".forward", which are not in
fact .forward, (why I put quotes on it).  Pretty much every "cpanel" (and
equivalent) includes that functionality in a web-happy way for instance.

But, you are right: might as well just do IMAP directly rather than forward
email.  In fact, why even use SMTP?  We can just get a hundred IMAP accounts.

--
Michael Richardson <mcr+IETF@sandelman.ca>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-