Email forwarding in ISPConfig/dovecot instead of POP3

emailgmailpop3

i have a server with dovecot and ISPConfig installed. Right now i have mailboxes, and using my gmail for fetching emails using pop3.
problem is google checks emails every X minutes.
i have a hotmail account, and emails from that account are forwarded directly to my gmail.

i want to set up something similar, that incoming emails will be forwarded immediately. i would set up a mail forward, but i still want the mailbox to exist on the server (for sending using SMTP). I want to avoid using google's mail server for managing my accounts under google apps. Just need incoming emails to be forwarded immediately.

How can this be done?

ps. i could think of an ugly idea to get it done – send a copy to my gmail account, and delete incoming emails under pop3 using gmail. i'd prefer avoiding that too.

Best Answer

Your local MDA probably supports something like .forward files, if you have a home directory on the server. If you are using something else than Postfix / Exim / Qmail / Sendmail (in vaguely descending order of weirdness), tell us what you do have.

Related Solutions

Force dovecot to ignore pop3 requests to delete received email

Shortest answer

Short answer

Get sources of dovecot, grok code edit and remove DELE command. Compile, install and be ready to "upgrade nightmare"

Longer anser

NEVER ignore and violate RFC, according to which DELE in POP3-session must delete message in spool. Tell boss to fund technical solution, because it give in future alot less headache and problems

Solution for you task, not answer on question

Change MTA configuration and extend every mail-user on host into "dual-user" alias-system, i.e. ordinary user@yourdomain.com will transform into something like

user: user-m, user-b

there user-m & user-b are identical users (for MTA and Dovecot) with one difference: user-m have POP3-access, user-b have not.

You have to have *2 space for mail, but get manageable and full archives per user

My POP3 server doesn’t receive email

It sounds like you are expecting the POP3 server to receive emails from other providers (eg gmail). POP3 does not 'receive' email. POP3 is purely used for clients (eg Outlook) to connect to a mail server and pick up email stored in a mailbox. Email is delivered from sender to destination entirely using SMTP.

Email works as follows (ignoring stuff like Exchange which has different methods for moving email about internally that we don't really need to know about at this point):

End user sends you an email which gets delivered to their ISP via SMTP
ISP's SMTP server looks up your MX records and delivers the email, still via SMTP, to your mail server.
Your SMTP server receives the email and stores it in your mailbox
Your email client picks up the message from your mailbox using POP3/IMAP/etc.

I've never used hMailServer but you'll need to set it up as follows if you want it to handle email for your domain.

Enable the SMTP service and make sure it's working (should listen on port 25)
Configure hMailServer to handle email for your domain and set up your email addresses/accounts
Point the MX record for your domain at your mail server
Enable the POP3 service so you can pick up your emails
Configure your mail client to connect to hMailServer using the POP3 login details

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Force dovecot to ignore pop3 requests to delete received email

My POP3 server doesn’t receive email

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