[MlMt] Use an SMTP server without an associated IMAP server?

[Bill Cole]

On 2024-03-06 at 11:06:49 UTC-0500 (Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:06:49 +0000)
Quentin Stafford-Fraser <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
is rumored to have said:

> So...
>
> What I really want is to have more than one SMTP server associated 
> with my main IMAP account, and select the outgoing server based on my 
> From: address.  I don't think there's a way to do that?

Not obviously.

I do have a workaround that works for me, but I can't be sure that it 
would for you.

I am a contributor to ASF projects and so I have a forwarding-only 
apache.org address. Because I'm also a PMC member and Foundation member, 
much of the mail hitting that address is fairly important to me. However 
all of that mail ends up in my main personal account (which also handles 
many use-specific addresses, e.g. for this list.) If I use my personal 
account to send mail with the apache.org address, it will not get very 
far because ASF has therir own SMTP infrastructure that I am supposed to 
send through when using that address and a "-all" SPF record. So I have 
an account named "Apache Send-Only" with its "email address" field set 
to billcole at apache.org with no Address Pattern. The IMAP config points 
to my own server, just like my main account. My main account uses 
'bill at scconsult.com' as its email address, but it also has a complex 
Address Pattern configured that assures that it is associated only with 
addresses that both deliver to that account AND can use my SMTP server. 
(I also use a different local username for authentication and final 
delivery that isn't in any email address, but that's not critical and 
not everyone can do that.)

The Apache account therefore ends up 'owning' the messages sent to my 
ASF address. If I reply to a message that was originally sent to my ASF 
address, MM knows to use that address in a reply. It uses the ASF SMTP 
server to send messages, but it drops the 'Sent' copies of messages into 
the right IMAP folder. The account is only subscribed to Drafts and 
Sent, and

> My workaround, for now, is to add another IMAP account that I 
> otherwise barely use, set it up with the PoBox email address and SMTP 
> server, and Mailmate will then send things correctly that way.  I 
> don't need to worry that the IMAP server is empty, but it does have to 
> be a genuine working IMAP server, or Mailmate will mark that account 
> as offline.
>
> It's a bit of a nuisance, too, because Mailmate will also save Drafts 
> and Sent messages onto that otherwise-unused IMAP server.  So I then 
> need to set up rules to move everything to the correct account.  And 
> then I need to do this same setup on all of my machines...

You can point multiple MM accounts at the same IMAP account and define 
the 'special' mailboxes differently for each MM account. So as above, I 
have distinct Sent and Drafts folders for the ASF traffic and tell MM to 
use them for the ASF account.


> So does anyone have a good way of saying  "Here's an SMTP-only server 
> which you should use when the From address is X" ?
>
> Interestingly Fastmail do provide exactly this facility in their (very 
> good) webmail interface, but when I tried switching to that, I 
> realised that, good as it is, it isn't Mailmate... :-)
>
> Quentin
>
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> mailmate mailing list
> mailmate at lists.freron.com
> https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate


-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire