Synchronizing email on two Macs

[RonaldMacDonald]

I have a Mac at the office and a Mac at home. I have Mail set up so that both machines leave mail on server. Therefore I get the same incoming mail into both machines.

But is there anything I can do to Synchronize the "sent" mail? Sometimes I have to refer to mail I sent someone. If I send it at home at night and then need to look at what I sent during the day at the office, I'm screwed.

Ron

[Pengu]

You could use IMAP mail, which uses the server for everything; in, sent, trash. the lot.
However, most places normally offer POP3 rather than IMAP

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I'm not at home to verify this, but I think with a .Mac membership and iSync you can sync Mail's mailboxes. Not sure if it'll work for any old email account or just .Mac email accounts, but it's worth researching.

[bobw]

I don't use Mail, but there's a setting in the Preferences under Composing to Always Cc Myself. Check that and anything you send will be sent to yourself also, and you'll have it on both machines. You could make a Rule to send those emails to whatever folder you would keep them in.

[perfessor101]

As far as I know there is no tool available that will synchronize the messages between two Macs, including iSync.

What you are saying you want is exactly what the IMAP protocol was created to do. All your mail and potentially all your mail boxes are kept on the server. When you open the inbox or any other mailbox, the headers are temporarily downloaded to your Mac. When you open a message it is temporarily downloaded to your Mac. When you delete mail, it goes into the trash on the IMAP server and remains there until you empty the trash. Of course you can wind up using a lot of disk space on the IMAP server and you may end up having to lease more storage space for your IMAP account.

[dlloyd]

Related question: I use IMAP for my addresses, for precisely this reason. However when I tried to set it to put everything (sent mail, etc.) on the server, my sent mail just disappeared. It never makes it to the server. Is this a mail.app thing, or a server thing?
Also, I keep getting an error from the server, which basically says that I can't send email unless I check my email with POP.

[perfessor101]

Originally Posted by dlloyd

Related question: I use IMAP for my addresses, for precisely this reason. However when I tried to set it to put everything (sent mail, etc.) on the server, my sent mail just disappeared. It never makes it to the server. Is this a mail.app thing, or a server thing?

Check Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Special Mailboxes and see what setting you have for how long to retain sent mail.

Originally Posted by dlloyd

Also, I keep getting an error from the server, which basically says that I can't send email unless I check my email with POP.

This is a security feature implemented by your ISP to prevent spammers from using your userid to send junk through their SMTP server. They have established a protocol that requires you to check your mail, which requires a password, then will open a window to the SMTP server for some period of time, usually several seconds. That means you must always do a get mail just before hitting the send button. On an IMAP account "Get Mail" refreshes the header list in your Inbox.

You might try Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Account Information > Server Settings and turn on password authentication for the SMTP server and see if that works or not. No guarantees, but it won't hurt to try.

[dlloyd]

I'm not sure you understood the first part of my question...
I meant that when I set Mail to keep sent emails on the server, they never GET to the server. I send them, people say they receive them, but there is no copy retained anywhere .

And thanks for the explanation of the other stuff. I did try the password stuff, and it didn't work.