No 'catch all' account?

[songland]

Hi! I've just joined the Bluehost world...

Bluehost Support have just informed me that they don't offer a catch all e-mail service in the Control Panel.

My site (http://www.songland.com/) has been there 'forever' and accumulated lots of e-mail addresses over the years, as I have joined affiliate programs & so on and often created an individual e-mail account for each one.

That was fine with a catch all e-mail address, but now I'm confronted with having to make an individual e-mail account for each one in the Control Panel ... and there are lots of them! ;)

Is there any way round this?

Thanks,

John @ SongLand.com.

[jah]

They just did that a few months ago because of the amount of spam that catchall accounts get. At the time, they said you could get a cachall account if you were willing to be on a server with other catchall accounts (ie if you were ok with your site going down a lot).

My personal opinion (ducking) is for you to look for another hosting option while you can still get a refund.

How many do you have?

[songland]

Oh dear, jah, that's not good news.

"How many do you have?", you asked. I guess you mean the number of e-mail accounts. I'll have to set up about 20, I think, which makes for a ridiculous situation in my Outlook too! :(

Another problem is that you can't open a SpamBox in the Control Panel either, so all spam comes to my Outlook too. That sucks!

I have another hosting option at www.parcom.net (where I already have 2 sites), and I had to choose between them & Bluehost. I thought I'd give Bluehost a try, but it seems it wasn't the right choice.

It's a pity 'cos they offer a real lot for the price. Now I have to decide. I have signed up for 2 years, and I really don't fancy 24 months of sorting out the spam, particularly as my site is an old one and some of the e-mail addresses have got around to a lot of the spammers. Mmmm... (Thinks).

John @ SongLand.com.

[channeler]

"How many do you have?", you asked. I guess you mean the number of e-mail accounts. I'll have to set up about 20, I think, which makes for a ridiculous situation in my Outlook too! :(

Set up one e-mail account with 20 forwarders. Should take you about 5 minutes and not impact your Outlook.

[songland]

Hi, channeler, and thanks for your input.

Isn't that a catch all? Surely you have to do it the other way around: Set up the different accounts, then create a forwarder (which covers all of them)? I have a Gmail account, so that's dead easy to do.

With a catch all, if you send to (say) anyone@website.com or to my_cat@website.com, the one accounts catches them all and then the one account in Outlook downloads them. That's what it seems you can't do in the Bluehost Control Panel ... and that's the problem.

If I now send to anyone@songland.com or to my_cat@songland.com, they'll bounce (Delivery Status Notification (Failure)) because I haven't set up accounts for those addresses...

John.

[Basil]

Why don't you just add the 20 forwarders or whatever.

cPanel > Mail > Forwarders

That way you don't need 20 accounts.

[bobdog]

Channeler has the right idea.

I remember a client that had a catch-all and he was literally pounded with 800 spams a day. Now that the policy has changed, I just made some forward accounts for him, and the spam dropped dramatically.

[channeler]

Hi, channeler, and thanks for your input.
Isn't that a catch all? Surely you have to do it the other way around: Set up the different accounts, then create a forwarder (which covers all of them)? I have a Gmail account, so that's dead easy to do.

You don't seem to understand. Using one of your 20 e-mail addresses, set up one e-mail account on bluehost. Then set up 19 forwarders (some hosts refer to them as aliases), one for each of your remaining e-mail addresses, and point them all to your one bluehost account.

If you wish, since you have a Gmail account, you can omit the bluehost account, set up all 20 addresses as forwarders, and point them all to your Gmail account.

[songland]

You're right, channeler, I didn't quite understand. :o

In short, the fact of creating a forwarder for each address means that all e-mails addressed to anyone@songland.com (or *@songland.com) will be recognised providing the forwarder has been established.

It seemed logical to me that they wouldn't be unless I created an account for each one. So that matter is dealt with.

Of course, the problem with this situation is that, if someone types in the e-mail address instead of clicking on a link or on Reply, and then does a typo (e.g. jhon@songland.com), I won't get their e-mail...

Honestly, I still prefer a catch all, despite the spam...

Anyway, thanks for helping me understand this, folks. I appreciate it. :)

John.

[Basil]

Of course, the problem with this situation is that, if someone types in the e-mail address instead of clicking on a link or on Reply, and then does a typo (e.g. jhon@songland.com), I won't get their e-mail...

If they send an email to a nonexistent account then the mail daemon will bounce back an error message.

[charlesgan]

You're right, channeler, I didn't quite understand. :o

In short, the fact of creating a forwarder for each address means that all e-mails addressed to anyone@songland.com (or *@songland.com) will be recognised providing the forwarder has been established.

It seemed logical to me that they wouldn't be unless I created an account for each one. So that matter is dealt with.

Of course, the problem with this situation is that, if someone types in the e-mail address instead of clicking on a link or on Reply, and then does a typo (e.g. jhon@songland.com), I won't get their e-mail...

Honestly, I still prefer a catch all, despite the spam...

Anyway, thanks for helping me understand this, folks. I appreciate it. :)

John.

its a sad thing that BH or HM.. they both not offering this.

[songland]

Hi, Basil,

Yeah, right. Which means I won't even know that they were trying to contact me. At least a catch all would mean that I'd see the sender's e-mail and it would allow me to inform them to correct their address book.

Sorry, but I don't like the implications of the setup as it is...

[songland]

its a sad thing that BH or HM.. they both not offering this.

I think I'll have to move away ... unfortunately. :(

[Early Out]

Sorry, but I don't like the implications of the setup as it is...The problem with a catch-all account is that if a spammer launched a dictionary attack on a particular domain, trying every possible email address (like a@yourdomain.com, b@yourdomain.com, etc.), every email address would work. The result is that BH was then flooded with incoming spam. The overhead was just too much.

[songland]

True, and I accept that, Early Out.

I'd just ask: How do other Web hosts cope (since most of them offer a catch-all account)?

[chemodan]

Hi there!
I'm owner of few shareware sites and I have the same problem and a new one.
Bluehost is doesn't offer the "catch all". Ok, I solve it as recommended above - via forwards. I created general@mydomain.com account and created the forwards for example:
support@mydomain.com - > general@mydomain.com
sales@mydomain.com - > general@mydomain.com
contacts@mydomain.com - > general@mydomain.com
This way works fine, I get all mails via one POP email account.
But how can I send mail from support@mydomain.com or contacts@mydomain.com? I create an email on my email client, trying to send it and I have the error:
Message has not been sent. Server reply - Sender verify failed
Please help.

PS: sorry for my bad english.

[songland]

You can usually create e-mails in your webmail and type in the sender's address. I'm no longer with Bluehost, so I can't check that you can do this here.

As far as I know, this does work fine, but maybe someone else can help you more...

BTW, which desktop e-mail client are you using? Outlook? Outlook Express? Eudora???

John.

[chemodan]

You can usually create e-mails in your webmail and type in the sender's address. I'm no longer with Bluehost, so I can't check that you can do this here.

As far as I know, this does work fine, but maybe someone else can help you more...

BTW, which desktop e-mail client are you using? Outlook? Outlook Express? Eudora???

John.
I use client The Bat! And all my previous hosters allowes my to send emails with any name before @ but with my domain after @.

[songland]

The Bat? I've never heard of it before, although I've been using the Net since 1998...

Why don't you try Bluehost Live Chat - they should be able to help you...

John.

[chemodan]

The Bat? I've never heard of it before, although I've been using the Net since 1998...

Why don't you try Bluehost Live Chat - they should be able to help you...

John.

Look this software http://www.ritlabs.com. In russia this is most popular email client.
So I try to ask support, but my english is very bad and I am afraid misunderstanding.

[songland]

The Bat e-mail client looks pretty good. Interesting to learn something new...

If I still had an account with Bluehost, I could help you more, but unfortunately I don't.

If you use Bluehost's Live Chat, explain that you are Russian and ask them to be patient with your English. You are a client, and they should be happy to help you.

I'll make a new post for you to see if we can get help from the other members here. ;)

John.

[chemodan]

songland
Thank you very much!

[songland]

You're welcome! :)

Here's the new Topic: http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=9919

Good Luck,

John.

[chemodan]

I have managed this problem!
You can't send email with any name before @ in From field. You can send only those email which exists in your forwards in bluehost CP.
Thank you all :)

[songland]

Great! I'm very pleased to have been able to help you. :)

Regards,

John.

[NetWeb Marketer]

Oh dear, jah, that's not good news.

"How many do you have?", you asked. I guess you mean the number of e-mail accounts. I'll have to set up about 20, I think, which makes for a ridiculous situation in my Outlook too! :(

--I have 140 and have been doing the same...

Another problem is that you can't open a SpamBox in the Control Panel either, so all spam comes to my Outlook too. That sucks!

--One of the most obvious answers is to use rules to automatically delete spam. I have the rules move it to a created SPAM folder that I occassionally view & delete.

I have another hosting option at www.parcom.net (where I already have 2 sites), and I had to choose between them & Bluehost. I thought I'd give Bluehost a try, but it seems it wasn't the right choice.

--I have had Bluehost for over a year now, with no problems :rolleyes:.

It's a pity 'cos they offer a real lot for the price. Now I have to decide. I have signed up for 2 years, and I really don't fancy 24 months of sorting out the spam, particularly as my site is an old one and some of the e-mail addresses have got around to a lot of the spammers. Mmmm... (Thinks).

--I would go with BlueHost.

John @ SongLand.com.


--But, I have found out the hard way that Outlook Express won't handle more than 32 Pop3 accounts... best to use MAPI.