On 12/23/25 12:08 PM, Eben King wrote:

On 11/18/25 17:17, Paul M. Foster wrote:

I just need a free email address, preferably with POP3 which works
with Thunderbird, or IMAP if I have to. I'd appreciate any assistance
along these lines.

You may have already found a solution, but I'm using a free account at
GMX with Thunderbird over POP3.ÿ I imagine IMAP works too, but I haven't tried it.ÿ IME providers try to get you to use webmail, but T-bird works.

You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have it forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird.ÿ That's what
I do with gmail.

Excellent suggestion. Thanks. This is the first suggestion which
actually worked. Agreed that most of these vendors want you to use their
app or get your mail on their website.

Your unfriendly_provider.com suggestion fails. I can't ping the URL or
whois it. It's either a misspell or they've gone away.

Paul

--
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster
https://codeberg.org/paulmfoster
https://github.com/paulmfoster

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-07 at 10:42, Paul M. Foster wrote:

On 12/23/25 12:08 PM, Eben King wrote:

On 11/18/25 17:17, Paul M. Foster wrote:

I just need a free email address, preferably with POP3 which
works with Thunderbird, or IMAP if I have to. I'd appreciate any
assistance along these lines.

You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have
it forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird.
That's what I do with gmail.

Your unfriendly_provider.com suggestion fails. I can't ping the URL
or whois it. It's either a misspell or they've gone away.

FWIW, I parse that not as being about the literal domain 'unfriendly_provider.com' but as being about whatever domain you already
have (or could readily get) an account with, from any provider who is sufficiently unfriendly that they don't offer POP3/IMAP access.
The idea would be that once you have the free account, you configure it
(using its Web interface if necessary) to forward all mail to another
place that does offer POP3/IMAP access, and then just get the mail from
that other place and ignore the free account's Web interface.
That does, of course, require that you *have* access to such "another
place". The only way I can think of for that to not be a chicken-and-egg problem is if you're fine with paying for an account that does provide
the access type(s) in question, but want to be set up free accounts to
use for e.g. throwaway purposes or to have a dedicated E-mail address
for a particular mailing-list subscription.
In that type of scenario, setting up a free account (with Web access
only) that just forwards to a non-free one (with mail-protocol-based
access) could make sense.
--
The Wanderer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Paul M. Foster (HE12026-01-07):

You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have it forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird.? That's what
I do with gmail.

Your unfriendly_provider.com suggestion fails. I can't ping the URL or whois it. It's either a misspell or they've gone away.

Do not bother: mail redirection addresses no longer work, unless you
have the full cooperation of the system to where you want to forward.
And if you have that, you do not need a redirection in the first place.

We have Google and the other monopolistic mail operators to thank for
that, they have designed their anti-spam practices to prevent
redirection addresses, because redirection addresses let people use
their services with the option of leaving easily. The standards have
provisions for redirections, and it work, with a lot of effort, with
targeted redirections, but as soon as some spam transits on the
redirection, as happens if it is an actual address used by an actual
person, it will soon be blacklisted as a whole.

Regards,

--
Nicolas George

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

I use a icloud account. It work with thunderbird without any problems.

Nico

Op 07-01-2026 om 16:42 schreef Paul M. Foster:

On 12/23/25 12:08 PM, Eben King wrote:

On 11/18/25 17:17, Paul M. Foster wrote:

I just need a free email address, preferably with POP3 which works
with Thunderbird, or IMAP if I have to. I'd appreciate any
assistance along these lines.

You may have already found a solution, but I'm using a free account
at GMX with Thunderbird over POP3.ÿ I imagine IMAP works too, but I
haven't tried it.ÿ IME providers try to get you to use webmail, but
T-bird works.

You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have it
forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird.ÿ That's
what I do with gmail.

Excellent suggestion. Thanks. This is the first suggestion which
actually worked. Agreed that most of these vendors want you to use
their app or get your mail on their website.

Your unfriendly_provider.com suggestion fails. I can't ping the URL or
whois it. It's either a misspell or they've gone away.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 3:01?PM The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm>
wrote:

On 2026-01-07 at 10:42, Paul M. Foster wrote:

On 12/23/25 12:08 PM, Eben King wrote:

On 11/18/25 17:17, Paul M. Foster wrote:

I just need a free email address, preferably with POP3 which
works with Thunderbird, or IMAP if I have to. I'd appreciate any
assistance along these lines.

You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have
it forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird.
That's what I do with gmail.

Your unfriendly_provider.com suggestion fails. I can't ping the URL
or whois it. It's either a misspell or they've gone away.

FWIW, I parse that not as being about the literal domain 'unfriendly_provider.com' but as being about whatever domain you already
have (or could readily get) an account with, from any provider who is sufficiently unfriendly that they don't offer POP3/IMAP access.

The idea would be that once you have the free account, you configure it (using its Web interface if necessary) to forward all mail to another
place that does offer POP3/IMAP access, and then just get the mail from
that other place and ignore the free account's Web interface.

I hope I am not splitting too many hairs... "Forwarding" has a
specific meaning in the smtp RFCs. What someone was calling
"Redirection" (in another reply) is actually called "Resent". See RFC
5322, Section 3.6.6, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.6>.

Resending is definitely not forwarding. From the RFC 5322:

Resent fields SHOULD be added to any message that is reintroduced by
a user into the transport system. A separate set of resent fields
SHOULD be added each time this is done. All of the resent fields
corresponding to a particular resending of the message SHOULD be
grouped together. Each new set of resent fields is prepended to the
message; that is, the most recent set of resent fields appears
earlier in the message. No other fields in the message are changed
when resent fields are added.

Note: Reintroducing a message into the transport system and using
resent fields is a different operation from "forwarding".
"Forwarding" has two meanings: One sense of forwarding is that a
mail reading program can be told by a user to forward a copy of a
message to another person, making the forwarded message the body
of the new message. A forwarded message in this sense does not
appear to have come from the original sender, but is an entirely
new message from the forwarder of the message. Forwarding may
also mean that a mail transport program gets a message and
forwards it on to a different destination for final delivery.
Resent header fields are not intended for use with either type of
forwarding.

That does, of course, require that you *have* access to such "another
place". The only way I can think of for that to not be a chicken-and-egg problem is if you're fine with paying for an account that does provide
the access type(s) in question, but want to be set up free accounts to
use for e.g. throwaway purposes or to have a dedicated E-mail address
for a particular mailing-list subscription.

In that type of scenario, setting up a free account (with Web access
only) that just forwards to a non-free one (with mail-protocol-based
access) could make sense.

Jeff

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Eben King <eben@gmx.us> writes:

(...)
You can also set up an account at unfriendly_provider.com and have it
forward messages to somewhere else that lets you use Tbird. That's
what I do with gmail.

This is a very smart idea. I'm already doing it, just like you. I'm
fully utilizing DKIM to forward to Google (Gmail).

Sincerely,
--
^????? _????_ ?????_^))//


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)