email

Doug has three different Windows 10 computers, but programs operating differently on all three. Incredimail has gone away, and so he tried Mozilla Thunderbird. Leo says that it probably has to do with how each computer was set up, which prompted POP3 instead of IMAP. You'll need to uninstall Thunderbird and reinstall. You have to use an IMAP server and port. What Leo suggests exporting the profile on the right Thunderbird computer, and import it into the other two.

Ed has over 500 emails in Gmail and he can't find them. They just aren't there, but Gmail says they are there. Leo says that the default of Gmail is to archive, not delete. If you click on the MORE button on the left, you'll find a folder called ALL MAIL. Every email should appear there. If you don't see them there, they are gone. Also, check the archive.

Sue is on AOL and is having issues with "Guce." What is that? Leo says it's adware by AOL that seeks to bypass adblockers in her browser. Guce is owned by Verizon, which also owns AOL and they don't like users using ad blockers or reading emails without ads. So it will redirect her to Guce.advertising.com. But many consider it a browser hijack, which would turn it into malware.  Go into the browser settings under extensions and see if there's an adblocker installed. She can either turn off the ad blocker, white list Guce or better yet, GET OUT OF AOL! Leo recommends Gmail.

Jason would like to move his email away from GoDaddy, but he doesn't want to use Gmail. Any options? Leo says the nice thing about having his own domain, is that he can move it anywhere, and even to another registrar. Jason may need to jump through a few hoops, but it can be done. He can also go into the domain record and forward the email to another host. It's under the MX record. Leo recommends using a paid one, because it will not only give support, but they won't close the account out of anywhere. Should he run his own server? Leo says no. Don't do that. Its too much work.

Karen had to get a new phone, but she didn't get her email contacts. What can be done? Rich says that since Karen had a Samsung Galaxy mobile device, all her contacts should be backed up to Google. But Karen had her email through AT&T, and if you go into AT&T's webmail interface, those contacts should be there and you can export them. But if there's nothing in the address book, then Karen has lost them all since she no longer has her contacts on her computer and tablet, she can export the contacts into a main file. Then you can import them to Google Contacts.

Mike is complaining that he can't get his email on his phone in his area. Rich suspects that the email client is trying to access LTE and he may not have access to LTE. So he recommends that when Mike is in a spotty LTE area, he should go into the phone settings and drop the speed down to 3G. That is usually enough to get the proper connection.

Charles wants to encrypt his email communications. How can he do that? Leo says that your email can go through dozens of servers before getting to the person you addressed it to. And everyone along the way can read it unless it's encrypted. It's more like a postcard, but without federal privacy protection. PGP (Pretty Good Protection) uses public-key cryptography, which has two different keys. One public, and one private. Only you can encrypt with the private key, while the public key is used to verify and open the email. You can give the public key to anyone.

Linda is frustrated that some of her contacts always end up in the spam filter. Leo says that somewhere the email program learned that those contacts were sending spam, and it may be due to the content of the email. Leo recommends setting up a separate filter that will keep those contacts in the inbox. They may also be called "rules."

Brian's email has been down for a week, and he's looking to make a change to Gmail. Leo says that's exactly what Brian should do. It's free, and you can set it up to go get your email from your other email server. Your local ISP email is almost always terrible, so go with Gmail.