HOWTO:
Yahoo! Mail Plus with BIS 2.x handling two external e-mail accounts.
Background:
I wanted to be able to handle multiple external e-mail accounts on my Blackberry in the same way I was used to on my desktop computer: All mail from both accounts comes in to one Inbox where I then can reply having the correct From address set based on the To or CC field for the incoming e-mail. This without any manual intervention (like BBReply etc). It is not trivial to achieve this on a Blackberry.
It is also important that it can be done using Yahoo! Mail since Yahoo! offers instant pushed delivery to Blackberry through BIS 2.x, and even for sent mail to be stored in the Yahoo! Mail Outbox. See here:
Yahoo! for Blackberry
If you only deal with one external e-mail account on your Blackberry none of this would be of importance to you.
For the purpose of this HOWTO the following needs to be in place:
1) Two external e-mail accounts, let's call them "external_1@someisp.com" and "external_2@someisp.com" forwarded to two Yahoo! Mail e-mail addresses within _one_ Yahoo! Mail Plus account. Let's call the two Yahoo! Mail Plus addresses "myself@yahoo.com" and "my_alias@yahoo.com". We have "external_1@someisp.com" forwarded to "myself@yahoo.com" and "external_2@someisp.com" to "my_alias@yahoo.com". These names are only chosen to illustrate how it's done. You would have to use the e-mail addresses you are currently operating, and add the new e-mail address to your existing Yahoo! Mail Plus with a name that suit your purpose.
The Yahoo! Mail account needs to be the paid "Plus" account type ($20 per year) since we will need two Yahoo! e-mail addresses to "trick” BIS 2.x to handle mail from one Yahoo! account as two separate accounts on your Blackberry device.
Please note that if your are using Yahoo! Mail as your main e-mail provider you do not need to forward anything and just use the Yahoo! Mail e-mail addresses in the setup outlined below.
Also note that I assume that your Yahoo! Mail Plus account doesn’t have e-mail stored since this could cause a lot of mail to be pushed to your BB. You could probably move all your existing mail to a folder in your Yahoo! Mail Plus account, but I have not tested if this prevents existing e-mail from being pushed to your Blackberry device.
2) A Blackberry device connected to BIS 2.x
Setup:
After you have forwarded your two external accounts to the two Yahoo! Mail Plus addresses within your existing Yahoo! Mail Plus account we can move over to BIS 2.x and set it up as follows:
First set up one account in BIS with "E-mail Address" = "myself@yahoo.com". Fill in password and BIS will do the rest and confirm that the account is set up correctly.
Then open the account settings by clicking the "Edit" link. Change "E-mail Account" to "external_1" (you can choose whatever name you want here though), set "E-mail" to "external_1@someisp.com" and a signature if you want. The "User ID" is of course "myself@yahoo.com" and can not be changed in this view.
Then go back to the account overview and hit ths "Filters" link. Create four filters (you can name them whatever you like):
1)
Apply Filter when "To" Field Contains "external_1@someisp.com"
Check "Forward messages to handheld"
2)
Apply Filter when "CC" Field Contains "external_1@someisp.com"
Check "Forward messages to handheld"
3)
Apply Filter when "To" Field Contains "external_2@someisp.com"
Check "Do not forward messages to handheld"
4)
Apply Filter when "CC" Field Contains "external_2@someisp.com"
Check "Do not forward messages to handheld"
Now set up the second account in BIS with "Email Address" = "my_alias@yahoo.com".
Edit the account in the same way as above, but set "Email Account" to
"external_2" and "E-mail" to "external_2@someisp.com". Set the signature if you want to.
Set four filters for this account as follows:
1)
Apply Filter when "To" Field Contains "external_2@someisp.com"
Check "Forward messages to handheld"
2)
Apply Filter when "CC" Field Contains "external_2@someisp.com"
Check "Forward messages to handheld"
3)
Apply Filter when "To" Field Contains "external_1@someisp.com"
Check "Do not forward messages to handheld"
4)
Apply Filter when "CC" Field Contains "external_1@someisp.com"
Check "Do not forward messages to handheld"
The one limitation with this setup is that BCC'ed e-mail won't be pushed to your Blackberry Device unless you choose one account to receive such mail. You choose this by setting "When no filters apply:" to “Forward messages to handheld" for the account you want to receive BCC'ed e-mail. For the other account you need it set to "Do not forward messages to handheld" (unless you want to have BCC'ed e-mail to both accounts).
I thought that you would only need filter 1) and 2) for each accounts, but that didn't always work right for some reason I have not investigated yet.
Now you are basically done:
You will have two new accounts on your Blackberry device called "external_1" and external_2" (or whatever you named them). They will receive e-mail separately. You can reply and forward from your "Messages" folder having the correct from address set every time. You will have sent mail from both external accounts stored in your Yahoo! Mail Plus outbox. You can compose new mail from your Yahoo Mail! Plus account's web interface with the two external account e-mail addresses (this mail will of course not be pushed to your Blackberry device).
You can of course compose new e-mail from both accounts on your
Blackberry choosing one as the primary one, meaning the one you will compose
from by default, under Advanced Settings > Message Services.
Disclaimer:
Please do not hang, flame, fry or flog me if it doesn't work for you, or if I have made mistakes in this HOWTO. I was asked to write it on this forum, and have only tested it with my carrier, T-Mobile, on my 8700g. I am only assuming it will work the same way with other carriers and Blackberry devices.
However, I have now tested it for several weeks without any problems, so it seems like a stable solution as long as carrier, RIM and Yahoo! have their stuff in working order (that has not always been the case the last few weeks).
//C