On Thu, 14 Aug 2025, Scott Mutter via mailop wrote:
Honest question...
Why are people forwarding mail to an off-server email address in 2025?
Would this situation be better solved if Microsoft allowed outlook.com
email users to POP mail from other email accounts - like Gmail allows, and
I believe outlook.com allowed this at one time?
That would mean giving Microsoft/GMail authentication rights on the
mailbox - and on anything else covered by that authentication,
which might include the user's ssh, RDP or VNC session.
Microsoft and Google are not keen on the use of passwords for IMAP
authentication, preferring 2 factor authentication, specifically OAUTH.
Presumably that advice goes for connections in the reverse direction too.
2FA means more user admin and hand-holding.
You would also have to get the second factor safely to Microsoft or
Google. I have seen instructions on that from one of those vendors
but I never managed to find it again.
Then there will be someone else who wants another mail service
to collect their mail from you.
For some mail admins, forwarding has only a single clear risk
(email going out of your control at the user's specific request)
and is much simpler than an advanced authentication system.
--
Andrew C. Aitchison Kendal, UK
[email protected]
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