Hiding imap account and still using it for outgoing email

[Hippo Man]

Well, I got impatient and decided to try this approach.

And it works!

-- 
 hippoman at gmail.com
 Take a hippopotamus to lunch today.


On Mon, Jun 6, 2022 at 2:43 PM Hippo Man <hippoman at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm using dovecot 2.3.18 with a fairly recent version of postfix
> on my Debian-11 box.
>
> I have a question, and I'm not sure whether it pertains to
> dovecot, postfix, or both. I'm asking first here, but I'm glad
> to go to a postfix forum if it turns out that my question
> doesn't pertain to dovecot.
>
> On my server, account management in both dovecot and
> postfix is managed by the same mysql database, and postfix
> is configured to use dovecot's authentication mechanism.
>
> I have an email address which I do not want to be seen as
> one which can be accessed for imap nor pop3. However, I
> want to receive email to that address, and I, myself, still do
> want to be able to use imap or pop3 in order to access
> email that is sent to that address.
>
> I have something I want to try in order to accomplish this, but
> before I do, I want to make sure that no one can see any issues
> or "gotchas" with the following approach, or perhaps that there
> is an easier, more straightforward way to accomplish what I want
> to do:
>
> Assume the email address in question is "myemail at domain.com",
> and assume that I own and manage the "domain.com" domain.
>
> (1) Create another email address called "other at domain.com",
> and set it up with the same configuration as is currently set up
> for "myemail at domain.com"
>
> (2) In all my email clients, set the outgoing mail address and
> reply-to address for "other at domain.com" to be "myemail at domain.com".
> This way, all outgoing email from "other at domain.com" will look
> like it is being sent from "myemail at domain.com".
>
> (3) Change "myemail.com" (in the database used by dovecot
> and postfix) from being a bona-fide email address into
> becoming simply a forwarding email alias for "other at domain.com".
>
> (4) In all my email clients, change the inbox that I previously used
> for "myemail at domain.com" to now be associated with
> "other at domain.com".
>
> So ... if anyone sends email to "myemail at domain.com", it will
> automatically go to the "other at domain.com" inbox. And when I reply
> to those emails, the sender and reply-to addresses will still be
> "myemail at domain.com".
>
> And now, dovecot will no longer see "myemail at domain.com" as a
> mailbox from which email can be retrieved. And I will still be able to
> retrieve that email via imap or pop3 from the "other at domain.com"
> account.
>
> Do you folks think this will work? And again, is there perhaps a
> simpler way to accomplish this?
>
> Thank you in advance for any thoughts and suggestions.
>
> --
>  hippoman at gmail.com
>  Take a hippopotamus to lunch today.
>
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