My web hosting package comes with cPanel email, which comes with Calendar/Tasks (CalDAV) and Contact list (CardDAV) in one convenient package.
Default setup often causes a few user experience problem
Special storage folders not working (hint: path incorrect)
Sent email not saved in ‘Sent’ folder
Turns out that every ISP has their own IMAP folder structure. My ISP structured everything, from system special folders (Sent, Drafts, Trash, Spam) to user-defined folder, into subfolders under Inbox.
So the settings in Windows Live Mail should be:
I chose to assign a user-defined folder Archive in place of system folder Trash so I can reroute delete operation to archiving
DO NOT FORGET to set the root folder Inbox! Subfolders are internally accessed as Inbox.Sent, Inbox.Drafts, etc. Using DOT (.) as seperator! Do not use slash like Gmail. It doesn’t work!
If you specify the “Root folder path” and have the special folders relative to that, the Windows Live Mail client will show a flat layout (Just like the webmail client):
Alternatively, I tried entering the special folders’s full path individually one by one
but I’m pleased to see that doing so VISUALLY placed ALL folders (system or use-created) into a nice tree structure that follows its native structure!
Having a root folder “Inbox” implied a prefix “Inbox.” (with the dot at the end) to all special folders path. Again, slash do not work as it’s not Gmail. The separator is dot in cPanel.
Seems like the whether ‘Root folder path‘ is specified determines if the folders are flattened or have the native tree structure in Windows Live Mail’s display.
Special folders settings can be invalid, which the Windows Live Mail Client will quietly ignore them and operate in local storage folders instead.
How did I discovered it? I saw the tool-tip INBOX.sent when I hover over the ‘Sent’ folder in Horder WebMail.
Many years ago, Gmail changed their folder structure so some of the IMAP settings tutorials are not correct anymore. Since Windows Live Mail (WLM) auto-configures Gmail, the special folders are automatically determined and they cannot be specified. Please leave Root folder path alone like this:
Gmail IMAP folder settings are automatically configured when established automatically in Windows Live Mail Do NOT change the settings. If you do manual configuration, make sure you mirror these settings.
Basically Gmail decided with the exception of Inbox, which stays at root, all “System labels” goes under the subfolder [Gmail]. However user-created labels (simply called “Labels“) stay at root folder level. For example, I have a user folder called Save enabled for IMAP, the folder tree with the Gmail account looks like this:
Example of Gmail IMAP folder structure. Inbox and user-created labels stays on top. ALL system labels go under the subfolder [Gmail]
Because you cannot specify where the Trash folder is, delete button really mean delete (to a recycle bin that’s purged in 30 days), not archive to a folder.
Also because Gmail is smart enough to save a copy in your [Gmail]/Sent Mail folder if you use their SMTP (out-going mail) server, the “Save copy of sent message in ‘Sent Items’ folder” setting on Windows Live Mail is irrelevant: you cannot choose not to save it.
And yes, I tried it checking this (for other non-Gmail accounts), and confirmed that Gmail is smart enough to save one copy (not one from the SMTP and one executed by the client).
So here’s a summary:
Gmail automatically configures and dictates IMAP’s special folders. You have no choice
No special folder choice means you cannot reroute ‘delete’ to mean archive/move
If you use Gmail’s SMTP server (likely), it will save a copy of outgoing mail to [Gmail]/Sent Mail folder. You cannot turn this off.
“Save copy of sent message in the ‘Sent Items’ folder‘ is irrelevant if you use Gmail’s SMTP server. It will correctly save only one copy of the sent mail.
One thing that 2020 and 2021 taught us is that we’ve foolishly surrendered our data to private companies for harvesting and subjected ourselves to being manipulated (behavior conditioned) by bots (artificial intelligence studying our habits), in exchange for a little convenience having big companies hosting our data (on the cloud) for free.
The conventional wisdom is that something is free without the pains (either hard to use or has advertisement), you are the product to be monetized.
Data is today’s new currency for world domination.
Their house, their rules.
Not only the big data companies know us better than we do, they also have the power to censor us at their own whims.
They are the ones who wrote the law, interpret the law, and enforce the laws. The unholy trinity has fused the 3 traditionally separated powers in democracies and became THE almighty.
Like it or not, private companies are dictatorships in all relationships: vendor, customers, employees.
Of course they bear the consequence of their actions, depending on how much de facto leverage they actually have, which is increases with their size. They are already effectively controlling the government with their extensive lobbying budgets.
We are all at the mercy of the big tech if we become dependent on their products. THEY OWN US if we don’t own our data.
Not to mention that we are also rely on their IT security department that are constantly under attack since a centralized target provides a high return on investment in hacking attempts. Bad people only need to hack a big corporation once to steal 100 million+ user data. If the 100 million+ users’ data are scattered on many different servers with different software, configurations and locations, each attack will be much less worthwhile.
In some sense, it’s much safer for less attractive targets (nobodies) to risk security flaws in their own setups because nobody cared to go after them. More importantly, I don’t want to feed a monster with my data that they are going to bite me or other people I support whenever they wanted to.
Here are the basic minimum web services that we’ve become reliant on in our daily lives.
Email
Calendar & Tasks
Contact List (e.g. Phonebook)
In Google ecosystem:
Gmail
Google Calendar & Google Tasks
Google Contacts
Apple (iCloud) uses the standard protocols
Email: IMAP/SMTP
Calendar & Tasks: CalDav
Contact List: CardDav
If you are paranoid about full control over your data that nobody (including tech support) can see, you should host your own server (based on the protocols above). But if you are concerned about up-time, these services come pretty standard with most cheap (shared) web hosting plans at around $2/mo.
If your provider uses cPanel (e.g. namecheap), each email account comes with Calendar/Task (CalDav) and Contact List (CardDav) sync services. They typically come with a webmail client like horde/roundcube.
Namecheap has their own dedicated email service, but I think their shared hosting plan is a much better deal unless you really need the ActiveSync (Outlook, but you can do it for free with CalDAVsynchronizer) and the Open-Xchange productivity suite (which looked better than horde webmail client). You can also host websites and WordPress (blogs) with the hosting plan and have a FTP server for your files.
cPanel is the most popular admin panel for shared hosting, but there are companies like Dreamhost that doesn’t use cPanel and do not offer calendar/task and contact sync services natively so watch out.
In Android, I recommend the following setup after trial and error
CalDAV/CardDAV sync adapters (needed for Calendar & Contacts above): DavX5
These are ALL open-source free software (privacy respecting) available from F-droid.org, which do not require login/purchases (please donate). You might see the paid version on Play Store, but it’s just taxing the less adventurous people.
Many fancy email apps that autoconfigures the server for you often harvest your data or do analytics. Be very careful of that. As far as I know FairEmail is the only one that has advanced features comparable to Gmail and doesn’t harvest your data nor charge you.
Remember to turn on Push-IMAP in your email client so it’ll be as responsive as Gmail. In Fairmail, it’s under Settings -> Receive -> When -> Automatically Optimize ON + Always.
I’ve tried a few other Calendar and Tasks app on Google store (such as BusinessCalendar and aCal), and so far the stock Calendar app and Simple Calendar Pro’s built in refresh works correctly with DavX5 sync adapters. The refresh button for the rest did nothing so I had to open DavX5 to manually initiate a refresh if I don’t want to wait 15 minutes (fastest update rate allowed by DavX5).
As for Tasks.org app, it doesn’t use the sync adapter. Instead we directly enter the CalDAV login info with the server link provided by your hosting provider
Namecheap provides a free Dynamic DNS client for Windows but unfortunately the client cannot be run as a service. To manage remote computers, the dynamic DNS update should at least run before any user is logged or we’ll run into a chick-and-egg problem: you want to log in remotely but the IP of the remote computer is not known (mapped/updated) until you logged in.
I initially tried to use sc.exe to create a Windows service but the program lacks a ServiceMain() implementation so the service won’t start:
Turns out there is a way to wrap a Windows executable not designed to be used as a service (without ServiceMain() implementation) and make it run as a service. Use a tool called NSSM – the Non-Sucking Service Manager!
Note that the default setting for “Log on as” is “Local System Account”, which will not work with this free Namecheap Dynamic DNS client. You must set it to “Log on as” an Administrator account.
To start the newly created service without rebooting, do nssm start <servicename>, where <servicename> is replaced by the name you choose for the service.
Note that the ‘Path to executable’ for the newly created service is nssm.exe itself, not directly the DNS update client program (like what it’d be if you create the service through sc.exe instead of nssm.exe). The reason is that nssm.exe is the wrapper that calls the underlying executable.
If you have a domain registered under Namecheap, you dynamically update the IP address to a remote computer at no extra costs. If you use no-ip.com, you have to pay $29.95/yr to use your own domain name.
However, the process is not entirely trivial because Namecheap only offers the dynamic update through its BasicDNS nameserver, which has a few implications
BasicDNS nameserver means you configure the DNS records directly Advanced DNS tab when you manage your domain name. DNS records in the Zone Editor in cPanel is not active with BasicDNS nameserver.
Subdomains in cPanel enters DNS record in the Zone Editor, so once you use the BasicDNS nameserver, you must add the A record for the subdomain AFTER creating it in cPanel (cPanel only manages the file the subdomain physically points to, you are on your own with DNS setup)
If you use the domain name with Namecheap hosting services, you can no longer have everything configured for you (managed in cPanel’s Zone Editor) by choosing Namecheap Web Hosting nameserver. You have to transfer the DNS record in Zone Editor (cPanel) manually to Advanced DNS tab (Namecheap). At minimum, get the IP address of the HTTP server and enter it as the ‘A Record’ for the main/sub-domain.
Setting up subdomain name or root domain name to be used with Dynamic DNS update service is simply entering ‘A Record’ with an any IP address as seed ‘Value’ (subdomains entered as ‘Host’). The value (IP address) will be overwritten by the update service/client.
Namecheap also offer an eye candy called ‘A + Dynamic DNS Record’ which is exactly the same thing but makes it easier for you to remind yourself that the ‘A Record’ is specifically used for dynamic DNS update.
It’s a daunting task if you haven’t done the work to understand how DNS record works since there are lots of new terms to learn.
However, it’s not that hard after you understand what ‘A Record’ does: map the domain name (or its subdomains) to an IP address. All Namecheap did is providing a web server (using REST API that accepts user inputs with certain syntax in the URL) that updates your ‘A Record’ (domain to IP address map).
