Connecting Windows Server Essentials to a POP3 Account

Connecting Windows Server Essentials to a POP3 Account

    An ideal server for small businesses, Windows Server 2012 Essentials (the latest version of Windows Small Business Server Essentials) provides a powerful and flexible solution that helps protect your business data while allowing you to access the information you need from virtually anywhere by using almost any device. Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides easier setup, installation, and migration experiences, a simplified management experience, and better network-wide security features. It incorporates the latest Microsoft technologies for management, networking, data storage and backup, security, and document and printer sharing. Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides integration capabilities for cloud-based applications and services, allowing you the flexibility to choose the best environment for your line-of-business and collaboration solutions. Windows Server 2012 Essentials allows you to retain core network and security features in your local environments, and also includes technologies to enable robust integration with cloud-based services. This allows end-users to work in ways that are familiar to them, while at the same time making it easier to take advantage of the growing set of offerings available in the cloud through platforms such as Microsoft Office 365 and Windows Azure.

    Downloading mail from a POP account into Windows Server Essentials in general is not a supported configuration by Microsoft. Microsoft does provide an Windows Server Essentials Connector for POP3 Mailboxes for Windows Server Essentials but it is limited in features and logging and difficult to configure. The full Exchange Server version does not come with any pop3 collector.

    There are many tools to choose from, and many features are common to all POP3 collectors such as the ability to POP mail from multiple servers and from multiple mailboxes. Hexamail offers the easiest to setup and clearest to configure POP3 connector. It is a powerful piece of software which allows configurable routing of email to any different recipient address and full support for all POP and IMAP servers. SSL is supported along with 1 minute scheduling Hexamail POP3 connector can deliver mail to any SMTP address, including mail-enabled Public Folders.

POP3 Collection

    Hosted POP3/IMAP Account Windows Server Essentials Mailboxes
    Hosted POP3/IMAP Account Windows Server Essentials Mailboxes

    There are multiple modes of operation:

    • One-to-one, which collects mail from a single POP3 mailbox and sends it to a specific SMTP address
    • Many-to-one, which collects mail from multiple POP3 mailboxes and sends it to single SMTP address
    • One-to-many, or 'catch-all' POP3 mailbox and sends it to multiple SMTP addresses
    Note with many connectors collection can fails when messages are BCC'd to users. However with Hexamail you can configure the pickup of addresses from hidden header fields, Delivered-To fields, and even Received: for headers. It can also allow for a default SMTP address to send unresolved email to.

    Hexamail POP3 collector also supports limited "archiving" of email to MIME or text files in a specified folder.

    Hexamail provide a fully automatic POP3 routing module called POP3 Reader. This can be used standalone in the Hexamail POP3 Downloader product or as part of the Hexamail Guard, Hexamail Server or Hexamail Nexus products.