Since Eudora email is read from and stored on the hard disk of a desktop computer, reading and managing your email on more than one computer requires a little planning. Unless you have a clear strategy, trying to read Eudora email on two or more computers can get a little tricky. This page discusses the various options, and provides specific recommendations of how to (and not to) set up multiple computers for use with Eudora.

Your Eudora mail is temporarily stored on a "POP" server computer and it is downloaded to your desktop computer where you can read, save, or delete it. But what happens after the mail is downloaded from the server to your computer? In Eudora, there are three possible options:

1. The mail is immediately deleted from the server (Leland, for most Stanford users)
2. The mail remains on the server for a specified number of days, after which time it is deleted from the server
3. The mail remains indefinitely on the server.

These options are configured within Eudora itself through the "Leave Mail on Server" option under the "Checking Mail" setting. Eudora's initial default setting is that messages from the server are deleted once they are downloaded to your primary computer. That is, the "Leave mail on server" option is left unchecked (off). There are specific instructions on how to set this option on your Macintosh or Windows-based PC.

Basically, the Address Book and Filters are stored in a few small files on your computer. All you have to do is copy those files from your primary computer to your second computer (and whenever you update your primary computer with a new Nickname or Filter, you must either make the same update on the second computer, or re-copy the appropriate file onto the second computer). You may copy the files either by transferring them between computers on a floppy diskette, or by e-mailing them to yourself and checking mail at your secondary computer (then moving the files from the Attachments folder back to the main Eudora folder).

On a Mac, all of the relevant files are stored in the Eudora directory (usually System Folder / Eudora Folder). For the Address Book, you must copy the Eudora Nicknames file. For the Filters, you must copy the Eudora Filters file. For the Mailboxes, you must either copy the entire Mailbox folder (which contains all of the e-mail messages in all of the mailboxes), or you should just create those mailboxes on your secondary machine (which means that you will have those mailboxes, but not duplicates of all the messages).

On a PC, all of the relevant files are stored in the Eudora directory (usually C:\Program Files\Eudora\). For the Address Book, you must copy the nndbase.txt, nndbase.toc, and rcpdbase.txt files (and in the unlikely case that you use separate Address Books, you should copy the nickname folders as well). For the Filters, you must copy the filters.pce file. For the Mailboxes, you must either copy all of the mailboxname.mbx files (which contain all of the e-mail messages in that mailbox), or you should just create those mailboxes on your secondary machine (which means that you will have those mailboxes, but not duplicates of all the messages).

To do this, on your secondary computer instruct Eudora to leave the mail on the server without a number of days ("days" field is left blank). Any new messages you read on the secondary computer will stay on the server until you retrieve your messages from your primary computer.
Now, on your primary computer, you have two options:

1. You can choose not to leave your mail on the server at all -- that is, the "Leave mail on server" option is unchecked. This means that as soon as you download mail onto your primary computer, it is deleted from the server and can no longer be accessed from another computer. This option is useful if you are only interested in reading new mail from your secondary computer; you don't care about having access to mail you've already seen (which is stored on your primary computer). This strategy is particularly useful if you get a lot of mail and don't want to have to wait for older mail to be copied to your secondary computer.
2. Set your mail to stay on the server for a limited number of days. On your primary computer, check the "Leave on server" and include a number of days in the Days field. In this way, since the mail stays on the server for a given number of days, you can access a number of previously-read messages on your secondary computer.
   

How many days should you specify to leave mail on the server? It is recommended that you specify between 1 and 10 days. Set 1-2 days if you want to access previously-read mail from today or yesterday, and up to 10 if you want to be sure to access older "recent" mail on your secondary computer.

There is a drawback, however, to leaving your mail on the server for longer periods (10 days or more). If you read your mail from your secondary computer infrequently, when you finally do retrieve your mail from the second machine, you may have to wait while ten days' worth of email is downloaded to your secondary computer until you get to the new mail.

The following table summarizes these options:

Here, the optimal approach is to set one computer to "Leave Mail on Server" (without a number of days set - this forces the computer to leave mail on the server for an indefinite period of time), and the other computer as Leave mail on server for N days, where "N" is a longer period of time, for example, 10-20 days.

The most important part of this strategy is that you should make sure you check your mail from both computers regularly, within the 10-20 day window. The longer time period ensures that the mail will stay on the server long enough, in the event that you don't read your mail on the second "primary" machine as frequently.

If you know you will be going out of town, and won't have access to your mail for longer periods of time, make sure you download all your current mail to your second "primary" computer (the one that has "Leave Mail on Server" indefinitely) last. (If you check your mail from your first "primary" computer before downloading to your second computer, then after "N" days the mail will be deleted from the server.)