The Falcon's Nest

Many free webmail services such as Yahoo! and Hotmail do not allow their users to download their email messages via a mail client, such as that included in Opera. For instance, Yahoo! allows POP3 access to premium (paid) account holders at yahoo.com, but not for the free account.

There are several third-party tools such as YPops! and Hotmail Popper that simulate a web page access for some of these webmail services, and then spool the messages to your email client. Most of these are typically tailored only towards a specific service, though (e.g. YPops! only works for Yahoo!); and I prefer to use a single application that would work with several such services.

For that reason, I like to use MrPostman. It is a Java-based application that provides access to a number of webmail services, including Yahoo!, Hotmail, GMail, juno etc (see the link for a complete list). Below, I will describe the installation and configuration steps to make MrPostman work with Opera's mail client. While the procedure below is meant for Windows, it is not too different in Linux.

Configuring MrPostman

1. You need to have the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on your machine, since MrPostman is implemented in Java. You can get the latest JRE from Sun. Make sure to uninstall all previous Java installations from your machine and only then install the latest one.
   
   
2. Download the latest install-mrpostman-yyyymmdd.jar file (yyyymmdd indicates the release date in year-month-day format) from MrPostman's download page. Double-click on the downloaded file to install it. Make sure to install the Windows NT service as well (if applicable).
   
   
3. Launch MrPostman from Start > All Programs > MrPostman > MrPostman. It should look like the image below. Make sure that various port numbers listed are available and open on your machine; otherwise change them to ports that are.
   
   
   
4. Click on the Modules pane and drag the window larger so that the entire content is visible. Make sure things appear to be correct for the generic module..
   
   
   
5. Set the following to configure MrPostman for Hotmail.
   
   
   
6. Set the following to configure MrPostman for Yahoo!.
   
   
   
7. If you connect to the internet using a proxy, click open the Proxy pane and enter the appropriate proxy server information.
   
   
8. Close MrPostman.
   
   
9. If you installed MrPostman with the Windows service option, install the service through Start > All Programs > MrPostman > Install service. It will ask you to verify certain settings. If you have followed the steps so far correctly, you have already done that and do not have to do so again. Simply hit 'Enter' in the resulting window.
   
   On the other hand, if you cannot run MrPostman as a service; start it again as an application like in step 3. You will need to keep it running as an application at all times. A good idea would be to add MrPostman to your computer's Startup menu.
   

We are now done with setting up MrPostman. The next step is to configure Opera to access your Yahoo! or Hotmail email messages.

Configuring Opera

1. If you have not created an account in Opera's mail client for the webmail service, do so as described in Opera's mail tutorial. If you already have an account created, skip to step 2 below.
   
   
2. Click on Tools > Mail and chat accounts. Select the appropriate account and click on Edit. In the resulting dialog box, click on the Servers pane.
   
   
3. For Hotmail account, set the Incoming section as displayed in the image below.Set the server address to 127.0.0.1. The port number must be set to the same port number you had set in MrPostman (see step 3 of the MrPostman setup section above) -- the preset value is 11110. Enter your full Hotmail address as the username (i.e. including the @hotmail.com part), and the correct password. Set the Authentication to Auto.
   
   I use the SMTP server provided by my ISP, I recommend that you do the same to avoid problems. Use the appropriate settings as recommended by your ISP.
   
   
4. For Yahoo! account, set the Incoming section as displayed in the image below.Set the server address to 127.0.0.1. The port number must be set to the same port number you had set in MrPostman (see step 3 of the MrPostman setup section above) -- the preset value is 11110. Enter your full Yahoo! address as the username (i.e. including the @yahoo.com part), and the correct password. Set the Authentication to Auto.
   
   I use the SMTP server provided by my ISP, I recommend that you do the same to avoid problems. Use the appropriate settings as recommended by your ISP.
   
   
5. Click on the Incoming pane of the dialog and set the options for downloading messages. my settings are shown below, I'd recommend that you use these as well.
   
   
   
6. Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog box.
   

There -- that's it. You are now all set to download your Yahoo! or Hotmail email messages straight into Opera's fabulous email client. Open the Mail panel and click on the Check/Send button, or simply restart Opera to see your messages get downloaded.

NOTE: Currently there is a problem with Yahoo! messages being downloaded with empty bodies. Using a modified yahoo.script in place of the one in your MrPostman installation directory will solve that problem. (20-October-2006) yahoo.script

There have been a few threads in the past commenting on how, if you are subscribed to multiple feeds, you see the correct individual feed counts; but the Newfeeds label in your Mail panel shows a small random number (i.e. not the sum total of individual feed counts).

Workarounds like select the first feed, then shift+up arrow etc have also been mentioned. However, these work iffy at best. In Opera v8.0 and above, we can put this issue to rest at last using the following procedure:

• Go to Feeds > Read feeds
  
• In the mail toolbar (the one with Read, Delete, Label etc buttons), enable View > Show > Show filtered
  

This will set the Newsfeeds unread count to the sum of the individual unread newsfeeds.

The underlying bug is that some of the feeds are marked as filtered by the individual feeds, while some are not. The number next to Newsfeeds in the Mail panel is only those that are visible in the all newsfeeds filter, which you can only access via Feeds > Read feeds.