in message
I am moving overseas for a while and want to block all emails for the
duration. I don't want to use an auto response generator as it may
send out
to spammers...rather i want my email to just become inactive for a
period,
blocking everything. Can Outlook do this or should I contact my ISP?
If your account does not auto-expire after a period of non-use, just
abandon it. Your mailbox will fill up and it can accept no more mails
and then issue errors that get returned to the senders.
Or, if you don't care about whatever e-mails you get during that period,
define a server-side rule that automatically deletes all mails upon
delivery. This would do the "blocking" that you mention. Senders would
never get any notice that their e-mails were undeliverable (i.e.,
deleted upon delivery). This needs to be a server-side rule (one you
define using the webmail interface to your mailbox). You could leave
your computer on all the time with Windows running all the time with
Outlook running all the time to have it yank the e-mails from your
account (and do whatever you want with them in your local message store)
but even you know that this would be a flaky setup that will eventually
die, and not too long after you set it up. Use a server-side rule.
Or, if the option is available, you can disable your account (my ISP
lets me do this). The account stays defined so you don't lose the
username for it but all mails to it will get rejected as though that
username was not defined.
