Email outage - a suggestion

[Martha]

Although my email is normally very reliable, I've just had about 36 hours downtime and it's still not back to normal!

Mine is an IMAP server, normally accessible by webmail, but the whole thing was down and I couldn't access webmail either.

Very frustrating, as not all sites record enquiries, and I have no way of knowing whether some may never arrive.

So as soon as I noticed the outage - luckily this was quite quickly), I set the chalet up with its own gmail address, and everything forwards a duplicate to this gmail. This can be set in most control panels at your host.

It's been a massive help as otherwise I could have missed out on several enquries and who knows what else!

I put a note under the signature

*******Please note we are currently experiencing email difficulties, hence the gmail address! Normal service on bonjour@chaletlaforet.com will be up as soon as possible. Meanwhile, please use this one. *******

to try and avoid confusion with the different addresses.

So I thought I might pass this on - maybe you do this anyway or it might not suit you, but it's a free handy backup against situations like this, and useful in case of accidental deletions as well. I've had it for ages for my own work account, and it's been a lifesaver a few times.