This is my first post to this community, Euler German recommends I raise my questions here.

PMAIL with 2 users, using pmail since the late 1990s. The PMAIL directory and all its contents on the home PC have been copied to that PC one drive directory. Pmail successfully runs from this directory. The second PC, a laptop, sees the files in the cloud. I can start PMAIL on laptop from winpm-32.exe but it doesn't recognise any of the two users.{1}. Either of the 2 users will need to access mail when away from home on the laptop, or at home on the PC.

Can this be done using onedrive? Am I expecting too much?

{1} The user you are attempting to become (XXX) does not exist on the system.

Thanks, Tony.

I don't believe what you are attempting will work. Pegasus Mail needs to be able to modify and write files as it runs which works fine on the home PC because the Pmail files are in a local directory but when PMail is run from OneDrive the modify and write capability does not exist.

An option is to put Pegasus Mail on a USB device like a flash drive and then use it on whichever PC the user is at but that means only one user/PC can use it at a time.

Another option is to have two instances of Pegasus Mail, one for each user, each on its own flash drive.

Don't know anything about onedrive.
Question Do the files show up as being on the same drive letter on both machines.
Generally, Pegasus is run from C:\PMAIL\Programs for the Program
and the Mail directories are in C:\PMAIL\MAIL or C:\PMAIL\MAIL\directories for uses.

On setup, it is setup to mode, so could be a number of things to make sure paths and drive letters are correctly setup.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is whether you are connecting to your providers via IMAP or are using POP3 to download mail locally. I assume POP3 since you would not have this issue if using IMAP so here is another thought.

When using the laptop, if your needs are limited to checking for mail and only responding to anything urgent, you could put an installation of Pegasus Mail on the laptop and configure it to make IMAP connections to your providers. This would allow you to check for new messages while leaving the messages on the server for download by the home PC. Two things would need to be considered:

1. The home PC must be configured to leave mail on the server.
2. If copies-to-self are important than any message sent from the laptop would need to include a BCC to self in order to have a copy on the home PC.

Thanks to all that have replied. I would much prefer to get PMAIL working using onedrive, more information below.

According to https://butleru.force.com/askbutler/s/article/The-meaning-of-OneDrive-icons?r=176&ui-knowledge-components-aura-actions.KnowledgeArticleVersionCreateDraftFromOnlineAction.createDraftFromOnlineArticle=1

tells me, that

Files that you mark as "Always keep on this device" have the green circle with the white check mark. These always available files download to your device and take up space, but they’re always there for you even when you’re offline.

ALL the files / directories in the PMAIL directory are so marked and are thus locally available.

The PMAIL directory on the laptop is located in
C:\Users\atter\OneDrive (atter is the windows user name).

The PMAIL directory on the PC is located in
C:\Users\anthony\OneDrive (anthony is the windows user name). The directory was placed there by copying the PMAIL directory from C:\ And PMAIL is started from the C:\Users\anthony\OneDrive\win

The current PC is is performing all the functions I have used over the past 20 years or so (on several PCs now scrapped) I am satisfied, as best I can be, that it is working correctly from its new location.

Looking at the problem I encounter on the laptop. I start PMAIL from the directory C:\Users\atter\OneDrive\PMAIL\Programs\winpm-32.exe

and get the "User Name please" panel. When I enter either of the valid users names I get the message "The user you are attempting to 'become' (aml) does not exist on this system".

Question: having entered the user name (aml, it is a real user) where does PMAIL look to determine if the user name exists?

This option tells Pegasus Mail that it should ignore the configured drive letter when locating user mailboxes and mail files, and should instead use the drive letter of the drive from which WINPM-32.EXE was run. If Pegasus Mail and your mailbox directories are located on the same physical drive, you should always use this option. -ROAM greatly simplifies running the program on Peer-to-Peer and non-NetWare networks, because it allows the same copy of the program tobe run no matter what drive letter mappings exist on the particular workstation where it runs. This switch also allows you to install a complete, working copy of Pegasus Mail, complete with mailboxes, onto a memory stick, and to use that memory stick in any computer where it is subsequently plugged. You must not use this switch if Pegasus Mail and your mailbox directories cannot be accessed using the same drive letter.

IOW: It's all about the drive letter only. As soon as different paths come into play all bets are off. And if you didn't already install your C:\ version using the ROAM option it might not be possible to achieve this the simple way described above at all. And please just stick to the machine with the issue and provide full path names, I'm getting confused about which paths on which machine you're talking about (if the above doesn't help).

As Michael said, it is looking for the Pegasus Mail files located in "C:\Users\anthony\OneDrive" because that is the path it knows due to the copy from the PC.

For many years now, before OneDrive, folks have attempt to use a synced resource to do what you are trying to do. I don't know of anyone who has succeeded. The way Pegasus Mail works is not conducive to syncing. Someday maybe OneDrive will work like a network drive but the way it works now, your local OneDrive folders are syncing to cloud. Picture the battle going on in that process if both the laptop and the PC are running Pegasus Mail. Well, maybe you can only picture it if you understand how much file activity (create, read, write, and modify) goes on during the normal function of Pegasus Mail.

I have decided to abandon PMAIL as an active mail app. A copy will put on the laptop as per instructions on moving PMAIL to a new machine. This will make all the many emails saved over the years available on both the lap top and the PC.

Other web based mail applications are being examined.

Thanks.

I have decided to abandon PMAIL as an active mail app. A copy will put on the laptop as per instructions on moving PMAIL to a new machine. This will make all the many emails saved over the years available on both the lap top and the PC.

Other web based mail applications are being examined.

Thanks.