There's more than way to access mail remotely, and others may have additional suggestions.  You can use a webmail application such as Squirrel Mail, installed on the Mercury server machine and then access mail through a web GUI.  Alternatively, you could set up an encrypted VPN, such as OpenVPN.  The latter allows users to appear as part of the LAN where Mercury resides.  I routinely use both of these options.  You can, of course, also set up Mercury to provide POP3 or IMAP4 service to your users directly.  I personally prefer going the encrypted VPN route, particularly for use from hotel and other public access points.

So far as keeping a copy of all mail, the easiest way to do this, centrally, is to set up the IMAP server in Mercury and have users access their mail via IMAP rather than POP.  That way all mail can reside on the server and you can just back up the server machine (or just the Mercury directory tree) and you don't need to worry about laptop failure (or theft .... not keeping mail on the laptop is a plus in this respect .... unless you want to synchronize the laptops with the server for off-line use).

Gordon

hi all  i am a newbe to mercury 32 i have a few questions

this is my senario i want to sertup a mail server on a spare pc so i can send and receive mal for at least five users with more than one e mail account

where the users are on the road and need to access their mail  when the log on to internet  on different service provides

can mercury be setup to do this and also can it save a copy of all mail on pc so that mail can be retreived in the event of laptop failure

thanks

jmcm