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I'm currently trying out Fastmail to see how the push & syncing is. I'm kind of blown away at how well it works. They've managed to hit everything that I wanted:

-push to the native mail apps on iOS and OS X
-live syncing of read status and flagging across iOS and OS X
-custom domain name

And to top it off the web client is simple, clean and fast. Even supports swiping gestures within the browser on iOS. I'm impressed.
 
So this all makes sense, but do the sent mails sync across devices? For example, if I send an email from my phone, is the IMAP smart enough to push that sent item to my other devices in the sent folder as well?
 
second that question. Thanks so much for the helpful post OP, very informative and I've just managed to get my email setup following your very detailed instructions. Do you know if there would be a way to set up multiple aliases under one fast mail account and one domain to be used as different emails through iOS mail? The 'smtp force from' option obviously causes an issue with this as it only lets you send from the default 'personality'. Any ideas or would you need a second Fastmail account?
 
I'm curious, is there any reason to bring iCloud into the equation now that Fastmail has native push with iOS? It seems that Fastmail can accomplish everything iCloud mail can, except that it also can support custom domains and live syncing of read/flagging/delete status.

I have a few custom domains I've used over the years hosted with google apps and Office 365. They worked, but not always properly. I've been using Fastmail with one account full time since the summer, and it's been solid. Quite impressed with it. I've finally gotten around to migrating my domains and everyones accounts to fastmail (they have a built in migration tool to pull email items from accounts like gmail, and it worked flawlessly, moving mail items from accounts that ranged in size from 5GB to 15GB).

Very happy with this move. We now have our custom domains, with live push and sync, flagging on the native Mac mail app and iOS mail app.
 
I'm curious, is there any reason to bring iCloud into the equation now that Fastmail has native push with iOS? It seems that Fastmail can accomplish everything iCloud mail can, except that it also can support custom domains and live syncing of read/flagging/delete status.

I have a few custom domains I've used over the years hosted with google apps and Office 365. They worked, but not always properly. I've been using Fastmail with one account full time since the summer, and it's been solid. Quite impressed with it. I've finally gotten around to migrating my domains and everyones accounts to fastmail (they have a built in migration tool to pull email items from accounts like gmail, and it worked flawlessly, moving mail items from accounts that ranged in size from 5GB to 15GB).

Very happy with this move. We now have our custom domains, with live push and sync, flagging on the native Mac mail app and iOS mail app.


Same here been using Fastmail for about 2 months to host my personal domain works awesome very very satisfied.
 
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I'm curious, is there any reason to bring iCloud into the equation now that Fastmail has native push with iOS? It seems that Fastmail can accomplish everything iCloud mail can, except that it also can support custom domains and live syncing of read/flagging/delete status.

I have a few custom domains I've used over the years hosted with google apps and Office 365. They worked, but not always properly. I've been using Fastmail with one account full time since the summer, and it's been solid. Quite impressed with it. I've finally gotten around to migrating my domains and everyones accounts to fastmail (they have a built in migration tool to pull email items from accounts like gmail, and it worked flawlessly, moving mail items from accounts that ranged in size from 5GB to 15GB).

Very happy with this move. We now have our custom domains, with live push and sync, flagging on the native Mac mail app and iOS mail app.

Oh yeah of course, that didn't really cross my mind. I can just bypass iCloud completely now. Thanks for that!
 
Fastmail email hosting pricing is curently a little higher than both Google's (IMAP-like) and Microsoft's (Exchange) for comparable storage space. I'm set up on both of those and these days have no issues.

Fastmail seems like a good, third option.
 
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Fastmail email hosting pricing is curently a little higher than both Google's (IMAP-like) and Microsoft's (Exchange) for comparable storage space. I'm set up on both of those and these days have no issues.

Fastmail seems like a good, third option.

With Google Apps and Office 365 its roughly $5-6/month per user right? The 15GB option with Fastmail seems to work out to ~$3.5/month, or $5-6/month on the professional option with 25GB mailbox.

For pure Mac and iOS use, Fastmail seems like a better option feature-wise; push IMAP on OS X and iOS, push syncing of read/flag/delete status - something I couldn't get from either Gmail or Office 365.
 
With Google Apps and Office 365 its roughly $5-6/month per user right? The 15GB option with Fastmail seems to work out to ~$3.5/month, or $5-6/month on the professional option with 25GB mailbox.

For pure Mac and iOS use, Fastmail seems like a better option feature-wise; push IMAP on OS X and iOS, push syncing of read/flag/delete status - something I couldn't get from either Gmail or Office 365.

Office 365 is $4/month per user for 50GB storage. To me, it's the best option if you have Outlook users...and perhaps even if you don't.

Google Apps is $5/month (or a $50/year option) per user (30GB). Getting difficult to recommend it these days. Depends on how much Google you want to use. Push only works on iOS when set up as Exchange. They really should do something about that.

Fastmail tacks on a $15/year per domain fee. I like the IMAP push feature and the web interface looks nice.
 
Office 365 is $4/month per user for 50GB storage. To me, it's the best option if you have Outlook users...and perhaps even if you don't.

Google Apps is $5/month (or a $50/year option) per user (30GB). Getting difficult to recommend it these days. Depends on how much Google you want to use. Push only works on iOS when set up as Exchange. They really should do something about that.

Fastmail tacks on a $15/year per domain fee. I like the IMAP push feature and the web interface looks nice.

Ah yes, true about pricing - I was quoting what I see on my invoices (converted to CDN).

I've used Google Apps for many years. Slowly it got so inconsistent and unreliable at times (many of my users complaining). Tried Office 365 that I thought I would love, and worked well, but pushing with EAS on the desktop was so delayed. Honestly so happy I found Fastmail now.
 
I'm currently trying out Fastmail to see how the push & syncing is. I'm kind of blown away at how well it works. They've managed to hit everything that I wanted:

-push to the native mail apps on iOS and OS X
-live syncing of read status and flagging across iOS and OS X
-custom domain name

And to top it off the web client is simple, clean and fast. Even supports swiping gestures within the browser on iOS. I'm impressed.
As per every other email service I have tried, flags are not syncing across between mail app OS X and mail app IOS unless the flagged message is in the inbox.
 
Great write up. I've been looking for just such a solution. Does this work as well for sending and responding to calendar requests?
 
Great write up. I've been looking for just such a solution. Does this work as well for sending and responding to calendar requests?

Not too sure about calendar requests. Since writing this I've gone back to a simpler solution of just using the Office 365 Exchange account with Mail.app - for me Mail.app seems much more reliable with Exchange accounts since El Capitan, and the new Clutter feature of O365 is handy too.
 
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Not too sure about calendar requests. Since writing this I've gone back to a simpler solution of just using the Office 365 Exchange account with Mail.app - for me Mail.app seems much more reliable with Exchange accounts since El Capitan, and the new Clutter feature of O365 is handy too.

That's great to know. Thanks.
 
They do as of 17 July 2015, they detail it in their blog post.

This is why you can't believe everything you read online. I have been using Fast mail for little over year works perfect instant two way push on mac and iOS. Best email system. Has not failed once.
 
They didn't have it at the time of my original post which was june 1st 2015. Don't know why you had to quote my old post. I didn't say anything false at that period.
Oh, no accusation of falsehood at all, just a straight reply to your post to anchor my 2c, and yes you're right of course.

I've been a happy FastMail user for many years, but looking at an own-domain hosting solution for the first time and curious what you and others have found. iCloud is free and has served us well for a while too, so to have my own domain hosted on FastMail for me plus my wife means (I think) a new $8 USD cost per month or $96USD a year - a bit of a luxury.
 
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Oh, no accusation of falsehood at all, just a straight reply to your post to anchor my 2c, and yes you're right of course.

I've been a happy FastMail user for many years, but looking at an own-domain hosting solution for the first time and curious what you and others have found. iCloud is free and has served us well for a while too, so to have my own domain hosted on FastMail for me plus my wife means (I think) a new $8 USD cost per month or $96USD a year - a bit of a luxury.
I understand, the costs add up when you include more family members. I use Zoho for my personal domain. I believe you can have up to 25 accounts (through referrals), 5GB each, on the free tier for one domain. They offer z-push (reversed engineered activesync) but it is flaky and because of that I'm looking for alternatives. Outlook.com now has a paid premium tier that offers 5 account with personal domain but it is US only for now.
Fastmail is good but it is somewhat too expensive for my needs at the moment, but I'm not ruling it out.
 
I understand, the costs add up when you include more family members. I use Zoho for my personal domain. I believe you can have up to 25 accounts (through referrals), 5GB each, on the free tier for one domain. They offer z-push (reversed engineered activesync) but it is flaky and because of that I'm looking for alternatives. Outlook.com now has a paid premium tier that offers 5 account with personal domain but it is US only for now.
Fastmail is good but it is somewhat too expensive for my needs at the moment, but I'm not ruling it out.
Looks like we're in the same boat : )
 
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$20 first year, $20 + $10 for following years for premium plus personal domain.

https://premium.outlook.com/#/Offer

That's the best price for hosted, Exchange compatible email I've seen. However, I haven't seen Outlook.com work properly as Exchange on my Mac and I've have to witness that before moving.

I did start the signup process with one of our domains and got this: "Sorry, but the domain you entered is not eligible for Outlook.com Premium, since it is already in use with Office 365 Business." So I guess I'd have to drop Office 365 first, then move there?
 
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