Changing email clients--smart move, or a disaster?

[SpiceGrrl]

Hi. Thanks for reading this. I am a very intensive user of emal. I have hundreds of folders and thousands of saved emails in them, which are very important to my business. My business email account is an IMAP account on my own dedicated server with my own domain. I do not use my me.com email account except as my MM login.

I have been having problems with Mail. In particular, SSL problems, but there are a few other things I am not wild about. The tech support guy at my web hosting company (Liquod Web) suggested that I change email clients, to Thunderbird. He says he has gotten a number of calls about the same problems I am experiencing with Mail (failing to recognize a new SSL certificate for example, or no way to clear old certificates). But has received no calls from people using Thunderbird.

If I change email clients, will that screw me up with Mobile Me (and later, iCould)? If it is Ok fr me to change clients, would Thunderbird be the best choice or is Outlook equally OK?




I have an iMac, iPad and just got iPhone 4S. Upgraded to Lion on the iMac. iPhone already has iOS5. iPad still on iOS4.

 

[SpiceGrrl]

Replying to my own thread. Went to Mac store yesterday and learned that changing email clients will not cause message-syncing problems with either Mobile Me or iCloud, because my business account is IMAP, so it syncs itself no matter what my client is. However, the Address Book would not sync. I'd have to establish new contacts in the new email client. I could import my Address Book contacts into the new client, yeah, but I'd have to update them in two places from then on. (Does anyone have any comments on this? Is the Mac guy right?)

Also, depending on which apps one uses, there may be problems with the new client relating to those apps. For example, I use Bento, a database program made for Mac by the Filemaker people. Most of my databases are collections of people and Bento works beautifully with the Address Book. Bento would not work with the contacts of the other email client, so basically I would be creating a new layer of work for myself, constantly updating two versions of Address Book.

Does anyone have experience with changing email clients away from Mail? What problems have you encountered? Any comments? Hoping you guys will either confirm or deny what the Mac Guy said in the store.

Many thanks,

Spicegrrl

 

[d21mike]

I use the Mail Client on the Mac and I for me it is great. I used Outtlook on Windows before coming to the Mac. I found the Mac IMAP Client better then Outlook. My business email is served by the GoDaddy Mail Service (not on a decated server) and most of the time it works well but not always. My guess is that your problem is with the Mail Server and not the Mail App on your Mac. Regarding your address book. Doing what you are suggesting would be a real hassle. If you are forced to change then maybe look for some type of syncing program.

Good luck.

 

[SpiceGrrl]

Thank you. Your response suggests Mac Guy is correct that the problem is with the server. I appreciate the confirmation.

----------

Oh, yes, forgot to mention Mac Guy said it might be the server. Apparently all servers are not created equal. There are newer ones and older ones, better ones and lesser ones. Plus there is also the software on the server which can also be out of date. Older servers have more difficulty dealing with people logging in from different locations and also with SSL. So I am going to call my web host and say, how old is my server and can you put me on a NEW one please?

Thanks for the help.

 

[0970373]

Hi. Thanks for reading this. I am a very intensive user of emal. I have hundreds of folders and thousands of saved emails in them, which are very important to my business. My business email account is an IMAP account on my own dedicated server with my own domain. I do not use my me.com email account except as my MM login.

I moved from Mail to Sparrow Mail and it was easy as pie. As long as it's all IMAP (including your folders) you should be fine. I have a custom domain and use Google Apps for email. Sparrow is easily the best mail app if you use Gmail/Google Apps. Handles tags very well.

 

[d21mike]

Thank you. Your response suggests Mac Guy is correct that the problem is with the server. I appreciate the confirmation.

----------

Oh, yes, forgot to mention Mac Guy said it might be the server. Apparently all servers are not created equal. There are newer ones and older ones, better ones and lesser ones. Plus there is also the software on the server which can also be out of date. Older servers have more difficulty dealing with people logging in from different locations and also with SSL. So I am going to call my web host and say, how old is my server and can you put me on a NEW one please?

Thanks for the help.

I was interested in your dedicated setup since I do not use a dedicated mail server for my company. On their web site they mention "Zimbra e-mail hosting with 24 hour Heroic Support". Is that what is is installed on your dedicated server? If so, maybe it is simply out of date and they need to apply a new release. On a side note, dedicated servers like your setup can be pretty expensive as compared to shared hosting and shared mail services. I use shared hosting (deluxe) an I have an unlimited email account (for 10 people) on GoDaddy and it is pretty cheap. But I do have downtime on occasion (not often) and when I call they tell me I would be better off with one of their more expensive setup's like your setup but in my case have a few hours of downtime every few months is not that big a deal. Regarding my email it is pretty solid but sometime it is a little slow (but not often).

 

[SpiceGrrl]

Thank you Mike. I use a dedicated web hosting because my business involves a large and growing online community which I host on my own independent website. I currently have 12,000 members and anticipate possibly 20,000 by this time next year. With that many people using my site, I cannot afford slowness or downtime. Dedicated hosting means mine is the ONLY site on that particular physical server, which allows me the confidence that if my site ever gets slow, it won't be because other people's sites are crammed in there next to mine on the same server. That is how I understand it, anyway.