Coming to the end of year 3 and what to do?

[synagence]

Hi all

Been with MobileMe since it launched basically and i do like it and use most of the features (but i have similar available services for gallery and idisk)...

The main thing i like is the mail & contacts.... its taken a long time to get the address book the way i want it and when i tried importing it into google (in an attempt to use gmail etc) it mangled it badly so i gave up as i didn't wanna spend days redoing it again

So i'm considering hosted exchange .... am i gonna have same issues and am i going to generally lose Mac access (Mail/Address book integration) ...

Main reason for wanting to leave is using custom domain email which is basically non-existent in a meaningful way in MM

Anyone offer their experience in switching away from MM?

 

[bruinsrme]

Have you tried syncing to Outlook?

 

[synagence]

Don't have outlook, nor do i particularly want it.

 

[317342]

I had no problems switching to Gmail. You shouldn't either providing you do it slowly.

Gmail allows you to upload via IMAP, it takes a while but it works. I set up Gmail and MobileMe on the same computer, synced all folders....then put all accounts Offline, copied over all my folders (with e-mail) to the Gmail parent. After I was done copying (350MB+ worth of e-mail...somewhere in the 10k range), I turned only Gmail online...it took about an hour but everything was nice and neatly stored in Gmail.

I set MobileMe to forward everything to Gmail, it hasn't skipped a beat since. Google Sync works really well with iOS, I get Push notifications for all my e-mail messages.

After you're all done, you can go into Gmail (turn on Labs, Advanced IMAP Controls) and tell it which folders you want to show up in IMAP. I turned off All Mail, and a few others that are unnecessary for offline access (ie. ads, forums notifications, etc.). This will not be reflected on your portable devices, only on your desktop client.

Helpful Note: Copy your Sent e-mail folder on MobileMe by doing "Select All" (do not try to drag the folder itself), and drop the messages into the Sent folder on Gmail. Mine copied perfectly.

 

[synagence]

I think my main problem was with contacts and gmail not supporting the same fields as mobileme ... maybe its mobileme being non-standards compliant ... it seemed to lose some data and just ended up with some weird entries

Did you find best way was to sync or export > import ?

 

[317342]

There are some limitations to Google Contacts. You can read more about it here...

http://goo.gl/zgK9

MobileMe uses a lot more fields than Google's implementation. I haven't found it to be a problem but you might feel differently. I suggest trying it with one or two contacts, see how well it works for you first. After all, it's free and doesn't cost you anything except your time to try it.