Apologies if this is in the wrong spot but I need some outside opinions on an issue I'm having...
For the past decade (probably longer), I've been using iCloud mail as my primary email service. I was on Gmail before that but I found that it just wasn't for me and I moved to iCloud. Since then, iCloud mail has done a fairly good job of handling my email needs. At least, until recently.
Like all things, service degrades and things stop being a priority in terms of upkeep and maintenance. I've found that in the past year alone, I've been bombarded by spam like crazy on iCloud and because of the lack of ACTUAL filtering, I'm spending more time sifting through spam to get to legitimate emails. Additionally, I've been fighting iCloud more and more about recognizing any rules that I have setup. It's gotten to the point where iCloud will just make new folders for rules I have setup, even though I already have folders for specific emails that it chooses to ignore. On top of all of that, I've found that iCloud still doesn't have background refresh and will show that I have new emails, hours after I've already acted on them or deleted them.
I finally reached my breaking point and switched to Hotmail...
What a dumb decision that was.
After getting my important accounts switched over to Hotmail, I realized that ALL of the email coming into my Hotmail account was going directly to the junk folder. Looking around online, it seems that this has been an issue for the better part of the past decade and Microsoft either refuses to fix it, or doesn't know how to fix it. I've setup all of the rules, added safe senders and domains and triple checked that all of the rules are correct but nothing works. EVERYTHING that gets sent to my Hotmail goes right into the junk folder and after two days of fighting it, I've had it. Marking messages as "Not Junk" doesn't work. Adding each email sender as a contact doesn't work. Specifically whitelisting domains and addresses doesn't work. It's like they have a backend rule that says "Assume everything is spam unless marked otherwise and even then, dont trust user input and continue to mark it as spam".
I dont think the issues I've encountered with iCloud or Hotmail are a mail application issue, like Mail or Outlook. I think the issues I've listed above are directly related to the email servers themselves and both Apple and Microsoft just dont care to fix it.
So my question: Aside from Gmail, what other email providers can people recommend? I'm reluctant to go back to Gmail as I was hoping to leave that as a last resort, assuming no one else came up with a better alternative.
For the past decade (probably longer), I've been using iCloud mail as my primary email service. I was on Gmail before that but I found that it just wasn't for me and I moved to iCloud. Since then, iCloud mail has done a fairly good job of handling my email needs. At least, until recently.
Like all things, service degrades and things stop being a priority in terms of upkeep and maintenance. I've found that in the past year alone, I've been bombarded by spam like crazy on iCloud and because of the lack of ACTUAL filtering, I'm spending more time sifting through spam to get to legitimate emails. Additionally, I've been fighting iCloud more and more about recognizing any rules that I have setup. It's gotten to the point where iCloud will just make new folders for rules I have setup, even though I already have folders for specific emails that it chooses to ignore. On top of all of that, I've found that iCloud still doesn't have background refresh and will show that I have new emails, hours after I've already acted on them or deleted them.
I finally reached my breaking point and switched to Hotmail...
What a dumb decision that was.
After getting my important accounts switched over to Hotmail, I realized that ALL of the email coming into my Hotmail account was going directly to the junk folder. Looking around online, it seems that this has been an issue for the better part of the past decade and Microsoft either refuses to fix it, or doesn't know how to fix it. I've setup all of the rules, added safe senders and domains and triple checked that all of the rules are correct but nothing works. EVERYTHING that gets sent to my Hotmail goes right into the junk folder and after two days of fighting it, I've had it. Marking messages as "Not Junk" doesn't work. Adding each email sender as a contact doesn't work. Specifically whitelisting domains and addresses doesn't work. It's like they have a backend rule that says "Assume everything is spam unless marked otherwise and even then, dont trust user input and continue to mark it as spam".
I dont think the issues I've encountered with iCloud or Hotmail are a mail application issue, like Mail or Outlook. I think the issues I've listed above are directly related to the email servers themselves and both Apple and Microsoft just dont care to fix it.
So my question: Aside from Gmail, what other email providers can people recommend? I'm reluctant to go back to Gmail as I was hoping to leave that as a last resort, assuming no one else came up with a better alternative.
