state of the union on mail hosting providers (custom domain)?

[btownguy]

I've decided to go "all in" with iCloud with respect to photos and productivity (calendar/contacts/reminders). I've been using Outlook.com Premium (since I have my own domain email) and I'm less than happy with the way mail syncs across MacOS/iOS. Every day I'll delete something on one device and then on iOS it'll still be in the inbox. When I go to delete it on the device I get "unable to move". If I login to webmail the email is not in my inbox.

So, I'm open to moving email providers. I know I can't use my custom domain with iCloud email. I don't want to use Gmail (I want folders, not labels and archive and all email). I want seamless syncing between devices and instant push email.

So what's the general consensus on the best email provider that meets these needs? My initial research keeps bringing up Fastmail. Is that still the case? I'm fine with paying as long as it is a solid service.

 

[fastbagger]

I've decided to go "all in" with iCloud with respect to photos and productivity (calendar/contacts/reminders). I've been using Outlook.com Premium (since I have my own domain email) and I'm less than happy with the way mail syncs across MacOS/iOS. Every day I'll delete something on one device and then on iOS it'll still be in the inbox. When I go to delete it on the device I get "unable to move". If I login to webmail the email is not in my inbox.

So, I'm open to moving email providers. I know I can't use my custom domain with iCloud email. I don't want to use Gmail (I want folders, not labels and archive and all email). I want seamless syncing between devices and instant push email.

So what's the general consensus on the best email provider that meets these needs? My initial research keeps bringing up Fastmail. Is that still the case? I'm fine with paying as long as it is a solid service.

Been using fastmail with and without my own domain bar far the best

 

[thewhitehart]

Been using fastmail with and without my own domain bar far the best

I second that. Fastmail is practically flawless—simple to use but powerful. Any action I do on Mac/iOS/Web, whether it’s creating a new folder or flagging an e-mail, is synced seamlessly across platforms. It’s the best online service I’ve ever paid for.

 

[btownguy]

I followed your advice and moved my personal domain email over to Fastmail. Had it there for a couple of weeks and I must say it has been flawless across MacOS, web, iPhone, and iPad. Web interface is great. Plus no system-generated folders nobody wants (RSS Subscriptions, Yammer). I'm looking at you Outlook.com...

 

[Rigby]

For people who also subscribe to Office 365 (and thus become "Outlook premium" users), Microsoft has recently added a terrible "feature" called "safe links" to Outlook.com. Basically it modifies your emails without your consent and replaces links with links to some Microsoft server. Each time you click one of those modified links, you are first redirected to Microsoft (kiss your privacy good bye) where it supposedly checks if the destination is "safe" before it allows you to go to the original destination.

The problem with that is that the links are obfuscated such that it's now very hard to decypher where the original link goes. So you have basically no way to check for phishing mails and the like, and instead must rely on Microsoft's check (whatever it is). Also, the Microsoft replacement links expire after some time, so if you archive your mail, you'll eventually end up with dead links in your archive. It is currently not possible to disable this "feature". I really have no idea what they are thinking when they force things like this on their users.

Some further reading:

https://blog.tylerbickford.com/2016/06/16/microsoft-advanced-threat-protection-is-a-disaster/

https://www.avanan.com/resources/microsoft-atp-safe-links


I have so far been reasonably happy with Outlook.com, but as long as they don't allow users to disable this nonsense, I recommend to avoid Outlook.com.

 

[btownguy]

For people who also subscribe to Office 365 (and thus become "Outlook premium" users), Microsoft has recently added a terrible "feature" called "safe links" to Outlook.com. Basically it modifies your emails without your consent and replaces links with links to some Microsoft server. Each time you click one of those modified links, you are first redirected to Microsoft (kiss your privacy good bye) where it supposedly checks if the destination is "safe" before it allows you to go to the original destination.

The problem with that is that the links are obfuscated such that it's now very hard to decypher where the original link goes. So you have basically no way to check for phishing mails and the like, and instead must rely on Microsoft's check (whatever it is). Also, the Microsoft replacement links expire after some time, so if you archive your mail, you'll eventually end up with dead links in your archive. It is currently not possible to disable this "feature". I really have no idea what they are thinking when they force things like this on their users.

Some further reading:

https://blog.tylerbickford.com/2016/06/16/microsoft-advanced-threat-protection-is-a-disaster/

https://www.avanan.com/resources/microsoft-atp-safe-links


I have so far been reasonably happy with Outlook.com, but as long as they don't allow users to disable this nonsense, I recommend to avoid Outlook.com.

How has your sync reliability been with Outlook.com? Ever day I was getting messages that wouldn't actually delete on other devices when I would delete them in one location.

 

[Rigby]

How has your sync reliability been with Outlook.com? Ever day I was getting messages that wouldn't actually delete on other devices when I would delete them in one location.

I have seen similar things on my iPhone. But usually it corrects itself after some time. The mails are actually deleted on the server, but the phone sometimes still shows them for a while. If you try to delete or move them, it throws an error.

I believe the problem lies with the Exchange Active Sync implementation in iOS (or some interaction between iOS and Outlook.com) since this doesn't happen on any of the other platforms I use. It also happens sometimes with my employer's corporate email (which is based on Exchange), also only on iOS.

 

[colodane]

I switched my email to FastMail a couple months ago and have been very satisfied. Previously I was using register.com to host a business domain and email. Wasn't too happy with their costs, communications and user interfaces.

Don't have any custom domain now with FastMail, but can say that their service and usability with their own email addresses has been excellent - and only $50 per year. They have several (perhaps 50?) different domains you can use for your email addresses in addition to fastmail.com. And you can use dozens of aliases at no additional cost. I had very little problem with selecting several meaningful and short addresses - not something you can do with gmail, iCloud, etc. For example, for one of my addresses I have xyz@sent.com where xyz are my initials.