Dumping domain - email questions

[kimmer]

I'm ready to delete the domain that Sneakers set up years ago. I simply have no desire to do anything with it, I am unhappy with the hosting company and it's way beyond me to deal with their tech support that has now been outsourced, plus it's an expense I could do without. My biggest concern is what to do for email. I'm so used to being able to delete and add accounts, so I need something that's reliable and will do a good job of controlling the spam (current hosting company does a horrid job, that's why I delete/add email accts). I have ONE mailbox/address with my current ISP, but it's cumbersome to deal with them - I only recently discovered that I *must* go in at least once a month and manually delete all my emails from their server. How stupid is that? Worse, they never told any of us! Plus I’m concerned about the amount of email always going over their smallish limit.

Anyhow, I know a lot of use use an apple email address and wonder how I'd go about setting one of those up, or is it worth it? Would I be better off just pushing it with my ISP? I thought about another gmail address, but I hate their interface. On the other hand, it always works. haha

I'd like to be able to use Apple Mail, although I'm comfortable with Thunderbird. I would like to be able to access email on my iMac, my MacBookPro, and my iPhone (I don't do email on the iPad).

I guess what I'm asking is for opinions from you folks on what you might do.

[Xairbusdriver]

A. I was going to suggest gMail until you mentioned you already have it.

2. You should already have an Apple ID, which is actually your Apple email address (although, they did allow other addresses, I think, many years ago). Not sure how you access the App Store or Software Update without using your Apple ID info, it usually comes up with that part already visible when you need to identify yourself and then enter your password.

Unfortunately, you are not allowed as many "Apple" addies as in the past. OTOH, if you signed up several years ago, you should have a "dot"mac and a "dot"me addy. You should still be able to add at least one more 'alias'. I think I have at least five, currently. If you can log in to iCloud (another place where your addy should appear), you can access the preferences that can detail what's still available.

III. I'm not sure how many domains you have, but if you have another that is providing decent service, you should be able to have another bunch of 'aliases'. Many domain registrants offer 10 or more email accounts.

e. I think the key to avoiding the accumulation of "deleted" messages is to use IMAP. You probably have a POP account that is about the oldest method of email and it usually doesn't communicate with any of your devices to "know" what you've deleted. Judy still uses Earthlink/Mindspring for email and we were rudely awakened to the non-deletion problem when people reported their messages were bouncing because of 'quota' problems. I'm amazed that Earthlink is still in business; it must be at least 15+ years old and doesn't even offer IMAP. Judy refuses to end her use because her addy is published in many hard copy places that update only annually, at best. Oh well...

Lastly, check with that current provider to see how long they will keep your current addy in "forwarding" status. They should forward any messages to your new addy(s) for at least 3 months and maybe longer. Of course, no matter how long they will do that, there will still be people who won't update their contacts/info... Hopefully, others will have some great tips for you!

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Sep 14 2015, 01:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A. I was going to suggest gMail until you mentioned you already have it.

Well, if I can set up Apple Mail to pull it in, I could go strictly with gmail—it's only their webmail interface that I dislike these days. I think gmail can be set up for IMAP (although I will admit that I flat out don't understand IMAP and so would be grateful for tips, tricks, info).

My current domain host CHARGES BIG BUCKS for IMAP, so it's set up for POP only.

The other issue would be how to set up SMTP, as my current ISP constantly has issues and won't allow me to use the SMTP with my domain, so all my email is technically "forwarded" and that causes issues.

QUOTE

2. You should already have an Apple ID, which is actually your Apple email address...

Yes, my AppleID is an email address from way back when Apple started all this, but when Apple went to the "paid" stuff I quit using it for email and I've been unable to reactivate it in order to use it for anything other than my id. Perhaps I’m missing something here.

QUOTE

III. I'm not sure how many domains you have...

Only the one, and at this point in my life I’m not interested in setting up another domain.

QUOTE

Lastly, check with that current provider to see how long they will keep your current addy in "forwarding" status.

Last time I checked they don't do "forwarding" at all. They might allow it under a paid option, but that would be expensive (everything with them is $$).

Thanks for the info. I'll keep thinking on this.

[Paddy]

Kimmer, the easiest solution is Gmail - I have multiple Gmail accounts and they're all IMAP. In fact, these days, if you set up a new account in Apple Mail it defaults to IMAP with Gmail. It's ridiculously easy to set up - just click on add account, select Gmail and enter the user name and PW. You'll then want to do some mucking about in GMail's settings online to get the mailboxes functioning the way you want them to (what shows, what doesn't and where your deleted email goes - and getting rid of the dreaded "All Mail" folder in Mail (just uncheck it). (It's a stupid folder that has absolutely everything in it - sent, incoming, spam, archived etc.) I also set Gmail to delete my deleted email rather than archive it!

Anyway, it works well with Mail in my experience, and I have it nicely synced across my devices.

As for the host - wow. Just wow. Charging extra for IMAP? What is this? 1999? If you were to keep the domain, I'd strongly suggest you switch hosting. There are plenty of great hosts out there where the email is pretty much unlimited and there is good tech support etc. One I'm looking forward to trying soon is NameCheap. (use them already for all domain registrations). I use Hostgator for most of my clients' sites and for the most part am happy with them, though have had a few mail configuration issues with Mail with some accounts. To their credit, they did work through them with me to solve the problem, but it required non-standard settings.

Basically the difference between IMAP and POP is that with IMAP, the mail stays on the server; when you delete an email, it's deleted from the server and when you send an email, it's on the server in the sent folder - so anything you do on one device is synced with any other device using the same email account. This, of course, is very handy in the multi-device world we live in. You can also copy or move emails to your own local folders, but if you move them, they'll no longer be available on the server. Given that some hosts have limits on mailbox size and things can get a bit slow depending on your device settings if you have umpteen emails stored on the server, it's usually a good idea to clean out your IMAP inbox and sent box periodically - archiving what you need, leaving things you really think you'll need access to from all devices, and perhaps deleting the stuff you don't need. That said, I have thousands of emails in my IMAP inboxes (6500 + in Gmail, 4500 in my Rogers account and that's just 2 of the 14 or so in Mail) with no issues. I do try to go and archive a pile of them every six months or so.

[kimmer]

QUOTE

Kimmer, the easiest solution is Gmail…

Paddy, thank you for all the info. I have a main gmail addy that I’ve always used for businesses and such, and I have another one I set up when I got my droid smartphone and needed a separate email address. I just reactivated that and will use it for private emails with trusted friends. Now to set up AppleMail.

Thank you also for the very clear explanation of the difference between IMAP and POP.

QUOTE

As for the host - wow. Just wow. Charging extra for IMAP? What is this? 1999?

Well, they cater mostly to businesses, and I guess those folks don’t mind paying for all the bells and whistles.

I thought about switching hosts, but honestly, I don’t have the heart for doing it any longer. It was Sneakers dream and he did a great deal of it, and I’m ready to let it go.

Thanks again for all the help. I’ll start working on the switchover and hope to have it all done within a week or so.

OH - one last question. I have a ton of email in my Apple Mail already. I'd like to either move it somewhere, or archive it, and if possible delete the acct info (it would be for our domain). How do I go about doing this?

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Sep 14 2015, 04:32 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kimmer, the easiest solution is Gmail - I have multiple Gmail accounts and they're all IMAP. In fact, these days, if you set up a new account in Apple Mail it defaults to IMAP with Gmail. It's ridiculously easy to set up - just click on add account, select Gmail and enter the user name and PW.

Wow. Is this slick or what? Took me less than 2 minutes to set up and my first trial "send" was gone in a blink of an eye. Very cool. Now to follow these instructions from Paddy: "[configure] GMail's settings online to get the mailboxes functioning the way you want them to (what shows, what doesn't and where your deleted email goes - and getting rid of the dreaded "All Mail" folder in Mail (just uncheck it)."

[jcarter]

Wow, thank you!  Superb advice as usual.
I too had to discontinue my jcarter and jcdouglass emails, as they got blasted with spam last October. And MacHighway couldnt do anything about it.

But I stuck with my earthlink one, they handle spam very well. Its my primary one.
And I have a gmail and dot mac+me too, but dont use them as much as I should.
My comcast and earthlink are the 2 that I use most of the time now.
They handle spam perfectly.

Im reading your advice here, as my problem is similar.
I am going to link my Gmail to my Mac mail quite soon.

Only thing bothering me, is too many email messages on two many devices, time consuming to go thru them all. I KNOW I have to cull many the advertisements, Home Depot, Amazon, LLBean and many many more.

Seeing that Ive just updated to the newest OS and updated all the software on my 27 inch computers, this should work very well.
Im in the process of stripping my hard drives of junk, and will start Migration Assistant once thats done, and everything is set up properly.

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

I KNOW I have to cull many the advertisements, Home Depot, Amazon, LLBean and many many more.

Why are you doing that? That's what "Rules" are for. I like to keep my "Inbox" nearly empty, fewer than 24 messages. Most of my rules are for sending messages that I want to various mailboxes that are created for things that interest me or are related to groups of people I want to stay informed of. Most commercials are dumped straight into the trash or Junk (and Spamsieve takes care of dumping the Junk mailbox for me). Every time a SPAM message comes through, I tell Spamsieve about it and I usually never see anything more from the sender or the contents. But you absolutely must tell Ss about every message you consider SPAM; don't simply delete it, otherwise, Ss will never learn about it or refine its own algorithm.

My point is, use the computer to do what computers are good at. Use your time for reading them messages that you want to, not the ones that are simply trying to sell you something, worthwhile or not.

[jcarter]

I have Rules taking care of all the spam, I dont get more than 3 or 4 true spam messages a week now. It works as well as SS from what I gather. Gmail works very well for this too.

Though I really dont want to miss the ones from Petco, LLBean, and other companies which I buy from.

Guess I shouldn't call these spam, they are advertisements which I actually want. To get what I want with their specials, sales, free shipping offers and stuff like that, I do want to continue getting them.

Its actually pretty easy. I scan thru them every morning, and if I dont want anything, I just hit delete for all of them.
The personal messages from family and friends that I want to read are sitting there ready for me.

Guess everybody sets up their email like they want to, makes it so easy, and Ive gotten some great hints and help from everybody here as well.