Moving to ISP without email service - recommendations?
Discussion
Apologies if this is recently visited topic, but I didn't find anything when I searched.
My current ISP is BT. I am considering a move elsewhere, but the alternate ISP does not provide email, even as an extra cost option.
I have my own domain, configured to send via the BT SMTP service. Inbound email is forwarded to a BT email account and is collected from there.
This is for personal use by me and other family members - five of us in total.
Can anyone recommend the most cost-effective way to acquire access to a standalone email service?
Thanks.
My current ISP is BT. I am considering a move elsewhere, but the alternate ISP does not provide email, even as an extra cost option.
I have my own domain, configured to send via the BT SMTP service. Inbound email is forwarded to a BT email account and is collected from there.
This is for personal use by me and other family members - five of us in total.
Can anyone recommend the most cost-effective way to acquire access to a standalone email service?
Thanks.
Zoho offer a free for life for 5 mailboxes
https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html?sr...
The 5GB storage is a bit of a limit though. As is the lack of POP/IMAP/Active sync so you basically need to use their app or webmail.
£1/mon/person gives 10G and all the access.
They used to allow a custom domain on O365 Family, which was pretty good VFM, but I think this is not an option any more...
https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html?sr...
The 5GB storage is a bit of a limit though. As is the lack of POP/IMAP/Active sync so you basically need to use their app or webmail.
£1/mon/person gives 10G and all the access.
They used to allow a custom domain on O365 Family, which was pretty good VFM, but I think this is not an option any more...
I very much doubt that this is cost effective but for comparison purposes...
For my family I have 3 Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscriptions at a cost of £123.60? per user/year
This subscription includes per user
Hosted domain exchange email with 50 GB storage
1 TB OneDrive
Install Microsoft 365 apps
Etc
I got into this when I was freelance and once in it is difficult to get out and overall I am satisfied with the product.
In the past I have seen many products come and go and change from free to paid and then shutdown.
I'm interested in seeing what other people use.
For my family I have 3 Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscriptions at a cost of £123.60? per user/year
This subscription includes per user
Hosted domain exchange email with 50 GB storage
1 TB OneDrive
Install Microsoft 365 apps
Etc
I got into this when I was freelance and once in it is difficult to get out and overall I am satisfied with the product.
In the past I have seen many products come and go and change from free to paid and then shutdown.
I'm interested in seeing what other people use.
Thanks all for the responses above.
Currently I have a separate domain which I use to make the email addresses ISP-agnostic, allowing a move from PlusNet to Sky, and then on to BT, from whom I am considering moving.
The email hosting via my domain registrar (123Reg) is, in my view, expensive for what the family will require.
No-one in the family uses Apple: we are a mix of Windows and Android.
Use of Gmail would be ideal; my three adult sons currently receive their inbound 3rd party domain email to their Gmail accounts. I have set the forwarding up on the domain record for this.
However, unless I am missing a trick I am not able to configure Gmail to send my 3rd party domain via the Google SMTP servers - I need a 3rd party SMTP relay to do that.
Currently I have a separate domain which I use to make the email addresses ISP-agnostic, allowing a move from PlusNet to Sky, and then on to BT, from whom I am considering moving.
The email hosting via my domain registrar (123Reg) is, in my view, expensive for what the family will require.
No-one in the family uses Apple: we are a mix of Windows and Android.
Use of Gmail would be ideal; my three adult sons currently receive their inbound 3rd party domain email to their Gmail accounts. I have set the forwarding up on the domain record for this.
However, unless I am missing a trick I am not able to configure Gmail to send my 3rd party domain via the Google SMTP servers - I need a 3rd party SMTP relay to do that.
SteveKTMer said:
Outlook is £3.60/month with custom domain.
I'm considering this for my house, as i already run the family edition of office365 which is about £70 a year for 6 people which i think is good value for the complete office suite.I currently host my own server on a static broadband address, but even with all the relevant dmarc records etc - i still sometimes get flagged as spammer because my ip is classified as a broadband IP block which i can't do much about.
CBA feeding and watering a home server any longer - as that's my day job and i dont want to spend my evenings dealing with stuff as well.
Alex Z said:
Does this solution only work in conjunction with the domain email service which needs to be hosted and up and running? There is no mention of DNS configuration to set the Mail server address to receive domain email to the gmail mailbox.
eliot said:
CBA feeding and watering a home server any longer - as that's my day job and i dont want to spend my evenings dealing with stuff as well.
That was me.Running a significant web presence and hosting email servers off static ADSL gets fairly involved when taking redundancy backups and recovery into account too.
Also consider the electricity costs of a suite always on domain servers.
Hence I switched to hosted Microsoft.
.:ian:. said:
Zoho offer a free for life for 5 mailboxes
https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html?sr...
The 5GB storage is a bit of a limit though. As is the lack of POP/IMAP/Active sync so you basically need to use their app or webmail.
£1/mon/person gives 10G and all the access.
They used to allow a custom domain on O365 Family, which was pretty good VFM, but I think this is not an option any more...
I can also recommend the Zoho free option, though I can access my emails via MS Outlook (so IMAP) on my laptop / desktop but I do use their app on my Android mobile phone as I could never get the Outlook app to work with Zoho. Other than paying for my domain, I don't pay for any Zoho activities.https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html?sr...
The 5GB storage is a bit of a limit though. As is the lack of POP/IMAP/Active sync so you basically need to use their app or webmail.
£1/mon/person gives 10G and all the access.
They used to allow a custom domain on O365 Family, which was pretty good VFM, but I think this is not an option any more...
Indeed you appear to be crying out for O365 Family. Don't pay the MS price, get a code to enable it like this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-15-Month-Subscr...
You cannot add your domain any longer but I do think they are planning to enable this perhaps in the future (that's what I heard when they removed the GoDaddy option - which you could work around with your tenant ID and some other DNS tinkering).
You're then disconnected from an ISP and have absolute value with unlimited Apps per user, 1Tb for 6 people and 100Gb Outlook account for all people.
Look around for some of the 15/27 month deals that pop up. Oh and that Norton software linked above - burn it, do not install it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-15-Month-Subscr...
You cannot add your domain any longer but I do think they are planning to enable this perhaps in the future (that's what I heard when they removed the GoDaddy option - which you could work around with your tenant ID and some other DNS tinkering).
You're then disconnected from an ISP and have absolute value with unlimited Apps per user, 1Tb for 6 people and 100Gb Outlook account for all people.
Look around for some of the 15/27 month deals that pop up. Oh and that Norton software linked above - burn it, do not install it.
sgrimshaw said:
I use Ionos Mail Basic 5 for personal email.
Been with Ionos (as it is now) since 2007 and the service has been faultless.
I've been with 1&1/Ionos since 2001. The only issue I have had was a few days ago when there was a hiccup at the Ionos end. It was fixed before I even noticed.Been with Ionos (as it is now) since 2007 and the service has been faultless.
Baldchap said:
Just be aware that BT will close the mailbox completely after a period, so ensure you have backups of anything important.
This... Which is something you should be doing anyway. You've only as safe as your last backup. As for an alternate provider, I'd just stump up then cash for an Office365 subscription and let them handle the issues.
My thanks to all who have contributed to this thread; really useful information.
My FTTP installation is scheduled for next week, so fingers crossed that all goes well.
As instructed, will not cancel with BT until the Squirrel Internet (!) connection is proven out.
That written, after contacting BT to confirm that I am indeed out of contract, they sought to start a new contract and have sent me a new router. Unclear to me whether this is a deliberate and underhand ploy to retain customers, or just ineptitude.
BT will keep email operational for 60 days after termination.
Following the suggestions made on here, I have successfully tested:
1. Sending emails from my Thunderbird client for my domain via the Zoho SMTP email server.
2. Configuring Gmail to send domain emails via the Zoho SMTP server.
3. Appropriate email forwarding to forward inbound email for my domain to Gmail
3. IMAP to sync Thunderbird with Gmail. As I currently have a POP setup to get inbound emails from my BT account, this seems like magic to me.
You get what you pay for, and all of the above is free, but at this time I think I am set to migrate my emai setup once BT is no longer my ISP.
My thanks to all who contributed - top quality information all around.
My FTTP installation is scheduled for next week, so fingers crossed that all goes well.
As instructed, will not cancel with BT until the Squirrel Internet (!) connection is proven out.
That written, after contacting BT to confirm that I am indeed out of contract, they sought to start a new contract and have sent me a new router. Unclear to me whether this is a deliberate and underhand ploy to retain customers, or just ineptitude.
BT will keep email operational for 60 days after termination.
Following the suggestions made on here, I have successfully tested:
1. Sending emails from my Thunderbird client for my domain via the Zoho SMTP email server.
2. Configuring Gmail to send domain emails via the Zoho SMTP server.
3. Appropriate email forwarding to forward inbound email for my domain to Gmail
3. IMAP to sync Thunderbird with Gmail. As I currently have a POP setup to get inbound emails from my BT account, this seems like magic to me.
You get what you pay for, and all of the above is free, but at this time I think I am set to migrate my emai setup once BT is no longer my ISP.
My thanks to all who contributed - top quality information all around.
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