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Email client - moving away from Office365


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Hi Everyone,

 

I have been doing a lot of research but would love the feedback of the community.

 

Recently, I had to close my business which currently runs on "Office365" and with the financial challenges associated with the closure - I am seeking new ideas on how to setup my email.

 

My current setup:

 

1. I use Office365 as my mail service.

2. I use Outlook on my PC.

3. Combination of Gmail (for IMAP) and ("stock") Mail for Exchange.

 

Question 1: Email Service

 

The first challenge I came across, was how to keep an email service running and while I can get a static IP / have the equipment / have know how to setup an email server ("Postfix") - I cannot obtain a reverse DNS entry from my ISP. - anyone have a solution?, else I am thinking of switching to Zoho Mail, which offers free domain email.  Another thought was to build a postfix server on Digital Ocean using their cheapest "droplet" - $5.00 / month is not a lot.

 

Question 2: Best Windows email client

 

99% of my work currently is done on the Windows platform and I was thinking of trying MailBird but oddly I do not understand their pricing model.  I am looking for "Free", which is limiting but I can always rely on Thunderbird - unless anyone has a better solution?

 

Question 3: Best Android email client

 

I have been using both ("stock") Mail and Gmail dependent on the requirement for "Exchange", however, since I will not be continuing the use of "Exchange", I can make use of just "Gmail" but in the past I used and loved "K-9" mail - any thoughts or opinions regarding Android email clients?

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How many inbox's do you actually need?

Microsoft's Hosted Exchange is $4 a month, which is cheaper than the VPS you are thinking of getting. You obviously get one one Inbox with that, however can have multiple domains and email alias all going in to that Inbox.

 

If your going to pay for something related to email hosting i'd personally pay for that if this is just for yourself.

 

Best Windows Email Client - Personally i would have said Outlook, Windows Live Mail is ok for free, i used and liked it more than Thunderbird but both feel a bit of a downgrade after Outlook. I'm honestly not sure what else is out there today so maybe someone can suggest some better, modern alternatives? Thunderbird was discontinued from what i remember.

 

Best Android Email Client - Honestly i use and like the stock email client, the interface is clean and it does the job well. The Microsoft Outlook Preview for Android is free and to be honest really nice too.

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Best Windows Email Client - Personally i would have said Outlook, Windows Live Mail is ok for free, i used and liked it more than Thunderbird but both feel a bit of a downgrade after Outlook. I'm honestly not sure what else is out there today so maybe someone can suggest some better, modern alternatives? Thunderbird was discontinued from what i remember.

 

 

The closest client to outlook (that isn't outlook) on windows I've that I've found is eM Client: http://www.emclient.com/

 

Very nice client. Plenty of features, clean UI, supports all major protocols and services (including exchange), but the free version is limited to 2 email accounts

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Hi Everyone,

Loving the feedback and to clarify, I have approx. 6 domain emails and I am looking to be able to respond via these emails from their perspective domains.

Hope this helps regarding the email service.

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The closest client to outlook (that isn't outlook) on windows I've that I've found is eM Client: http://www.emclient.com/

 

Very nice client. Plenty of features, clean UI, supports all major protocols and services (including exchange), but the free version is limited to 2 email accounts

 

That looks really nice, from watching the video and looks to have some good features  (Y)

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Hi Everyone,

Loving the feedback and to clarify, I have approx. 6 domain emails and I am looking to be able to respond via these emails from their perspective domains.

Hope this helps regarding the email service.

 

You can do that easily with Microsofts Hosted Exchange, on which ever desktop email client you decide to use all you would need to do is setup a fake pop account for each alias you wished to send email from. You can then send email from an alias, any replies will come to your main inbox if someone replied to an email from one of your alias. Using mail rules you could then filter the replies in to different folder depending on the alias it's been sent to.

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Hi Everyone,

Loving the feedback and to clarify, I have approx. 6 domain emails and I am looking to be able to respond via these emails from their perspective domains.

Hope this helps regarding the email service.

 

You can do that with one hosted exchange account from MS. Domain alias and email alias are both possible, and with Outlook or outlook.com you can reply from whichever one you want.

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You can do that easily with Microsofts Hosted Exchange, on which ever desktop email client you decide to use all you would need to do is setup a fake pop account for each alias you wished to send email from. You can then send email from an alias, any replies will come to your main inbox if someone replied to an email from one of your alias. Using mail rules you could then filter the replies in to different folder depending on the alias it's been sent to.

 

Yes, I have a similar setup to this and it works fine.

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For the hosted MS Exchange - do I have to pay per email or per domain? Right now I am paying per account.

 

You pay per inbox, so for example you could have 50 domains associated with your account, then for each domain you can create alias which go to the one inbox you are paying for.

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Its done per user, Make sure your using Exchange email avoid IMAP or POP3 like the plague.

 

You can always move to just exchange licences which are cheap.

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It might work ok for small mailboxes for yourself but otherwise youll be pulling your hair out with complaints about endless polling, imap folder hell, contacts on one device only etc.

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Don't get me wrong, I would love something robust, feature rich, reliable but financially - I have to make cuts. For a company that does not have the capacity to make money - paying for a high end solution does not make sense.

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If you're short on cash and would rather not pay for email services, why not use email forwarding (pop will be slower) that is provided by most of the domain hosts, for free?

  1. Setup email forwards for all of your 6 emails to a particular (or separate) gmail or live account. Make sure any/all SPAM filters are turned off on the domain provider side (Gmail or live will take care of this).
  2. Under Gmail / Live create 6 new aliases (in gmail "Send mail as") for each particular email (so you can reply with the same address). You may need to create a dummy email address for all your 6 domains so that you can connect gmail SMTP, or use the google's own SMTP to send emails from different email addresses.
  3. If you are using a single Gmail / Live account for all 6, create proper tags so emails coming in and going out are labeled correctly - easier to identify which email address received the email.
  4. If using Gmail, use the Gmail app on your Android / IOS to check and reply to emails. You will be able to reply from any email address you like.
  5. For your computer you can use gmail.com and set it so that it can be work offline, or you can use any of the free open source email programs out there. ThunderBird? Google for more.

This is how I have setup close to a dozen email addresses. Hope this helps.

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$4 a month is too much for you? If so, its time to just call it a day and do something else.

$4 / month is not too much but the reality of a business closure is that regardless of the state of the business - employees get paid first. I closed it *to* move onto something else.

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$4 / month is not too much but the reality of a business closure is that regardless of the state of the business - employees get paid first. I closed it *to* move onto something else.

 

I don't know what one has to do with the other.

 

You're looking for a solution post-business, as you said. Its $4 a month for your solution. If you want to half-ass it and use some crazy setup that will save $4 a month, then go nuts. But again - its $4 to get exactly what you want. You were looking at VPS and all kinds of other, more expensive things. Just because the solution is the same company as what you had before doesn't mean its not the right solution. 

 

Also, in your OP you state:

 

  Another thought was to build a postfix server on Digital Ocean using their cheapest "droplet" - $5.00 / month is not a lot.

 

 

So $5 isn't a lot, but $4 is? You were going to do a workaround to accomplish (maybe) what we are telling you MS will support with no problem in their hosted exchange environment. And it was going to be more expensive.

 

Maybe you're not understanding.

 

MS' Hosted Exchange allows you to have unlimited email aliases and unlimited domain aliases for each inbox.

 

So you could have

 

a1@a.com

a2@a.com

a3@a.com

b1@b.com

c1@c.com

c2@c.com

 

etc 

 

As many as you want. Then if you use their web client, Outlook App for your phone, or Outlook for your PC/Mac, you can choose to reply as any of them. It is also possible to automatically reply as the original receiving address.

 

This will cost $4 a month. Total. Not $4 per domain or email.

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99% of my work currently is done on the Windows platform and I was thinking of trying MailBird but oddly I do not understand their pricing model.  I am looking for "Free", which is limiting but I can always rely on Thunderbird - unless anyone has a better solution?

 

Free: Sylpheed-Claws. I'd still recommend to take a look at The Bat!.

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This is an old threat that I wanted to add CloudMagic to the list. I've used it for a while now and it works very well and has good support for different protocols. It also simplifies managing multiple accounts and keeps the settings safe in their server so that all the previous accounts can be added onto a new devices by simply logging into the app.

Previously CloudMagic was a cloud search service for a few years in case anyone is wondering.

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