For some reason I always get stuck on email… I switch clients all the time, I switch services, I self host and have most free services out there. I’m a mess.
Lately now, I have been thinking of pulling my mail off of the free services. Instead of Imap, doing pop and deleting the messages off of them. Not that it will do much possibly, but they will dump my trash someday right?
So then comes the fact that I nuke my laptop constantly. So I need I way to keep these safe and not accidentally nuke them.
So I am thinking, is there a service I can set up on a DO droplet that will take in all my email, then let me access it via Imap. Not just a host…I use mail in a box now. But if I could get it to pull in all my other accounts to and delete it off there servers as it did, that would be great.
Then I could hit my little droplet with Imap using thunderbird on my laptop to keep things all nice and tidy.
I switched 100% to Gmail about 18 months ago, couldn’t go back now: zero admin and mail auto-syncing across all devices (Android phone and tablet, Chromebook, Desktop browser). Gmail pops all my non-Gmail accounts into Gmail automatically.
I am using Google Apps (I was grand fathered in on the free plan) and use Thunderbird via IMAP with Lighting and the Google Contacts and Calendar providers. I works very well and Thunderbird keeps offline copies of everything.
I did used to self host email for all the family and some friends using Postfix and Dovecot with Roundcube for webmail. Maintaining your own mail server is a chore these days, which is why I switched everyone to Google Apps.
I do consider self hosting from time to time and if I ever did I would use Zimbra Community Edition, although the 8GB RAM requirement makes it an expensive proposition on a VPS. But we use Zimbra at work and it is excellent, the browser client even has offline mail support but you will need one of the community developed backup tools because Zimbra Community edition lacks built in backup.
I do webhosting as part of my business, and I use gmail 100%. I also recommend it to clients. On most hosting, you can set up a forwarder so [email protected] goes to [email protected]. And on the gmail side, you can set it up to send mail as another account - so basically you can make it nearly transparent - although in my case, all of my various email addresses are forwarders that either point to my business or personal gmail account (so I always have two gmail tabs) - and I can choose which account to use to reply with from the dropdown.
I used Thunderbird for a little while because I was tired of my computer being slow from Chrome - until recently, my newest computer was a 2007 refurb, so everything was effin’ slow - but as good as Tbird is, Gmail has them beat hands down.
Also, spam: I have never seen any service as good with spam as Gmail. They’ve won the spam game. I get a spam perhaps once or twice per month, if that. And it’s rare I find a false positive in the spam box. I don’t know how they do it since I know spammers target gmail specifically because so many use them.
So especially now that I have a new-to-me laptop (not great specs, but it’s only 3 years old, so fine for Chrome), I’ve gone back to Gmail in the browser.
I’m lucky to have been grandfathered in with Google Apps on my main personal and business domains. But it’s worth the price to me if I hadn’t been. OTOH, you only need one account, too, if you take the time to see how the settings work (you can make it so it defaults to reply with the email address the email came in on if it’s one of the addresses you’ve set up in gmail - and I don’t know if there’s a limit, but I have about 75 addresses setup in one of them, not that I have to use them often, but I have them when I need)
I run my own mail server (postfix and dovecot) on a DigitalOcean box. On local machines, I typically use Thunderbird. I also have RoundCube installed on the server and actually find myself using that more and more.
Missed this first time round - but FastMail is my way to go. (It isn’t free, but you get what you pay for - it is exceptionally well done and has a huge amount of configuration, plus no dubious practices such as scanning email content on the server so that advertising in the Web mail client can be targeted).
It will read email from POP accounts, and all the major services have forwarding as an option.
I have 5 old accounts going into it (4 IMAP, 1 POP) without difficulties.
Jun 2016. I use T’bird for my Gmail. it works fine, without issues.
Next, I decided to put my Office365 mail into the same T’bird system, so that I would only have to look at one place for both mail inboxes (gmail is work and Office 365 is personal). I tried to use T’bird to pull in my Office365 mail. When I began the process, T’bird correctly found the server, correctly set the inbox and outbox settings, etc. However, it would not accept my password! I tried ‘normal’, and encrypted password setting in T’bird…to no avail. I keep getting an error message.
The first one is that “exchange provider add-on is no longer maintained”…with a recommended use of “Exchange 2007/2010 Calendar and Tasks add-on” I actually tried to follow that link, but it did not lead me to any direct sort of link. After several attempts using synaptic pkg manager, several tries to use add-ons within T’bird, I could not find that link. I will keep on looking…
However, the 2nd issue is that Office 365 rejects the password that I entered. The password is accepted when I login via the website. But, it is rejected when T’bird tries.
I read that T’bird is no longer supported by Mozilla, so am wondering about options for a relative noobie in the Linux world. Gmail is ok, but the display format of T’bird fit my thinking.
Any input would be appreciated!
As well as the most in this threat I use Tbird for my more or less 5 Mail Accounts. Further I use a Backup add-on for Tbird to backup my Mails out of Tbird. With Recoll I can find every Mail on my System.
On Android I used K9 Mail app.
Interisting and new Mail-Provider are Vivaldi (Same as browser) or protonmail (developed at cern in switzerland).
I’ve been using Gmail for the pass 15 years or so and love the service they provide. I also played with some of the mail clients like Thunderbird and thinks is pretty cool also
I’m using Thunderbird cos I’m lazy, I just type my PW in and it downloads all my mail for me!. I don’t know how secure it is but I am happy with it so far!.
I don’t use webmail of any kind. having moved entirely to a desktop-based client. I use FossaMail, which is Thunderbird fork of the same makers of the Palemoon browser and with the same philosophy.
I do rely on two free email providers who offer webmail. GMX and Openmailbox. I don’t require (or even want to have) synchronization across different devices, for which reason IMAP is of no use to me.
