emails+domain hosting woes

ash_scotland88 · 11 May 2023 at 17:19

Looking for some advice and help.

I have a domain that I use just for emails, no website. It's set up to forward to a googlemail address and I use gmail to send and receive. The issue is, probably more to do with the host, is I often don't get emails or if an attachment is too big I don't receive and the sender is not alerted.
I have not received atleast one email today and I only know as someone who was CC'd in asked me a question about the email. The email was a reply to one I sent and as far as I am aware I've not previous had an issue with the sender. This sort of problem has been sporadic over the 4years of ownership and use. Host is easyspace, I've complained to them before.

So to resolve do I:
1) Move host.
If so how I do back up gmail so I don't lose any emails or would I even since I log in via my googlemail account

2) Change email app, any suggestions?
How would I transfer emails over. Having a look on the control panel I can only have email forwarding, I think.

3) Slowly phase it out and use googlemail. It'll be a ball ache and I only used it when I went self-employed as a bit of a branding as I have no a new full time job it's no longer required but it is firstname@lastname so I like it.

If it was me, at this very minute, I would move the email onto imap with all emails and folders magically intact and use a different email app. Keep it for an other year while transitioning back to googlemail for free instead of £30+ per year.

Anuruddha · 11 May 2023 at 17:31

ash_scotland88 said:
Looking for some advice and help.

I have a domain that I use just for emails, no website. It's set up to forward to a googlemail address and I use gmail to send and receive. The issue is, probably more to do with the host, is I often don't get emails or if an attachment is too big I don't receive and the sender is not alerted.
I have not received atleast one email today and I only know as someone who was CC'd in asked me a question about the email. The email was a reply to one I sent and as far as I am aware I've not previous had an issue with the sender. This sort of problem has been sporadic over the 4years of ownership and use. Host is easyspace, I've complained to them before.

So to resolve do I:
1) Move host.
If so how I do back up gmail so I don't lose any emails or would I even since I log in via my googlemail account

2) Change email app, any suggestions?
How would I transfer emails over. Having a look on the control panel I can only have email forwarding, I think.

3) Slowly phase it out and use googlemail. It'll be a ball ache and I only used it when I went self-employed as a bit of a branding as I have no a new full time job it's no longer required but it is firstname@lastname so I like it.

If it was me, at this very minute, I would move the email onto imap with all emails and folders magically intact and use a different email app. Keep it for an other year while transitioning back to googlemail for free instead of £30+ per year.

I suggest you to go with a paid email service. You can setup your own fulll featured mailserver with mailcow, iRedMail, Modoboa, Mail-in-a-Box and Zimbra. I recommends mailcow

ash_scotland88 · 11 May 2023 at 17:44

Anuruddha said:
I suggest you to go with a paid email service. You can setup your own fulll featured mailserver with mailcow, iRedMail, Modoboa, Mail-in-a-Box and Zimbra. I recommends mailcow

Thanks, had a quick look and unless I am on the wrong thing looks awfy complicated.
I've just discoverd googledomains. The fact I use gmail would this make things easier?....and as I typed that and researched more I discover this:

Tip: If senders have certain email authentication settings, emails forwarded from them may not arrive in your inbox. Some email senders have rules that prevent their mail from being delivered with email forwarding systems, including Google Domains. This situation can happen regardless of your mail settings in Google Domains. To avoid this issue, we recommend that you use a custom email with Google Workspace instead of email forwarding.

I think maybe in the long run, I may have to resent and go back to a standard gmail.com email as I'm too cheap to pay for more services.

On Holiday · 11 May 2023 at 17:50

Anuruddha said:
I suggest you to go with a paid email service. You can setup your own fulll featured mailserver with mailcow, iRedMail, Modoboa, Mail-in-a-Box and Zimbra. I recommends mailcow

Suggesting to run self-hosted mail is absolutely awful advice.

ash_scotland88 said:
Looking for some advice and help.

I have a domain that I use just for emails, no website. It's set up to forward to a googlemail address and I use gmail to send and receive. The issue is, probably more to do with the host, is I often don't get emails or if an attachment is too big I don't receive and the sender is not alerted.
I have not received atleast one email today and I only know as someone who was CC'd in asked me a question about the email. The email was a reply to one I sent and as far as I am aware I've not previous had an issue with the sender. This sort of problem has been sporadic over the 4years of ownership and use. Host is easyspace, I've complained to them before.

So to resolve do I:
1) Move host.
If so how I do back up gmail so I don't lose any emails or would I even since I log in via my googlemail account

2) Change email app, any suggestions?
How would I transfer emails over. Having a look on the control panel I can only have email forwarding, I think.

3) Slowly phase it out and use googlemail. It'll be a ball ache and I only used it when I went self-employed as a bit of a branding as I have no a new full time job it's no longer required but it is firstname@lastname so I like it.

If it was me, at this very minute, I would move the email onto imap with all emails and folders magically intact and use a different email app. Keep it for an other year while transitioning back to googlemail for free instead of £30+ per year.

So, I'll start by saying I run a small hosting company as a side-business, have friends that run hosting companies and I've also provided/supported solutions for some big-names..

We (providers) all dislike the concept of forwarders as a whole.
Sender -> Hits our mailserver -> we forward it to Gmail.
If the original email is spam, then Gmail is seeing that spam come from our mailserver IP*
This affects the IP reputation and email deliverability of all emails coming from that mailserver IP

(There are ways to mitigate this with rewriting which I won't go deeply into, but that has it's own problems and it's far from 100%... This scenario also depends on how good the hosting providers anti-spam is but it's a never-ending battle.)
With that in mind, I'd always suggest to try and eliminate forwarders where possible.

1) You could move host, ensure they've got good inbound anti-spam or have outbound mail relaying that scans outbound emails for spam before releasing them, but bear in mind that forwarding externally isn't optimal.
If you need to backup any emails at all then the safest way is using IMAPSYNC (https://imapsync.lamiral.info/X/ or https://omm.ovh.net/)..

2) Perhaps run it the other way round. So primarily use your hosted email and have your google email forward to your own domain... This obviously isn't ideal but GMail has very good inbound anti-spam and generally should have 100% delivery rates so the above shouldn't be a concern.

3) Just have two completely separate mailboxes, all email apps/software supports logging into multiple accounts.

Anuruddha · 11 May 2023 at 18:00

On Holiday said:
Suggesting to run self-hosted mail is absolutely awful advice.

So, I'll start by saying I run a small hosting company as a side-business, have friends that run hosting companies and I've also provided/supported solutions for some big-names..

We (providers) all dislike the concept of forwarders as a whole.
Sender -> Hits our mailserver -> we forward it to Gmail.
If the original email is spam, then Gmail is seeing that spam come from our mailserver IP*
This affects the IP reputation and email deliverability of all emails coming from that mailserver IP

(There are ways to mitigate this with rewriting which I won't go deeply into, but that has it's own problems and it's far from 100%... This scenario also depends on how good the hosting providers anti-spam is but it's a never-ending battle.)
With that in mind, I'd always suggest to try and eliminate forwarders where possible.

1) You could move host, ensure they've got good inbound anti-spam or have outbound mail relaying that scans outbound emails for spam before releasing them, but bear in mind that forwarding externally isn't optimal.
If you need to backup any emails at all then the safest way is using IMAPSYNC (https://imapsync.lamiral.info/X/ or https://omm.ovh.net/)..

2) Perhaps run it the other way round. So primarily use your hosted email and have your google email forward to your own domain... This obviously isn't ideal but GMail has very good inbound anti-spam and generally should have 100% delivery rates so the above shouldn't be a concern.

I have setup mailcow email servers on production servers and my personal server. Everything works like a charm. No more bills except hosting. You can use zoho free email service (up to 5 email accounts) https://www.zoho.com/mail/?ireft=nhome&src=home1-dd

Mujja · 11 May 2023 at 19:10

Move your mailbox to Google, https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_uk/pricing.html, leaving the domain at the current provider or move to a new provider.

My domain is hosted at GoDaddy and mail at Google. Been using Google for years when it was only £3/month, added on 1TB Google Drive and I pay around £8/month now.