emaildiscussions

I am researching options to move to a better email client with some of my existing email addresses (namely gmail and outlook), but I am having trouble finding one that you can view both in a browser and in an app. Ideally it would be pretty low cost (free) but I am willing to pay for an exceptional one. Unfortunately at this time I can't change my email addresses.

Any ideas?

I have a number of email accounts including free services like Gmail and yahoo, as well as private domains I own. I'm looking for a way to pull all of my mail into a local store that I can access using my mail client (Thunderbird). I want to keep the accounts separate from each other. Any recommendations?

I host my own e-mail server, and for a long time I have been pulling my hair out on why the receiving end will still accept e-mails sent from my domain without any DKIM signature.

I have made sure that DKIM has been setup properly in my server, which means if an outgoing e-mail either fails the DKIM test, or doesn't contain any DKIM signature, then the e-mail must be fake. But currently while the receiving end knows to reject if DKIM=fail, it lets the e-mail pass if there is no DKIM signature.

Problem: I found as long as someone impersonates my e-mail account then send an e-mail that will pass the SPF test and doesn't contain any DKIM signature (real or fake), then it will still be considered legitimate by the recipient email server. This is even more problematic in my case as I have to rely on an e-mail relay provided by my ISP to send e-mails out (my ISP specifically blocks any outgoing port 25 connections, apparently to fight spam). This unfortunately means any other customers of the same ISP can potentially send e-mails on my behalf as long as they leave any DKIM signature out on purpose.

Solution: I just discovered the way DMARC works is by passing e-mail that passes EITHER SPF or DKIM check. The keyword is 'OR', and 'EITHER'. So to make sure the receiving end checks only for DKIM validity, turns out all I had to do was to make sure SPF never passes or fails. In other words, SPF always returning neutral would mean DKIM would now become the only factor. Since either one of the two must show 'pass', and now SPF will always return as 'neutral', then DKIM must pass in order for DMARC to pass. i.e. DKIM can no longer be 'neutral' (aka no signature) let alone fail.

The way to set SPF to always return neutral is to set the TXT record to be: v=spf1 ?all

Now as long as your DMARC is set properly, unauthorized e-mails as determined by the DKIM outcome of either "fail" or "none" (aka neutral, or no signature) will always be rejected. Simple as that. Problem solved.

Source: https://serverfault.com/questions/1014250/can-i-set-dmarc-to-tell-receiver-to-fail-if-no-dkim-signature-provided-in-email/1041210#1041210

Summary

OnMail may not shine with anything exceptional, but when you need a simple email provider that just gets the job done, it’s one of the best options available on the market right now. The service has a free tier that provides you with a good deal of features, though if you want to take full advantage of what it has to offer, you’ll want to upgrade to the premium tier. OnMail’s pricing is relatively good compared to other providers with similar features, making it a solid offer in a market that is starting to get very crowded.

To be honest I was excited when OnMail was launched as invite-only back in April 2020, and immediately I put myself in the waiting list! After waited for several months I was finally able to signup myself an account, however it's not possible to get a username shorter than EIGHT (8) characters unless you pay for their most expensive Professional Plan which is $99/year. But if you're like me and don't mind having a longer username, then the free plan is for you, and boy it offers a lot even on the free tier.

At a glance OnMail works pretty similar to HEY Email and it claims to be privacy-focused (I did not read its ToS so this is up to you if you're privacy concerned).

OnMail features a "groundbreaking new feature" - screening for new senders - which ultimately protects you from possible spammers. Instead of letting anyone with your email address dump their crap in your inbox, you first have to click Accept Sender before their emails are allowed. That's pretty cool if you ask me!

So when you first logged into the Inbox you're greeted with a Inbox interface with a nice dynamic background and a famous quote (you can now disable it, or change it to your own background). It's nevertheless refreshing to see some nice sceneries and rewards you because you kept your Inbox Zero! 😆

Next let's talk about my favourite feature which is called the Preview mode, where you can group all your newsletters in a split inbox and view them at a glance, which is neat! Scroll through them like you do with Facebook or Instagram, and click on any of them you feel interested or otherwise leave them there or you can also Mark all of them as done, poof, gone forever.

To be honest I've not explored all the features from OnMail because it was not my primary mail but I intended to use it more in the coming days, because it offers a generous 10Gb in the free tier and also they're privacy-focused (if you're interested in degoogling then consider this as one of your options).

By the way, they've a nice mobile app which is pleasant to use and it has most of the features packed in the app, except for a few things like filters where you need to open your desktop browser to create or modify them. Worth to note that the mobile app is still actively maintained and the last update came yesterday!

In a nutshell, from the last couple days of usage I'm pretty satisfied with OnMail hence I feel the urge to attract more users to try OnMail as I want it to survive and excel, just like the big guns

Summary

Native cross platform apps available. Paid plans enable custom domains. No third-party email clients are supported, users need to use the wide range of native apps. Based in Germany, founded in 2011.

I started my Tutanota journey 2 years back. Although it has a very simple UI but the strong security it offers means it provides strong competition to ProtonMail (a Switzerland based popular private & secured email provider). Despite the lack of features, I find it fulfill my basic needs for email and generally I do not face any huge issues using it.

Their native apps work as good as their webmail and offers everything you need in an email, such as creating filters, aliases and you can even configure your custom domain -- provided you pay for a plan. They also offers catch-all for all your custom domains that translate to unlimited aliases (however you're limit only to 5 aliases, depending on the plan you subscribed, for sending emails).

Pricing has to be their most attractive selling point. Anyone can pay for just $12/year for a premium account which comes with 1Gb storage, 5 aliases and a custom domain. Compared to other competitors which starts off their plan for at least $3/month, this is quite a steal! However there's an interesting twist to this, starting this month (June 2023) the price plan has been revised and they no longer offer the basic plan of $12/year, now it starts off with $3/month (if you pay annually) for a bigger storage and more aliases, along with other features such as unlimited calendars which I do not use much.

In a nutshell, Tutanota still is a very good email provider if you value privacy and security, and you can even signup for a free plan which cost you nothing! The only caveat is that there's a 6 months inactivity period which means your account might be marked inactive and the only way to get in, is by paying for a premium if that's the case.

Let me start off this community with the most anticipated question ;-)

Which of the following emails do you use? and why?

Gmail
Hotmail
Yahoo Mail
FastMail
ProtonMail
Tutanota
Mailfence
StartMail
Posteo
mailbox.org
Skiff Mail

If you're not familiar with some of them, that's great as you can start exploring them! Most of them offer free account albeit some of them are fremium based, so why not give them a try!