Are there any really good NZ-based IMAP providers for the little guy?

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Baboon

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#280110 26-Nov-2020 20:15

Think: Fastmail https://www.fastmail.com/ , only based here in NZ. I only need the one user as aliases filtered into folders are fine for me. But I do require 5GB or preferably higher storage, reliability, and a price that isn't too far above somewhere like Fastmail just for the benefit of being in NZ and supporting a NZ business.

Is it even worth trying to move my email hosting to NZ? The options I've noticed over the years are usually pretty pitiful email add-ons for domain and web hosting - nowhere near as good as Fastmail, G Suite, or MS 360 email hosting.

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Prodigi

#2611585 27-Nov-2020 10:00

Email is hard. We offer email hosting as part of our shared hosting services. I'm not sure I'd call it a pitiful addon, but it's certainly not as polished as Office365, G Suite etc.

To be confident in your email, unless you're needing on-prem Exchange or something, you're better to go with Office 365 or G Suite really unless you only want to pay $5/month and then you're mostly stuck with shared hosting which includes email in NZ.

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xpd

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#2611630 27-Nov-2020 11:02

Or run your own mail server...... ;)

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Baboon

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#2611636 27-Nov-2020 11:10

I tried running my own mail server at home a decade ago. It ended up being too much trouble with security, authentication, and downtime.

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- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

chevrolux

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#2611656 27-Nov-2020 11:26

$6.90/month for an Office 365 mailbox is pretty hard to go past I reckon.

CYaBro

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#2611668 27-Nov-2020 11:53

You can get also get a really basic Microsoft 365 Exchange Online Kiosk license for under $4.
Only gives you 2GB of storage though and no Outlook support.

Only Outlook website and POP/IMAP or Outlook app on iOS/Android.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

networkn

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#2611680 27-Nov-2020 12:15

Honestly, if a business customer can't or won't afford $10 a month for email through something like Office 365 or GSuite, then I think they should really consider if it's practical to stay in business.

IMAP is rubbish, POP3 is rubbish. They will spend more than that on support for IMAP in my experience.

timbosan

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#2611681 27-Nov-2020 12:20

I have used 25Mail St for a while, they support IMAP, have free email (under a certain size), and are a NZ Company:

https://25mail.st/

They support using your own domain as well (which I what I do - I just point update my MX DNS record to point to them). Have web client as well (RoundCube I think).

timbosan

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#2611685 27-Nov-2020 12:23

I also ran Exchange on-prem for many years (part of SBS2011) and it just got too hard - unless you have decent backups, UPS, don't ever move house, have a static IP, etc. then ANY issue means no email. I would choose either Microsoft 365 or 25Mail St instead.

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#2611687 27-Nov-2020 12:25

Never had any real issues running my own server for IMAP. Was using hMailServer.

O365/GMail way to go these days if want a reliable hosted service.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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tchart

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#2611688 27-Nov-2020 12:25

I use Zoho Mail (recommendation from GZ). Been using it for 3+ years without problems.

sbiddle

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#2611947 27-Nov-2020 16:44

I really don't know why anybody would opt for something that isn't EAS / Activesync based for email. It just makes life so much easier, and O365 makes email so cheap.

danfaulknor

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#2611948 27-Nov-2020 16:50

sbiddle:

I really don't know why anybody would opt for something that isn't EAS / Activesync based for email. It just makes life so much easier, and O365 makes email so cheap.

I moved our company email to G Suite (or whatever it's called now) because I hated the search on Office365/Exchange. The Gmail search has always been much more effective for me

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maffey

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#2612168 28-Nov-2020 10:58

Concur, email hosting is difficult. Time consuming, low value yet critical that it works properly.

We put customers on GSuite or Office 365.

We offer email forwarding (via Sitehost) for tiny companies who don't want to spend the $6USD a month.

If you want a service with NZ based support, the 25mail.st guys are based in Cambridge (I think).

BlakJak

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#2612700 29-Nov-2020 16:53

sbiddle:
I really don't know why anybody would opt for something that isn't EAS / Activesync based for email. It just makes life so much easier, and O365 makes email so cheap.

My personal email has been on an IMAP server for... 10 years?

Every couple of months I use POP3 to download it onto my home desktop as an archive.

I access my IMAP account from two mobiles and about a half-dozen different devices running Windows, Linux and android (Thunderbird, Outlook, K-9) and they all work pretty much flawlessly.

Running your own MTA isn't especially complex, particularly if you take a service like SMX and put that in front for outbound mail relay, antivirus, antispam and complex mail filtering rules, etc.

If you want more than just email, like for example, integrated calendaring and contacts, then either M365 or GSuite would be good choices.

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KiwiSurfer

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#2612791 29-Nov-2020 21:41

I'm happy with Fastmail. They're an Australian company although their servers are US based--although that doesn't seem to affect performance too much from NZ.

IMAP is only an issue if you're on Google--their IMAP implementation is incredibly awful and is the cause of many issues if you are not using the official Gmail app. I ran into so many issues during migration away from Gmail. Luckily Fastmail now has a nice Gmail-to-Fastmail migration tool which includes workarounds for all the Gmail flaws so there is no need to worry about that now. I haven't tried Microsoft's IMAP implementation, but I imagine it's not much better given they only really make an effort to support their own client (Outlook).

However for all other providers (read: those that use server software that complies with standards) IMAP is 100% reliable. IMAP makes it possible to use your preferred email client should you not like the app provided by your mail provider (or if you just want to use the native app e.g. Apple's Mail app on iOS). Fastmail's IMAP implementation is based on a widely deployed IMAP software so is compatible with pretty much anything--I've used it across several different software and devices with zero issues.

I use the Fastmail app on my Android phone, Fastmail webmail on my Mac/PCs which both works pretty well. To compare with the competition, I use both O365 and G Suite daily for my work and Fastmail easily beats both O365/Google in terms of ease of use and performance. O365 has a nice native app on Mac/Windows but the O365 webmail is no where as good as Fastmail. Gmail has gotten slower and isn't as performant as Fastmail.

I previously operated my own mail server but the time and effort wasn't worth it. Better use of my time paying Fastmail to manage all of that for me.

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