email server? thinking of ditching outlook

[tiredcreations]

[FONT=&quot]I've read through another thread on this, but it doesn't seem to answer some specific questions.

So, I'm not the most tech savvy guy, but I can manage my gmail & hotmail accounts pretty well and especially love how android friendly they are now.

My problem is with outlook express. Lately it's been asking me to compress my files, it takes forever, gives me an error, and then I lose some data. I've tried making a backup of my inbox & then reinstalling, but it's just not working too well (for me). That, along with some other frustrations, has me thinking of doing away with outlook.

I'll tell ya what I want, what I really really want:[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Access to email from anywhere with internet connection. From my office, laptop, phone, home, hotel, etc. But I also need access to emails I sent from another device at another time.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Multiple email addresses. myname@ mycompany.com, info@ mycompany.com, etc.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Easy set-up. When I reinstall windows on my pc, or upgrade my phone, I don't like being without emails until I get someone to help me set up outlook or go through all the pop3 imap stuff.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Separate work & personal emails.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Seems the right thing to do would be use the gmail forwarding feature but I have a few questions and concerns on that.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The delay - My wife does it that way and she set the “check how often” to the minimum, but sometimes it still takes 20 minutes for an email to come through.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Keeping personal separate – I fear if I use the forwarding feature I might accidentally send work emails from my personal account. Is gmail set up to help avoid this?

I like the idea of opening another gmail account for my company, but I don’t want to have to log in and out of my personal all the time on my pc or phone. I would be open to another comparable server to avoid this I guess. For example, open a yahoo account in addition to my hotmail & gmail?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Also, replying with the email address that was sent to. If someone sends an email to info@ mycompany.com, could it be set up to automatically reply with the info@ email address?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]And of course, I need a good search function. Sometimes I’ll need to grab info from a 4 year old email.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Other than that, I don’t think I’m using Outlook to its full potential, so I don’t appreciate it as much as I should. Is there anything out there you guys would recommend? Anything that meets my demands? [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thanks and sorry for the long post.[/FONT]

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Some of the stuff that you are wanting to do you can do it in Outlook, but maybe not Outlook Express. I have never had Outlook ask me to compress files. Thunderbird yes, but not Outlook.

The only thing that you give you all that you are wanting is to used the web interface of your email server. Mainly the looking up your email from any device that has an internet connection and being able to see all the sent emails, no matter what device you sent it from.

The other options you can do in the full version of Outlook and Thunderbird.

 

[qmr55]

Why not another gmail account? You can have as many as you want and even sync multiple to your phone/devices. I have 5 gmail addresses synced to my phone..

 

[tiredcreations]

Why not another gmail account? You can have as many as you want and even sync multiple to your phone/devices. I have 5 gmail addresses synced to my phone..

Really? And you don't have to log in and out to access the others? Can you do pretty much everything I was asking about?

 

[MatthewTimothy]

have you thought of a mail server or leasing out the mail space?? Many hosting companies that can host and store all emails to a cloud. So when you have them on your computer you can have them on the cloud in case something happens.

 

[qmr55]

Really? And you don't have to log in and out to access the others? Can you do pretty much everything I was asking about?

Yup you can stay logged in all the time. In the gmail app click the "accounts" button and add another account. Or just completely sync another gmail account with your phone using the sync option in the menus. Also, I believe you can do everything you asked for but check it out for yourself! Only takes a few minutes to setup and sync a second or third or more accounts!

 

[Justin]

If you get Google Apps you can do all that, and use your own domain..

You can always run your own mail server..I can get you a tutorial, or guide you through setting up a mail server in about 10 minutes. You need whats called a VPS, or a hosting account with someone. If you want to do it yourself find a small vps 256mb ram, or less, and it shouldn't cost more than 20/yr, depending upon how many attachments you have, and how large of files they are you could use 10gb hd, or so. If you want to host it yourself, or if you want someone else to host it.. if you want to access your email from any internet connected computer you need someone who has a webmail application.

Honestly though, if you dont need more than 10gb of space I recommend you use gmail with google apps(http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/) You get access to more than just gmail too. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/products.html#more

Edit: Yeah you could always forward all your mail from wherever it currently is to a free gmail account.

 

[LarryB]

I just use my name@gmail for everything and it is so much easier. I can look up email on my ipad, iphone or laptop wherever I am at. No more fussing with outlook or mac mail. Also with gmail I can view many types of documents - pdf, word, jpeg directly in the email. I know it is not as professional to have my company name but it makes everything so much simpler and I see a lot of people moving that way.

 

[round man]

The suggestions on gmail are great,...one primary problem with outlook is if are running a network no two users or devices will have the same sent file folders ,...they are kept solely on the client(machine) they are sent from,..this is not a problem if all your mail is sent from a web server because all the sent mail is in one folder on the server and not the machine it is sent from,......all machines accessing the same webserver will have access to the same info and it does not get convoluted and stays available as long as no one deletes the data there

 

[SignProPlus-Chip]

Thunderbird.

 

[jtrainor56]

Outlook is the way to go. I've been using it for 15 years at work and home. I have 5 email accounts and only open Outlook to see them all. I have clients with mailboxes over 5 gig and no problems. Aside from Lotus Notes, most other mail programs just come up short.

 

[visual800]

i have my outlook cause it will allow me to do things that my charter email wont do. outlook (like any microsoft product) needs to be beaten into submission and after halt hour of playing in the options and stopping this and that it will be fine. I have it compress and offer this and that and this and that.

I actually for my mobile purposes have the charter email foprwarded to my gmail and i get IT before it comes to outlook

 

[Custom_Grafx]

+1 for gmail apps.

I also run thunderbird to download my messages daily so I have a local copy (or you could just leave thunderbird on all day if you wanted to).

You could also just use thunderbird or another client if you wanted to, and the stuff will be in the cloud anyway if you use google apps. You can access all via your phone, tablet, whatever.

I also backup the local copy. So this way, you have 3 copies. 1 in cloud, 1 in your pc, 1 back up.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

+1 for gmail apps.

I also run thunderbird to download my messages daily so I have a local copy (or you could just leave thunderbird on all day if you wanted to).

You could also just use thunderbird or another client if you wanted to, and the stuff will be in the cloud anyway if you use google apps. You can access all via your phone, tablet, whatever.

I also backup the local copy. So this way, you have 3 copies. 1 in cloud, 1 in your pc, 1 back up.

Most email servers have a web based interface, so you don't only have to be running google apps. You just have to make sure that you set whatever email client that you use to were it won't delete from the server after it downloads.

The only downside to that is if you use the email client to send an email, then it won't be on the server unless you forwarded that sent email to yourself.

 

[signswi]

Use Google Apps for Business (gmail). Anything else is a mistake. You can connect to it over pop3 if you really want to still use Outlook/Thunderbird/Mail.app/whatever application.

 

[omgsideburns]

I use google apps for business. I can check email from anywhere and since we have multiple locations I can bring up email from the other shops too.

 

[TheSnowman]

I set up my server email through IMAP on gmail. I can check it online, on my iPhone, or at my desk in Outlook, and they all show the same thing.

 

[tiredcreations]

Thanks everyone. I set up google apps and I'm trying to figure it all out. It looks like it's what I want, just a lot of options and kinda cornfusing. Doesn't help I have so many google/youtube accounts, but it looks like they're allowing you to toggle between them now. Goodbye outlook... you will not be missed

 

[Charlie J]

I ended up doing the same thing. Gmail just rocks. I ditched my other email thru godaddy.