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Email Services

Which email do you use?

  • Gmail

    Votes: 31 59.6%

  • Hotmail/Outlook

    Votes: 10 19.2%

  • Yahoo!

    Votes: 4 7.7%

  • Other

    Votes: 28 53.8%
  • Total voters
    52
A

afro-ninja

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 27, 2013
44
4
Dear knowledgable people,

I'd love to know which free email services you use and your reasons for it - especially if you've used more than one and are from a better place to judge.

I've been using hotmail all my life (yes, I know, shock horror etc - don't blame me, my brother set it up for me when I was like 8 years old...). It's recently transformed into Outlook which I think is quite good, but it doesn't work well natively on a Mac and I really don't like that.

The main ones (that I know) are Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail/Outlook, and I'd appreciate knowing why you use what you use.
[Bonus points if it fully works well in Mail]

-J :apple:

EDIT: I understand that many of the "Other" votes in the poll are for iCloud. I underestimated its popularity (despite this being an Apple forum, silly me...). I assume I cannot edit polls as I can't figure out how to, so this is just FYI.
 
Last edited:
I have my primary email addresses with my local ISP, or I should say had. They contracted them over to gmail this past year. The ISP assures me that Google does not scan these contracted email accounts like they do the ones actually placed with gmail.
 
Private domain email, GMail and MobileMe/iCloud. I also have one hosted through Office365 for university. I use all of them currently, especially the one through my private domain.
 
Free email service wise I primarily use iCloud (used it while it was .Mac and MobileMe as well), it's worked well for me for many years now and works perfectly with Mail and other email clients.

I have a couple of Gmail accounts but don't use them as they don't seem to play as nice with email clients, and I don't like the web interface.

I have an Outlook/Live account but it doesn't support IMAP so I don't use it.

Additionally I have a couple of university based emails and a couple of domains with their own email service.
 
I use iCloud as my primary email address. My other major addresses are forwarded to iCloud. They include my local ISP and my college alumni address.

The iCloud address works well with mail on my MBP, iPhone, and iPad.
 
Gmail, but now that they don't support PUSH without their lousy app, I'm considering a switch. If Outlook supported IMAP, I'd switch to them.
 
I use iCloud. All of our family's computers, phones, & tablets are all Apple branded, so the iCloud accounts tie in the most seamlessly.
 
afro-ninja said:
...
The main ones (that I know) are Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail/Outlook, and I'd appreciate knowing why you use what you use.
[Bonus points if it fully works well in Mail]

-J :apple:
Click to expand...
iCloud mail works well in Apple Mail. And that should've been included in the choices as I bet most of the "Other" response is iCloud.

Macman45 said:
Been using Thunderbird for quite while now...I don't like Apple's offering, and Outlook for Mac is bug ridden.
Click to expand...
Thunderbird only says what mail software you're using, not your mail provider.
 
iCloud for me. I have gmail, and others but they're dormant, I only use iCloud

OP, I'm surprised you didn't add iCloud since you're posting on an Apple forum.
 
Thanks all for the replies.
My error - I forgot about iCloud! Apologies. I underestimated its use.
Is the 5GB of storage - that's shared with iPhone backups - not a problem for you?
 
afro-ninja said:
Thanks all for the replies.
My error - I forgot about iCloud! Apologies. I underestimated its use.
Is the 5GB of storage - that's shared with iPhone backups - not a problem for you?
Click to expand...
I actually back up my iOS devices to my Mac with iTunes so 5GB is currently more than enough for me in iCloud.
 
afro-ninja said:
Thanks all for the replies.
My error - I forgot about iCloud! Apologies. I underestimated its use.
Is the 5GB of storage - that's shared with iPhone backups - not a problem for you?
Click to expand...

I use my account for everything and backup both my iPhone and iPad and I use about 4.1GB of the 5GB total.
 
I have several Gmail accounts that I use on a daily basis, but they all get forwarded to my iCloud account for easy device syncing and push notifications. Only occasionally do I actually use my iCloud account to send emails.
 
I checked out Outlook but found out they don't support IMAP.

Can't believe Microsoft still can't support it.

Also used my web hosting email system, but ended going elsewhere as each IMAP connection created an open process. My account was limited to 25 processes, so when it hit that, my hosting services like the web site started to fail. Apparently it only happens when Mac clients are used.

Ended up using gmail and google apps for business. Great anti spam filters, fast and reliable. They've possible got the best email servers out there.

Best email decision made ever.
 
I use iCloud as my primary email solution. I've also migrated all my family to iCloud away from Google as I hate the spying that goes on. I find iCloud to be the most reliable and feature-rich email platform on the planet. Nothing else compares to iCloud for me and the push functionality is better than hosted exchange.
 
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