I know. That’s why I said “years ago when you could do things to increase your free storage.”
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iCloud+ to Let iCloud Mail Users Personalize Their Email Domain Name
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
As I read through this thread I'm amazed at how many people are replying to your initial comment. Hopefully you don't have email notifications for all replys turned on.Not talking of free tier. It seems my post is misleading people into thinking I am looking to have the free storage increased. That is not what I intended to convey here.
This is a general iCloud request/question. Does anyone know if the Web based iCloud will get list view? When I share a folder with friends (for those who must access in a browser - Windows-based friends), none can read the folder name if the folder has many characters (mine do). Icon view is not the best viewing option for most of my folders. I have submitted this request to Apple.
Does she also make statements like "I can't use anything but an iPhone", "I can only use an iPhone", and little hints about wanting a newer hand-me-down, but then also make snarky comments when you buy a new model for yourself about how there are cheaper ones available?
I fancy my comment has been misinterpreted and people rarely bother to ask. I pay for 200 GB storage. I thought that my iCloud Mail was still 5 GB. I went through an Apple support document and I realize that my mail inbox storage equals my account free space.
I clearly stated inbox storage in my comment and I wonder exactly what is causing so many people to take it for something it is not.
Some other guys have already answered (thanks CarlJ) - just to make my point clearer:
if you set up an MX all mail for that domain will be routed to the server mentioned in the MX. That means for all recipients in the domain you will need to setup mailboxes (or forwards if they are outside iCloud).
For that Apple (like most Mailhosting providers) would need to provide an administrative panel for that domain.
These panels usually also give you the option to define a catch-all for those emails that do not correspond to listed recipients.
No - I am talking of selectively forwarding individual custom domain email addresses (instead of setting a global MX).
today if you forward me@greatdomain.com to me.myname@icloud.com, Apples server will not accept it and even if it did it would not know what to with that.
I am assuming that Apple will do the "poor mans version" of an own domain, by just supporting selective forwards and usage of their SMTP server. Reason being, that MX records lead to the need of nerdy administration and that sounds very unApple to me.
Last edited:
I would assume Apple wants you to use that domain solely with Apple and point the NS records directly to Apple.
Otherwise it's a PITA for consumers to setup even with proper instructions.
MX records are easy... but then there is SPF, DKIM, AutoConfig DNS Records... and we probably don't setup DMARC anyway.
Otherwise it's a PITA for consumers to setup even with proper instructions.
MX records are easy... but then there is SPF, DKIM, AutoConfig DNS Records... and we probably don't setup DMARC anyway.
Whether Apple will provide that type of functionality is unknown, but providing email mailbox hosting does not imply that 'catch all mailboxes' are a mandatory feature they must support.
So first off, catch-all mail accounts are not some universally guaranteed thing in email. It's a nice feature, but it's not something that _has_ to be supported to host email.
Secondly - if Apple are letting a person configure a custom domain for mail, and even if we assume they would support catchall handling, having one more select box to nominate the account "unhandled" email goes to, is not exactly the K2 of UI challenges.
Thirdly - if you think "what should we do with unhandled mail for this domain" is too "unApple" to present to customers, how on earth do you expect them to even explain the concept of mail forwarding at the server level. Not to mention - having a service that only works when you already have an smtp server which supports forwarding, is kind of ******.
It'd be like if their "Secure Relay" feature also just happened to require you to operate your own pair of proxy servers.
Unfortunately a perfect solution is difficult to find.
. Google gives you a lot of Admin Power (you can even do DKIM on your own domain) - but you may not trust them
with your data and the other services are not well integrated into the Apple World. It is also not that cheap.
. Microsoft has not a bad offering for e.g. a family (as you get Office with that).
Outlook.com has minimalistic custom domain support - BUT they do not accept all Email: They randomly block servers
and you are never sure you get all the Email you should.
If you get the more expensive Exchange.Online: that is a real pro-offering and gives you full control - nothing to say
against it, except that it is costly and requires some skills.
. Apple is trustworthy and certainly well integrated into the Apple Ecosystem. I would be skeptical however that
they provide the required Admin Tools - I fear this will be a very "consumer oriented" implementation that
keeps the power users unsatisfied-
. Roll-your-own: With e.g. mailcow and a custom server this has a lot of advantages (I am running this and I can do
DMARC, DKIM, DANE, SPF whatever I like). Problem is - the big providers tend to block the small servers (specially
Microsoft) and that mostly kills that option. What is the value of a mailserver, if you cannot send to everyone?
Currently I stay with "roll-your-own" but a decent Apple offering would make me switch in a jiffy. Let's wait and see!
It has not. It's one of the big reasons I still use Fastmail.
When you consider how much effort Apple puts into features like Handoff and Continuity, it's actually really mind-boggling that Apple has never added this to iCloud Mail.
Meanwhile, Fastmail has not only offered full mailbox reconciliation via push notifications since 2015 — any and all mailbox changes get pushed out — but it also lets you designate other folders to be pushed as well. In fact any folder you pin as a "favourite" up top will automatically be added to the push, but you can also designate specific ones to be pushed in the Mail app's settings. The irony is that this is an iOS feature that Fastmail happens to be the only provider taking advantage of.
Apple's own OS X Mail Server doesn't do any better either. I hacked together my own solution to this years ago, but as soon as Fastmail introduced their own full support for push notifications in 2015, I switched over to it and haven't looked back since.
Maybe iCloud+ will finally "fix" this, but I'm really not holding my breath.
To the best of my recollection, they never provided full custom domain support for email. Just web sites (basically redirecting to to .Mac hosting) and email aliases.
Apple likes to keep things simple. Having users set a CNAME was already out of character for how they typically do things, but asking users to set up MX records would have been a bridge too far.
I'm betting money that Apple will be partnering with some other domain provider to offer a simplified setup for this. The bigger question is whether it will even allow advanced users to configure things manually at all.
that is a bummer - never used it much, but that is something that you would expect from Apple.
But you would also expect them to sync the Resource Forks into iCloud Drive and they do not.
only if you want to do SPF it gets tricky and with DKIM it comes close to impossible in most cases
It works in the direction of the Mac because Apple Mail on the Mac uses the standard IMAP IDLE protocol. You'll find this works with almost any IMAP account — even Gmail's bastardized implementation of IMAP supports IDLE.
The iPhone and iPad don't use IMAP IDLE due to the much higher power requirements and need to maintain an open connection to the IMAP server (which isn't always practical on a mobile device). They rely on Apple's Push Notification Service (APNS) instead. Unfortunately, iCloud doesn't send out push notifications for anything except for new mail.
Yup, I think it's just a matter of how segmented and siloed Apple's culture is. Handoff and Continuity are iOS features, whereas the other stuff is on the iCloud team, which clearly lives in a very different world.
Domain name looks pricy at $19 a year after the first year with GoDaddy. I didn't realize it was so much.
Very much depends on the TLD, and the registrar/reseller.
I'd recommend somewhere like https://www.namesilo.com/pricing - Very transparent, open pricing, no gotchas.