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suggestions on which e-mail service to use?

B

beethovengirl

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 15, 2004
150
1
Hi,

I've been using Apple Mail with my IMAP e-mail account at the school from which I graduated last year, but I'm losing access to my account soon. I am accustomed to IMAP, but it seems my options are limited in finding free/low-cost IMAP e-mail services. My mother has AOL, so I could get an AOL account, but I'm skeptical about AOL. Is there any way to remove that "Check out the new AOL" message that appears on the bottom of all the e-mails that I receive from AOLers? My ISP is Comcast, which only offers POP. Has anyone used Comcast's e-mail service? Are there any broadband ISP's that offer IMAP accounts?

To be honest, I mostly use my own computer, so maybe I should consider gmail, which everyone seems to love. What happens when I check gmail on the web from another computer? Will the messages that I read still make their way to Apple Mail?

I'd appreciate any advice you may have. thank you :)
 
thanks valdore for offering to invite me, though I've already got invites from my friends :)

do you know how gmail compares to using an IMAP account?

thanks! :)
 
When did Gmail start offering IMAP? :rolleyes:

.Mac offers IMAP, but is a bit pricey for my taste... don't know any free ones... and apart from not offering IMAP, Gmail is a very nice mail provider... ;)
 
I tried to find a free IMAP mail provider a while ago, but didn't manage to find anyone that offered that good a service. Not that I really expected to find anyone offering a good IMAP service for no cost! :)
 
grapes911 said:
Just out of curiosity, why do you want an IMAP account over a POP account?
Click to expand...

well, I'm accustomed to IMAP, and I was under the impression that once messages are downloaded on my computer into Apple Mail, I can't access them remotely, which can be useful at times. That said, most of the time, I do use my own computer.

has anyone used both AOL IMAP and gmail? How do they compare?

thanks! :)
 
grapes911 said:
You can set a POP account to leave mail on the server.
Click to expand...

Then how is POP different from IMAP? Also, I already have a bunch of messages in my inbox and other folders that I would like to keep...will those be uploaded to the Gmail server?

I've use(d) AOL and Gmail. Go with Gmail.
Click to expand...

why do you prefer Gmail to AOL [if using only with Apple Mail]?

thanks for all your help :)
 
beethovengirl said:
Then how is POP different from IMAP?
Click to expand...
Without getting into the technical specifications of the protocols, POP was designed to take emails from a server and copy them to your machine. IMAP was designed to read the emails on the server. You seem to understand this.

As time went on, the tech specs remained similar to the originals, but the features of email clients have improved. You can usually make an IMAP account act like a POP account or a POP account act like a IMAP account. They are still very different underneath, but they can seem very similar to a user.

Also, I already have a bunch of messages in my inbox and other folders that I would like to keep...will those be uploaded to the Gmail server?
Click to expand...
No, but I'm pretty sure Mail.app will allow you to manually copy them to the Gmail inbox. Don't hold me to that though.


why do you prefer Gmail to AOL [if using only with Apple Mail]?
Click to expand...
While using Mail.app, it really doesn't matter to me which on I use. While using checking my mail via the web, Gmail is a much cleaner, quicker, smother interface.
 
true...for gmail I have it pop3'd into mozilla thunderbird on my desktop PC, but it's set to leave all original messages on the server. Even mail I compose in Thunderbird gets saved on the gmail server after sending it.
 
beethovengirl said:
Then how is POP different from IMAP?
Click to expand...
POP doesn't sync changes made after the emails been delivered to your computer.

For example, if Mail.app checks for new mail, finds 10 new emails, POPs them down to your computer, if you delete or file any of those emails in Mail.app, they won't be deleted or filed when you check your GMAIL thru the web browser.

If you mostly use Mail.app for your mail, this might not be a huge deal, but if you're like me and use the web interface while you're at work and then Mail.app when you get home, it's a nightmare.

I broke down and got a .Mac subscription. I wasn't thrilled about the price, but after having used most of the features (like the calendar/address book synching, iDisk, iWeb web hosting, and iPhoto features), I like it a lot and the price doesn't bother me nearly as much as when I thought I was paying $99 for just an IMAP email account.
 
Caezar said:
What about subcription-based IMAP email providers? Do you have any recommendation?

I came across fastmail. Is there anything else worth it?
Click to expand...

I'd second the recommendation for Fastmail (www.fastmail.fm). I use their service and am very happy with them. They've got a nice clean webmail interface that I use when I'm not on my Mac, they give a lot of flexibility to add aliases and such, and they're pretty cheap. You can either pay a one-time setup fee ($20, I think) to get a smallish storage limit, or an annual fee for a pretty big storage limit.
 
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