Email hosting services where you have your own domain(s), e.g myemail@mydomain.com

Electronics & Technology
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My main domain is for family use only and was registered around 20 years ago, and I used the registrar’s webmail for a while. In the late 2000s when Google offered domain hosting for free I ported that domain to google, which by the time I ported it came with up to 100 free gmail accounts. It has gone through a few name changes but is currently called Google Workplace. I also registered a few other domains, i.e. one for each member of the family that have only cost US$10 per year to keep. They also came with the option of many free gmail accounts, although apart from the primary domain they really only have one or two active email account each. The other domains are also family/personal use only and only for email. None are for business.

Google had stated that these legacy account would remain free forever, but over time they have renamed a few times and now they have backed away from that promise to remain free and are going to charge around $8.50 per email account per month or $102 per year per account. This adds up and is way above our budget. If they offered a cheaper option with just the email that came without calendar, drive, hangouts, etc. I would probably jump at it. However the clock is ticking and that has not been offered yet, it is move the business service or lose it.

It is worth pointing out that I have no intention of setting up my own hosting servers.

Google Workspace (as it is now called) does have some nifty features, but all I actually want is a domain email address, I could probably get by with one email address per domain. With the primary domain we can probably get by with just one email address, although would take up more if they were free or cheap enough. That said the primary domain may remain a Google Workspace but just cut back to a single email account compared to the 8 free ones it has now (half of them are there just because they could be). The extensive use of alternateaddress@mydomain.com and associated filtering of incoming emails (approx 200 addresses in use) would be too much of pain to change I think.

As Google Workspace seems to be abandoning family custom domains with email accounts, I am looking for an option to find a new home for the family domains. Again, all we want is an active account at the customer domain, webmail. If multiple (less than 5) accounts were available for free or reasonable cost they would be investigated. We don’t need calendars, chat and various other features that seem to be bundled in with email to drive the price up.

Currently none of the accounts has more than 4GB of mail and that could be be culled back somewhat I suspect.

From looking around I will investigate fastmail and Zoho, I have seen rumour that Apple will accept your domain but haven’t looked any further yet. I have heard that Office 365 may have something, but I really, really don’t like using Outlook - so that’s probably a deal breaker for me :slight_smile:

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If you use Microsoft 365, you get a TB of OneDrive storage per user (if The Family pack with a max of 6 users). Email storage is 50GB. If you are simply discussing using the outlook client to send and receive your emails, you don’t have to. You can use whatever email client you like, I use Thunderbird on my PC and Apple Mail on my iPhone.

From the MS site (if interested in a custom domain or domains):

"Custom domain names

Easily create a personalized email address (name@yourhobby.com). Outlook with Microsoft 365 works with GoDaddy domains to make setup simple.[1]
…//…
[1]. Domain sold separately. You must maintain an active domain with GoDaddy to use this feature."

You may have up to 10 alias email addresses as well, the following post explains:

How many email addresses can I have with an Office 365 account? - Microsoft Community

The following link is the official MS help advice about aliases

Add or remove an email alias in Outlook.com (microsoft.com)

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Thanks, I will add that to my list of investigations. Not having to use Outlook is a big plus :slight_smile:

A couple of the domains are already with GoDaddy.

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Probably worth a look if you are already in the Apple ecosystem. I considered it, briefly, but these days I find my ICloud and .me accounts are sufficient.

You’ll need to subscribe to iCloud+, thats where you can get your domain hosted. It may not suit for bazillions of users.

More info at iMore

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AHA, there’s some forum discussion in Appletalk. You might need to join to read, the thread began back in January, and participants seem to be those who have or are migrating from the google suite.

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Thanks Sue, more good links to follow-up.

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Well Google must have decided that annoying hundreds of thousands, or possibly many, many more people who signed up for the YourDomain with free gmail (you still pay for the domain, but the gmail account(s) came free for ever) was not worth their effort.

I was just rechecking some stuff prior to migrating my first domain elsewhere when I noticed that they had changed the terms again, and now “You can continue using your custom domain with Gmail”.

I will keep the various useful links that were provided above in case they change their mind again.

If they had a low cost personal use plan, I would consider it, but the business or nothing is not viable for a family of four.

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At last - what a relief.

I actually received the last email that you mentioned, but only saw the detail about the date to change being delayed a few weeks. It was only when I saw this post from you that I read it in detail and saw the note about the ability to keep G Suite legacy.

I’ve confirmed my intention to keep it, everything looks the same, hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on in.

I agree with you - I’d be happy to pay a non-profit/personal rate, but $12/month/user is unaffordable.

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Yes, my email arrived about a day later than when I checked the info page and the email was not particularly good at spelling out the changes other than moving the date back again.

The more accurately described details are here Upgrade from G Suite legacy free edition - Google Workspace Admin Help

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I operate a number of domain/sites that use Google legacy free email so impacted by this change too. Some domains I plan to upgrade to Google Workspace after I prune unused email accounts. But other domains which aren’t that important, I offload to Zoho Mail or MXRoute https://mxroute.com/. MXRoute each year post Black Friday deals at https://mxroute.blackfriday/ so if you catch them, they’re cheap.

I got my MXRoute Black Friday deal like 2 yrs ago for the following

25GB Storage
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Emails
300 outbound per hour (per email)
$15/year

They seem to be constantly changing their minds!

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