Regular email maintenance: IMAP?

[VisHorizons]

I've been using POP for years, but my boss uses IMAP so he can check his email on his office computer, his phone, and his home computer.

But his mailbox regularly fills up. I then need to log into the browser interface and delete the trash. That clears up some space, but it seems like a constant battle.

What are normal maintenance behaviors for those with IMAP email? What tips can I give my boss so that he has a healthy mailbox.

Thanks for any help with this.

[Rick Wilson]

If you're using us for IMAP that's the issue as we limit mailbox sizes pretty severely (and we're likely going to start fully exiting the email hosting business in 2020, FYI).

I would highly recommend either Microsoft Office365 or Google G Suite for IMAP hosting, then you won't constantly be fighting whack-a-mole on storage, plus they both have much better spam and malware filtering than we possess for email.

[VisHorizons]

Our outside IT guy is always pushing us towards Office365, so that's perfect. Thanks for the info!

[ILoveHostasaurus]

It's a great option; huge mailbox size for $4/mo, excellent filtering, and you get all of Exchange's typical groupware features like shared calendars, public folders, etc. You can also do two factor authentication across all device types, even in Outlook on mobile devices.

[SNAGuy]

If you're using us for IMAP that's the issue as we limit mailbox sizes pretty severely (and we're likely going to start fully exiting the email hosting business in 2020, FYI).

How much lead time will we be getting to transition to a new email hosting service?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

How much lead time will we be getting to transition to a new email hosting service?

It would be a several month lead, and we'll prepare guidance on the process for major providers. Other than the need to touch your employees' devices for the reconfigure, it is normally not a bad transition, and with Microsoft or Google in particular, the device touch is typically not a huge ordeal because most popular email client software on both desktop and mobile will know about those entities and auto configure the majority of the settings outside of user/pass. There can of course be additional steps for those wanting to take advantage of increased security features, like two factor authentication.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

I don't know any compelling (or cost effective) reason to look past O365 for $4/mo per mailbox; perhaps a $2/mo exists somewhere, but they're reliable, two factor authentication support, 150 MB message size, huge storage, unlimited aliases, don't mine your message like Google.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Thunderbird will work fine with Office365 if you enable IMAP, generate an app password for it, and are comfortable going without two factor authentication. If your email includes any data your clients would consider proprietary or confidential, then I'd recommend you move off Thunderbird to a mail provider and mail client combination that supports two factor authentication; anything less would be placing their data at increased risk solely to use Thunderbird. You could always use Apple's mail app if you don't like Outlook; it works fine with the multi-factor auth of most major providers.

[GDesigns]

lesliekirk you may want to start using G-drive for file sharing. I don't think you need to go 'business' for that. Just set up dedicated folders for each client that needs to share project files with you - try that out? I personally don't like huge email attachments :) Plus it's much more organized for YOU this way.

[Mark Hood]

I'd like to tag along for the how to for this transitioning current users to something else...

[ILoveHostasaurus]

I'd like to tag along for the how to for this transitioning current users to something else...

Most email providers have the ability to pull mail from another account via all the common methods and usually proprietary ones as well if it's a major entity, so if the current account is being used via a method that leaves all the email on the server, they can simply grab a copy. Most also support those same common access methods, or preferably, more secure alternatives that involve two factor authentication (which standard POP/IMAP do not). So, if you have all your email on a local computer in your chosen software, and it only supports POP/IMAP, you can usually set up an app password to continue to use that software, but for security reasons, you'd preferably transition to software that supports two factor auth. Most popular email clients understnad how to move mail from one another, but if that isn't possible, you can usually export to a common format like Outlook PST, etc.