Best email solution for personal domain

Question

I've had a personal domain for a couple of years now and I'd like to start using it for email. I've had iCloud+ so I linked it up to that, but I don't really use it that much. The #1 feature I use is the "catch-all" email address: any email sent to whatever@my.domain (replace "whatever" with any text) is routed into my inbox. This has the nice intention of easily creating filter rules based on what email I used for a website.My gripe with using iCloud for my email is that I just am not a fan of the mail client. Because of this, I've been very reluctant to send emails with it and prefer using my personal Outlook.I use my personal email with the Outlook client, but I link this to a Google account mostly for convenience. I feel like switching entirely over to Google Workspace would be nice, but (1): Lock in (2): I don't think Workspace supports the catch-all/many email addresses for 1 user (3): I don't like Gmail's client. Switching over to Microsoft 365 has problems 1 and 2, just not 3.What is the best solution for running email, preferably FOSS?

LeonM · Accepted Answer

I use Google Workspace for my personal domain. It does support a catch-all, and as a nice perk you get more storage for your drive compared to a free Gmail/Google account. You can even add more domains for free, because you pay per user/inbox. So as long as you let all your domains forward/catch-all into one inbox, you only pay the €6,50/mo, or whatever it is in your part of the world.
Lock-in is not so much of a problem I'd say, you can export your entire inbox, that's possible with both Google and Outlook that I am aware of.
Just about any email service will offer IMAP, Google included. So you don't have to use the Gmail client if you don't like it, you can install any email agent of choice.
Don't try to self-host e-mail. It's not worth the headache.

beAbU · Answer

I host my personal mail with Migadu, they have some pretty compelling so-cheap-it's-free options available. These days I feel more comfortable paying for my email service than using some free service.
I used to be on google workspace, but I moved away from them after the cancellation of the free tier fiasco a couple of years ago.
Migadu comes with a web client, and it's OK I guess, but I use Thunderbird and an IMAP connection on PC, and the google mail client on Android. Happy with it so far. I do miss Google's powerful search and organisational capabilities though.

ale_jacques · Answer

I use Fastmail for my personal domain. The service is great. They don't have a desktop app. I use macOS Mail (which sucks) and, sometimes, I give Spark Mail a try but they are not there yet.Fastmail do have web and mobile clients. On web and iOS, both are a "webapp" disguised as an app (my guess Android version is the same).

isaachinman · Answer

I'm in the same boat as you &ndash; happy with iCloud as a host for personal domain, but absolutely hate the client.That's part of why we're building Marco:https://marcoapp.ioI'm building it for myself, but sounds like it could be a good fit for you too.

josephcsible · Answer

Unfortunately, since you're not a megacorp, if you want to send email rather than just receiving it, the choices are (1) Google, (2) Microsoft, or (3) have emails you send inexplicably not get delivered even though you did everything with DKIM, SPF, DMARC, etc. exactly right.

raincom · Answer

I use both https://purelymail.com and https://fastmail.com Try Purelymail, as you can set it up for $10 per year.