Not too dissimilar to me- I've got 4 Macs of various descriptions and a couple of old (and rarely used) Windows machines. All of them have more or less identical email setups except that the "secondary" machines are set to leave the mail on the server after reading, the "primary" machine deletes it after a week. The secondary ones also bcc any sent email to one of my other addresses.

So the primary machine has a complete copy of all my mail, but the secondaries don't download everything received since I last used them. It suits me, others may differ

I swear by Tsohost that I've been with for a few years now. Many domains and email for them.

I have used mixed POP3 and IMAP on the same domain there.

Most reputable hosts need you to buy or already have a domain. The only places that offer domains free with mail hosting always look either dodgy or expensive to me. Tsohost domain purchase for .uk domains is very simple, and normally available to use within minutes. Prices reasonable, and you can officially host a minimum of two domains/emails on the cheapest package. (I fiddle more than two, but that's another story).

I'll second this Tsohost suggestion. I moved my domains to them a few months ago and they've been great in every way.

I've also have more than two domains serving email on the cheapest package. As far as I have seen you can serve 2 domains' web content and then add as many additional domains as aliases as you like. An alias domain will only serve the web content of the domain it is aliased to, but you can setup mailboxes upto the limit of the package or mail forwarders and aliases as much as you like. Really handy for just keeping a domain around because of some legacy mail addresses. It was Tso who suggested I do it this way so it's not really a "fiddle" unless you are doing it some other way RobertoS?

Out of interest, do Tsohost's mail servers support SSL encrypted connections?

TsoHosts again, I have 2 domains I only use for email on their lowest cost package.
getting your own domain for email is the first step to being independent of your ISP and having email addresses which never change.

Yes they do on IMAP and SMTP. I don't know about POP as I don't use it.

Why not use a mail forwarding service
I have 2 Macs - a desktop and Laptop and I use Bigfoot.com which is a free a mail forwarding service.
When I change my ISP allI have to to do is log in to my Bigfoot account and change my forwarding address to my new ISP mail account
The big advantage is that no one knows my true email address and I do not have to notify anyone of any changes to my ISP and new email.

Thanks to all for their recommendation to look at TSOHost. So I need a domain - that seems simple enough. What I cannot find is any guidance on how to set up 3 email accounts on Mac OSX/IOS devices. Would the Lite package support this or do I need Standard? If anyone could point me in the right direction for more information then I would be grateful. This is a new adventure for me.

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

Yes they do on IMAP and SMTP.

That's good. Unfortunately a lot of email providers seem not to offer SSL so customers can use "smtp.theirdomain.co.uk" and "pop3.theirdomain.co.uk" without having to purchase a certificate.

SSL also available on POP3.