Personal Email

I would be grateful for some advice/help. A few years ago, I paid for a me.uk domain name that I use for nothing more than two personal email boxes. My domain host has just doubled its annual charge on the back of many improvements primarily related to web hosting so I was wondering whether I need to look for a new host.

My ISP tells me that it could takeover my domain; manage DNS servers and email for £3.60 a month. I confess that I have no idea how the transfer process works. Should I just pay up (£60 per year: domain name already paid up to 2026) and stay where I am or switch my email service to either my ISP or ANother?

I use 123-reg where I have my domain and email forwarding.

If I am sent an email it goes to 123-reg where it is forwarded to various email accounts at BTinternet, Plusnet and Gmail, my PCs with Thunderbird are configured to receive emails from these email servers. I also send emails via these servers, but Thunderbird is configured so that the reply to address is the one based on my domain name. I don't pay for my use of the Btinternet, Plusnet or Gmail accounts. My wife also has an email address based on the my domain name. I pay a few pounds each year to 123-reg by direct debit. I also have Postfix email running on a Raspberry Pi. It works well for receiving emails via 123-reg but can't always send emails because there is no reverse domain name lookup (or something like that)

I've learned the hard way to stay away from ISP email, I found BT and Plusnet appalling however good their BB service may be. My basic email account with Fastmail costs about £3/month and has been flawless. Other providers may be just as good but all enable one to change ISP without affecting one's email address.

Anti-Spam issue, have at least set up got an SPF recored. There also DKIM and DMARC.

That should fix that issue.

cloudflare learning reverse dns

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Edited by amiga_dude (Fri 07-Jan-22 17:59:31)

Host the domain somewhere neutral (I use www.gandi.net) and point the email records (MX) at the email service provider of your choice.

You can buy email services from the super-massive companies, Google & Microsoft, and get “business grade” email that includes contacts & calendar management and syncs to your smartphones/laptops/tablets. Microsoft is £3.00+VAT a month per mailbox on a 12 month contract.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/exchan...

I have an Office 365 mail subscription and host my own on there, domain costs on top of that but means I have control and not tied to say an ISP.

I can also recommend gandi they include a few mailboxes when you buy your domain from them.

I use

https://www.havehosts.co.uk/billing/index.php

I have my email accounts with them and my domain.
Keep away from ISP emails, as I fell into that trap and months later still finding emails I forgot to transfer over to my domain.

John the owner is very helpful and will guide you through the transfer process..

Thanks for the links. They are very informative. I think I need to ask Gigaclear if they will setup a PTR record for me. I would also probably need a fixed IP address. At another location I have a Plusnet service and apparently they will do this.

Thanks all. I have a lot to read up on.