fuzzy about new ISP, change email

I've seen some posts about changing ISP and email hassles but i'm afraid some excess frothy water maya have clouded my understanding

Let's say I'm 'me-at-old.isp' plus some aliases. I might not be able to use 'me' so end up 'newme-at-next.isp'. So I have to renew all contacts with new email addr. the thing is whether I use 'me' or 'newme' so keeping some recognition for established contacts.

If there's any chance I have to jump ship again some people mention either a maildrop supplier or getting my own domain name - me-at-either. Domain is best if a maildrop goes bust however for simplicity I'll call the new mail 'newmail'.

Either way it involves forwarding, the SMTP and anti-spam policy of new ISP. This is the sticky point. What actual email address and in/out settings in my mail client?


With new (or newer) ISP I get 'newme-at-next.isp', for simple typing - ispmail.
And I set up a maildrop or domain 'me-at-either' - newmail.

Perhaps I don't need the 'ispmail' at all, maybe for info/problem contact direct to me, I can receive any POP3 without an ISP mail but sending SMTP with a different 'at-name'?

I let all contacts and any new know that my email is: 'newmail', from now on this stays . correct?

I obviously want emails I send/rcv to have the address 'newmail' so what goes in my email client and its send/rcv settings?

What gets forwarded, the 'newmail' server to the 'ispmail' server for rcv and the reverse for send?

If the above is correct, any further ISP change only involves changing in forwarding at respective servers and the send/rcv in mail client (if rcv isn'tdirect from newmail) and the message area of mail client still keeps the 'newmail' settings, correct?

That's a lot of stuff that managed to confuse me . But not bad as it is a confusing subject.

Let's try and put it simply.

Let's exclude googlemail or similar freebies, they warrant separate discussion.

I have a domain, for example mydomain.co.uk or mydomain.me.uk. From now on I shall use the second of those.

That gives me email addresses of AnthingAtAll@mydomain.me.uk, such as [email protected] and john@... and bananaseller@....

To access those I normally use Outlook Express. With Purple Cloud I can actually set my POP3 and SMTP servers to mail.mydomain.me.uk and smtp.mydomain.me.uk. I could also put the Purple Cloud POP3 and SMTP addresses in there but I prefer this way.

Some ISPs prevent you using the normal (default) port 25 for SMTP if you don't use the ISP's own SMTP server. Decent external suppliers such as mine listen on at least one other alternative port as well. So when I was with Newnet port 25 for SMTP was fine, now I am with O2 I had to alter just that setting. If I went back to Newnet I wouldn't need to change it back.

The domain costs me £7.50, (£7.34 with lower vat), every two years. The email to go with it costs me £9.79 per year.

Forwarding means you don't need the email service, just the domain. Then you set the domain to forward emails with domain-type address like above to your ISP's email service. You then access and send from that as normal, and set a couple of fields in your email client to make outgoing look like it has been sent from your domain address. I don't like that method as you are then relying on two email systems both working instead of one, and you do have to change the forwarding setting of your domain, and all your email clients settings if you migrate. Also anyone inspecting the headers can easily see your ISP email address.

Spam is handled for me by Spam Assassin on Purple Cloud's servers, and I have full control of that.

I'm not sure what you mean by a maildrop.

I hope that helps a bit.

sorry, circumstances kept comms outofreach!

In effect, Purple Cloud seems to provide both what I described, a maildrop or mailservice via them (somename-at-pcloud.com) and an own domain with associated mail (somename-at-mydomain.co.uk). The latter is what you have.

So with using your won domain, your mail client uses that domain's send/rcv servers and its only involvement with your ISP for any send/rcv is therefore with the ISP's DNS routing it straight there, yes?

If I didn't want my own domain, only the mail service then am I right in thinking that the mail client is set with P-C's own send/rcv servers and again it's relayed straight out to P-Cloud?

The 2 points I had been stuck on were that P-Cloud's own docs about doing email with either method I found somewhat unclear wrt forwarding and the matter of the ISP's POP3/SMTP ports. Your sentence:

>>
Some ISPs prevent you using the normal (default) port 25 for SMTP if you don't use the ISP's own SMTP server. Decent external suppliers such as mine listen on at least one other alternative port as well. So when I was with Newnet port 25 for SMTP was fine, now I am with O2 I had to alter just that setting. If I went back to Newnet I wouldn't need to change it back.
>>

this stil clouds (oops) the issue, as I take it that port numbers are really 'linked' with the native ISP.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

So with using your won domain, your mail client uses that domain's send/rcv servers and its only involvement with your ISP for any send/rcv is therefore with the ISP's DNS routing it straight there, yes?

Yes, in that it doesn't touch the ISP's mail service at all. It does of course go via the ISP's internet servers/routing just like browsing does.

If I didn't want my own domain, only the mail service then am I right in thinking that the mail client is set with P-C's own send/rcv servers and again it's relayed straight out to P-Cloud?

I don't actually know but it certainly looks that way. After all, they are just giving you a free sub-domain so it should work just the same.

The 2 points I had been stuck on were that P-Cloud's own docs about doing email with either method I found somewhat unclear wrt forwarding and the matter of the ISP's POP3/SMTP ports. Your sentence:

>>
Some ISPs prevent you using the normal (default) port 25 for SMTP if you don't use the ISP's own SMTP server. Decent external suppliers such as mine listen on at least one other alternative port as well. ...
>>

this stil clouds (oops) the issue, as I take it that port numbers are really 'linked' with the native ISP.

Again, slightly out of my depth as I have never felt the need to investigate. However, in the two cases of own domain or P-C subdomain I thing the port question is just to do with the routing through the ISP's internet links. They are definitely nothing to do with the ISP mail service.

I listen on the default POP3 port 110 and send SMTP on port 587.

ok thanks for all the info