ISP for email forwarding from a domain?

[TheTravellers]

For decades, I've had a domain name at GoDaddy, with all email for it forwarded to a small ISP in Chicago (where we used to live) via a couple of MX records at GoDaddy that pointed to the ISP, and then we configured the ISP's email server as the SMTP server for outgoing in Thunderbird (the client both my wife and I use). Unfortunately, the owner has died and it's going to go away pretty soon, since he was the brains behind it all. Does anybody know of an ISP/email provider that still does that? All I need to do is get one email address from an ISP that supports IMAP and GoDaddy can forward all of the email for the domain to it, and then we use Tbird as the client to filter out the 4 email addresses into their own folders locally.

I can use GoDaddy's Workplace email, but I have absolutely no desire to pay a monthly fee to use MS365 (their new backend, apparently), but will if I have to.

Thanks for any help...

[BoulderSooner]

For decades, I've had a domain name at GoDaddy, with all email for it forwarded to a small ISP in Chicago (where we used to live) via a couple of MX records at GoDaddy that pointed to the ISP, and then we configured the ISP's email server as the SMTP server for outgoing in Thunderbird (the client both my wife and I use). Unfortunately, the owner has died and it's going to go away pretty soon, since he was the brains behind it all. Does anybody know of an ISP/email provider that still does that? All I need to do is get one email address from an ISP that supports IMAP and GoDaddy can forward all of the email for the domain to it, and then we use Tbird as the client to filter out the 4 email addresses into their own folders locally.

I can use GoDaddy's Workplace email, but I have absolutely no desire to pay a monthly fee to use MS365 (their new backend, apparently), but will if I have to.

Thanks for any help...

gmail should be able to work for you purposes

[TheTravellers]

gmail should be able to work for you purposes

Thanks, but not sure if it will. Since there's no actual email account or anything for my domain at GoDaddy except forwarding all email, I don't think gmail will let me send email as abc@domain.com because there's nothing backing domain.com that gmail can check or verify (and there's the whole SPF verification thing in addition to that). I'd need to use gmail servers as both incoming and outgoing and be able to use abc@domain.com (and def@ and ghi@ and jkl@) for the From: and Reply-To: email addresses.

[FighttheGoodFight]

I guess I am not understanding exactly how you had this setup. The domain you own with GoDaddy doesn't have these email accounts? Seems like a very roundabout way of doing all this.

If you need stmp (without all the extra security like Gmail) then we use smtp2go for work.


Also Apple does custom email domain integration now too. If you have any apple products. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

[BoulderSooner]

I guess I am not understanding exactly how you had this setup. The domain you own with GoDaddy doesn't have these email accounts? Seems like a very roundabout way of doing all this.

If you need stmp (without all the extra security like Gmail) then we use smtp2go for work.


Also Apple does custom email domain integration now too. If you have any apple products. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

i guess i am not understanding either

[TheTravellers]

I guess I am not understanding exactly how you had this setup. The domain you own with GoDaddy doesn't have these email accounts? Seems like a very roundabout way of doing all this.

If you need stmp (without all the extra security like Gmail) then we use smtp2go for work.


Also Apple does custom email domain integration now too. If you have any apple products. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

Yes, GoDaddy can let me have email accounts for them starting at $2/month per user for the first term, then they go to $5/month per user, and I just don't want to pay that unless I have to. GoDaddy forwards email that gets sent to mydomain.com to me@myrealemail.com and then Tbird on our laptops is set up for IMAP (keeping all email on the server) for me@myrealemail.com and separates it out into separate folders based on the From: header, and I can send mail from <whoever>@mydomain.com and it works because the MX and SPF records for mydomain.com point to myrealemail.com. I created this before GoDaddy started using Microsoft, and it was as easy as putting in me@myrealemail.com as the address to forward to, changing the MX and SPF (TXT, actually, I think, for that one) for the appropriate values for myrealemail.com. So I'm basically looking for another "myrealemail.com" type of ISP that I can just forward all my mail from my domain to, and it will let me receive all email from mydomain.com and send as <whoever>@mydomain.com.

We don't do Apple, so that's out. I'll check out smtp2go, thanks.

[Thomas Vu]

It sounds like a lot of what you were looking for was mostly software features that didn't require a registrar.

If I'm reading this correctly

You have the domain, *@${travellersdomain}.com, and mail routing with godaddy
Godaddy has mail rules set up where everything to your domain gets forwarded to your real email address which is from the chicago ISP
You sign into the chicago ISP email via thunderbird and have rules set up to separate the incoming email based on the "From" field

Is that right?

If so, gmail would absolutely work. Change the forwarding from the chicago ISP to google, create the account on google, and sign into that account from thunderbird.

https://paulonteri.com/thoughts/how-...ain-with-gmail

[BoulderSooner]

It sounds like a lot of what you were looking for was mostly software features that didn't require a registrar.

If I'm reading this correctly

You have the domain, *@${travellersdomain}.com, and mail routing with godaddy
Godaddy has mail rules set up where everything to your domain gets forwarded to your real email address which is from the chicago ISP
You sign into the chicago ISP email via thunderbird and have rules set up to separate the incoming email based on the "From" field

Is that right?

If so, gmail would absolutely work. Change the forwarding from the chicago ISP to google, create the account on google, and sign into that account from thunderbird.

https://paulonteri.com/thoughts/how-...ain-with-gmail

this is what i was thinking as well

[TheTravellers]

It sounds like a lot of what you were looking for was mostly software features that didn't require a registrar.

If I'm reading this correctly

You have the domain, *@${travellersdomain}.com, and mail routing with godaddy
Godaddy has mail rules set up where everything to your domain gets forwarded to your real email address which is from the chicago ISP
You sign into the chicago ISP email via thunderbird and have rules set up to separate the incoming email based on the "From" field

Is that right?

If so, gmail would absolutely work. Change the forwarding from the chicago ISP to google, create the account on google, and sign into that account from thunderbird.

https://paulonteri.com/thoughts/how-...ain-with-gmail

Yep, your summary is correct, thank you for breaking it down...

I figure gmail will work for receiving, and I believe I'll also have to change the MX and TXT records at GoDaddy from the Chicago ISP's to gmail's, so receiving is fine. But I'm not sure I'll be able to send emails that say "From: me@travellersdomain.com" when it's really from me@gmail.com (part of that is the TXT/SPF record), not sure if gmail allows that with a standard free account (which is what both me and my wife have). Guess I need to do some more reading, that link helps, thanks again.

[jerrywall]

With google you have to have G Suite (similar to 365) for custom domains with email.

[TheTravellers]

With google you have to have G Suite (similar to 365) for custom domains with email.

And that's the nail in the coffin, I wasn't sure I could do that with a standard free account (everything I read seemed to suggest G Suite was a prereq), thanks for the confirmation.

[BoulderSooner]

And that's the nail in the coffin, I wasn't sure I could do that with a standard free account (everything I read seemed to suggest G Suite was a prereq), thanks for the confirmation.

i think it is like 12 bucks a month was your isp free?

[TheTravellers]

i think it is like 12 bucks a month was your isp free?

$100/year since all it was for me was email storage.

[stdennis]

You said you had MX records set up with godaddy correct?

That doesn't sound like go daddy forwards your emails. MX records just tell people what IP (or other domain) your emails will go too when they do a name look up. GoDaddy never gets the traffic for your emails except when the computer sending them asks which computer do these emails need to go to.

I think you will need an email provider, since you don't care about the web interface, there should be a bunch of smaller providers you can use or you could set up your own if you are tech savvy (VERY tech savvy since you most likely don't have a static ip address)

[stdennis]

https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/email/

They should provide what you want and I think the price is cheap based 9n a quick look

[TheTravellers]

You said you had MX records set up with godaddy correct?

That doesn't sound like go daddy forwards your emails. MX records just tell people what IP (or other domain) your emails will go too when they do a name look up. GoDaddy never gets the traffic for your emails except when the computer sending them asks which computer do these emails need to go to.

I think you will need an email provider, since you don't care about the web interface, there should be a bunch of smaller providers you can use or you could set up your own if you are tech savvy (VERY tech savvy since you most likely don't have a static ip address)

So the original setup (decades ago) was GoDaddy just forwarded emails sent to <anybody>@travellersdomain.com to me@myisp.com, the MX records were set to GoDaddy's servers (secureserver.net entries) and I used their SMTP server in Tbird for outgoing. Then a while back, GoDaddy and Microsoft got together to make GoDaddy Workplace email for a monthly subscription price. I had never used GoDaddy's actual email before that, all they did was just forward all email to my real email address, and I didn't want to pay GoDaddy for the functionality that I had somewhere else already, so I changed their SMTP server to myisp.com's SMTP server and left the MX records as is. Eventually email stopped getting forwarded, so I asked myisp.com's sys admin and he said that I had to change the MX records to zone3.myisp.com and zone6.myisp.com, so I did that and email started getting forwarded again.

TBH, I'm tech savvy, but I'm a UNIX sys admin and I have not dealt much with DNS, MX, etc., I'm mostly operating system stuff for internal servers at companies, so I'm not actually sure what happened inside GoDaddy to make things stop working and why the MX records made it start again when I think I shouldn't've had to change the MX records at GoDaddy, they should've just kept forwarding emails like they always had (it kind of makes sense that I had to change them, since the MX records were conflicting with the forwarding email address). It was a very frustrating time to get all the ducks lined up, when I don't think it should've been that hard or complex. Guess I need to learn more about MX records...

And yes, exactly, I just need an email provider that will accept forwarding from GoDaddy, that I can use IMAP with, and will let me send email from them as me@travellersdomain.com instead of me@myisp.com, so I'm on the hunt for a place like that, but have been unsuccessful so far. Ain't no way I'm going to try to set up my own mail server, done that before at a few companies, but I don't have the infrastructure or willingness here at home to do that (been in IT for 35 years and I try to turn IT off when I come home).

Thanks for your reply!

[stdennis]

Yeah I think namecheap would be a good option, I think it's like 15 bucks a year a user with 10 aliases. You should be able to set up forwarding and they offer smtp. Now I'm not sure if you have only a few addresses set up or a bunch. Im not sure if you have to set them all up or if you can do some kind of wild card but I'm sure someone there can let you know.

Just as a disclaimer I have never used namecheap for email, just domain name hosting.

[TheTravellers]

Yeah I think namecheap would be a good option, I think it's like 15 bucks a year a user with 10 aliases. You should be able to set up forwarding and they offer smtp. Now I'm not sure if you have only a few addresses set up or a bunch. Im not sure if you have to set them all up or if you can do some kind of wild card but I'm sure someone there can let you know.

Just as a disclaimer I have never used namecheap for email, just domain name hosting.

Thanks, I did see them in my search, I'll check them out further. And I only have 4 aliases (me, wife, both, and one for ordering stuff), so it shouldn't be too bad to set up if I go with them.

[fortpatches]

And that's the nail in the coffin, I wasn't sure I could do that with a standard free account (everything I read seemed to suggest G Suite was a prereq), thanks for the confirmation.

The free gmail account has a "Send Mail As" section in the settings that allows users to "Use Gmail to send from your other email addresses".

More info here:
Send emails from a different address or alias - Gmail Help (google.com)

Essentially, this would just replace OP setup for Thunderbird. It doesn't provide a mailserver, which is what I think they need.

[TheTravellers]

The free gmail account has a "Send Mail As" section in the settings that allows users to "Use Gmail to send from your other email addresses".

More info here:
Send emails from a different address or alias - Gmail Help (google.com)

Essentially, this would just replace OP setup for Thunderbird. It doesn't provide a mailserver, which is what I think they need.

Thanks, but that won't really work, because you have to add an external address you own (yahoo.com, cox.net, uco.edu, things like that), and have it send verification, and since travellersdomain.com doesn't have anything backing it, it can't get verified...

[Eep]

Ugh, IMAP.

That said, depending on your needs / desires, Proton is pretty great and they’re running an end of year sale. You can use custom domains on their paid plans.

Their company focus is on privacy and security, so you get secure email / calendar, VPN (that blocks ads/malware), a bit of storage on Proton Drive, etc. It’s a bit niche in focus, but to me that niche is very important. YMMV, but it’s not difficult to set up appropriate MX / SPF / DMARC / DKIM records in DNS for whatever provider you choose.

For decades, I've had a domain name at GoDaddy, with all email for it forwarded to a small ISP in Chicago (where we used to live) via a couple of MX records at GoDaddy that pointed to the ISP, and then we configured the ISP's email server as the SMTP server for outgoing in Thunderbird (the client both my wife and I use). Unfortunately, the owner has died and it's going to go away pretty soon, since he was the brains behind it all. Does anybody know of an ISP/email provider that still does that? All I need to do is get one email address from an ISP that supports IMAP and GoDaddy can forward all of the email for the domain to it, and then we use Tbird as the client to filter out the 4 email addresses into their own folders locally.

I can use GoDaddy's Workplace email, but I have absolutely no desire to pay a monthly fee to use MS365 (their new backend, apparently), but will if I have to.

Thanks for any help...

[TheTravellers]

Ugh, IMAP.

That said, depending on your needs / desires, Proton is pretty great and they’re running an end of year sale. You can use custom domains on their paid plans.

Their company focus is on privacy and security, so you get secure email / calendar, VPN (that blocks ads/malware), a bit of storage on Proton Drive, etc. It’s a bit niche in focus, but to me that niche is very important. YMMV, but it’s not difficult to set up appropriate MX / SPF / DMARC / DKIM records in DNS for whatever provider you choose.

Thx, I'll check Proton out too. What's out there that's better than IMAP?

[TheTravellers]

https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/email/

They should provide what you want and I think the price is cheap based 9n a quick look

This worked out extremely well, thank you! Started a transfer from GoDaddy (about $11) on Namecheap's site, went back and forth verifying things and auth codes, then after a few hours it was transferred. Set up Private Email with 3 mailboxes (I could've used Starter, with one mailbox and some aliases, but it only had 5GB of storage) in about 15 minutes, and set up IMAP in Thunderbird in about 5 minutes. Very highly recommended as far as user guides, and help goes, as well as ease of use.