1GB Mailbox Limit in 2021?

[#1]

I have been a loyal Plusnet user for over 20 years and have my own domain hosted purely for email. I run an aerial inspection and survey company and send and receive many emails every day, some with attachments that can be several MB. Every few months I have to archive my inbox and sent items to local folders on my Mac, however these are no longer available on my other devices which can be very inconvenient. Does Plusnet have any plans to increase the size, and to implement better security on the mail system? At the moment it doesn't comply with Cyber Essentials which we will need to attain at some point, it is already a requirement for some of our clients however I have got by saying "we are implementing it" which can't go on forever!

I would be happy to pay for a larger mailbox - my personal email is Apple iCloud and for 75p a month I get 200GB which is great value. 1GB for ALL mailboxes on the domain in 2021 is really not acceptable, many free email providers give far more storage. Storage is cheap these days, I think it's time Plusnet pulled itself into the 21st century! The broadband service is excellent, I have no complaints and get near-advertised upload and download speeds, but the ageing IMAP email service needs to be improved (some corporate networks no longer allow IMAP due to weak security).

I may have to move to another email service such as Microsoft 365, but I don't want to risk the downtime and potential loss of emails during the transition. As a business customer I expect a fit-for-purpose business email service and I feel we are not getting that at the moment, does Plusnet have any plans to improve the email service? At the moment it feels like an old system that is not really part of the core business and you have little interest in improving it.

[#2]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Email to Business

[#3]

Hi @RoryG 

I use Microsoft Office 365 Exchange hosting, which I am happy with. Doesn't cost too much either and I buy the Office 365 Office part too and just manage it through Outlook on my PC and Mac and my e-mails on my iPhone too as that will talk to an Exchange server (I guess all phones will do that now).

For the mail, I think I pay around £50 per year for 3 mailboxes through Exchange server and for the cost it is worth it. Spam filtering is good.

At least I think the size limit is 50Gb per mailbox so it is a lot better. Worth looking into.

[#4]

@RoryG 

Try Fastmail. Basic package £2/mth gives 2GB. Standard £3/mth gives 30GB. Wife and I have an account each with them for several years, excellent in every respect, good filtering, fast backup on only occasion I had a query. Rather surprised that anyone uses PN's clunky email for business.

[#5]

Just had a look @Longliner 

It is an Australian company, I assume? If I am looking at the right site?

Basic package is no good for the OP as they wish to use their own domains. Also, the e-mail clients are restricted - sounds like it might be webmail only and not even have POP3 access, IMAP and definitely not Exchange.

Standard, which is the minimum they'll need is showing as $5 per user per month? That is showing as 30Gb. Or professional at $9 for 100Gb.

Mind you not bad for the money. Mind you 'per user' I assume that actually means 'per mailbox'? so $9 AUD x 12 is $109 AUD. Using a quick Google, that is around £60 per year per mailbox.

Microsoft is cheaper, as I pay that for 3 mailboxes although I get 50Gb. I use my own domains with them as I have my MX records pointing to them.

[#6]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions, I think we'll move over to Microsoft 365, we already have a personal account so will just convert this to the business package then point our domain MX records at it. We have a permanent redirect from our Plusnet hosted webspace to our main website, we should be able to keep that in place. The other option is to move our email from the co.uk Plusnet domain to our .media VPS domain and point the mx records to that. That way we would still have the co.uk email and gradually run the changeover.

[#7]

Good luck @RoryG 

Let us know if we can be of any more help. Like anything, it is a bit stressful setting it up but very rewarding once you get it working how you want it to.

The only other thing I can suggest is initially change your MX so your new location is the priority one (lowest number I believe), but keep the old location as a lower priority (higher number). That way if there is a problem with the new location you'll still get it delivered. I might be talking rubbish here as I don't know loads about this.  

[#8]

@Alex 

Yes, Fastmail based in Oz. My needs are basic with no need/interest for domains etc. Mailboxes have a limit but I use Thunderbird on desktop PC so can easily store/backup many years of emails. Being ancient, no doubt ill-informed, and suspicious I don't trust the Cloud or the tales of spying/adware within 🙄 I'm glad OP has found a solution

[#9]

You could take a different perspective here - email is a messaging envoy not a storage repository. Used as a storage envoy is highly inefficient. Why not consider storing your attachments in cloud storage and then pass via email links to the objects?

Moderators Note: Correct typos

[#10]

My work involves sending and receiving a lot of attachments. When we send large files we use a subscription service called FileMail, similar to WeTransfer but better, I can also request large files from clients this way. I don't have control over regular attachments sent to me and it is these that increase the mailbox size, a site plan or images can be around 20MB and I get up to 10 of these in a week. I would like to keep a year's worth of email online and accessible on all my devices, currently I can only manage about two months max before getting those annoying emails from Plusnet. Given that we work on projects that last months, if not years, it's important to have essential communications at hand, I have more to do in life than juggle mail messages around. We're moving to Microsoft 365 next month so the problem will be solved!