Migration to Greenby

[#1]

As I finally migrated today, I tried to post a writeup of my experience to share but I think it was too long and got lost when I tried to post it. 

Short version is everything seemed to have worked OK for me. All my mailboxes seemed to be set up correctly and my phone (IMAP) and desktop (Thunderbird POP) seem to still connect OK. I did not change any settings. As I download my email every night or so, my mailboxes are pretty empty but I had some sent items, which appear to be present. 

Only blip was when I was logging into Greenby.com for the first time, after entering my personal details and address and clicking save, it went to a blank screen. I had read about this on the forum though so after waiting for a minute or two, I refreshed the webpage and it brought up the Greenby dashboard. I had a look around but other than turning the spam setting to 10 (least sensitive) I decided to leave everything alone for now. 

So... I think it went without a hitch for me. Probably helped that I started on Plusnet (not migrated) and my mailboxes were pretty near the default setup. Still need to test sending emails and that ongoing issue of being blocked by Hotmail/Outlook is a PITA. 

[#2]

At least given it has worked intially you will not go down the rabbit hole of changing stuff in the hope it makes it *start* working.

Just expect intermittent failures and whatever you do, don't go changing passwords if your mail software suggests it.

The mail software is guessing why there might be no response from Greenby, and does not report 'your provider is useless' as the primary option

[#3]

I think I spoke too soon because while incoming email seems to work, something is wrong with sending. It is hard for me to be sure if this is due to Greenby, because I don't actually send much out via my Plusnet account. I tried to look up the Plusnet webpage again but it looks like they have deleted all useful info (well, everything...). 

My outgoing email server settings on Thunderbird are: 

Server name = relay.plus.net

Port = 587 (I had this set to 20 until very recently)

Connection security = STARTLS

Authentication method = Normal password

User name = <Plusnet account name> (by itself). 

Does that look correct? Or is the user name suppose to be <account>+<mailbox> or an email address <mailbox>@<account>.plus.com. instead? 

I don't get an errors. I send emails out but it is never received. 

[Edit: I changed my user name to <account> + <mailbox name> and that seemed to have worked. I was able to 'reply' to a test email I sent from my Gmail account it received it back. 

It is problematic that there were no error messages on the earlier emails that were not received.]

[#4]

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@SimonC1 wrote:

I think I spoke too soon because while incoming email seems to work, something is wrong with sending. It is hard for me to be sure if this is due to Greenby, because I don't actually send much out via my Plusnet account. I tried to look up the Plusnet webpage again but it looks like they have deleted all useful info (well, everything...). 

My outgoing email server settings on Thunderbird are: 

Server name = relay.plus.net

Port = 587 (I had this set to 20 until very recently)

Connection security = STARTLS

Authentication method = Normal password

User name = <Plusnet account name> (by itself). 

Does that look correct? 

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Those are my settings for Thunderbird, except that I have 

Authentication method = no authentication

I am on a plusnet connection (although not the one for the username !)

[#5]

Log on to greenby and make sure your email address is the same as the one you are using. On one account according to greenby.com my email address was different so I just created an alias in greenby's webmail app and it's been working ever since. The other one I had to change my thunderbird User Name: in Server Setting to my full email address. It makes no sense as I use Thunderbird on 2 pc's and one my account name is my username and on the other it is my email address, same account but both work?  

[#6]

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@mwwagain wrote:

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Those are my settings for Thunderbird, except that I have 

Authentication method = no authentication

I am on a plusnet connection (although not the one for the username !)

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I had authentication method = no authentication for many years too, as I am also using Thunderbird on a Plusnet connection. I changed it in December though after I got notice about the migration, since I wasn't sure if that will still work for Greenby, and I think having authentication is probably just a bit safer. 

I think this was possibly where I went wrong because after setting it to authenticate, I didn't change my outgoing user to <account>+<mailbox> (it was just <account> before and wrong but probably didn't matter for no authentication. I don't send often so just haven't noticed it was borked. I primarily use my Plusnet email for receiving important stuff and don't send often nowadays, but it is so important for it to work when I need to to use it and having it fail with no message was quite disconcerting. 

Log on to greenby and make sure your email address is the same as the one you are using. On one account according to greenby.com my email address was different so I just created an alias in greenby's webmail app and it's been working ever since. The other one I had to change my thunderbird User Name: in Server Setting to my full email address. It makes no sense as I use Thunderbird on 2 pc's and one my account name is my username and on the other it is my email address, same account but both work?  

Thanks for the warning. I did go check my mailboxes are correct since I read about that too. It looked right, and I double-checked by sending an email to myself from another account to make sure it was still receiving. That is really my biggest worry; that I miss any important incoming mail. 

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Thank you everyone for your help and advice. It's all been very helpful and reassuring, since official information is so sparse and confusing, and so far Greenby's performance had been less than great. 

Simon

[#7]

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@mwwagain wrote:

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Those are my settings for Thunderbird, except that I have 

Authentication method = no authentication

I am on a plusnet connection (although not the one for the username !)

---

I had authentication method = no authentication for many years too, as I am also using Thunderbird on a Plusnet connection. I changed it in December though after I got notice about the migration, since I wasn't sure if that will still work for Greenby, and I think having authentication is probably just a bit safer. 

I think this was possibly where I went wrong because after setting it to authenticate, I didn't change my outgoing user to <account>+<mailbox> (it was just <account> before and wrong but probably didn't matter for no authentication. I don't send often so just haven't noticed it was borked. I primarily use my Plusnet email for receiving important stuff and don't send often nowadays, but it is so important for it to work when I need to to use it and having it fail with no message was quite disconcerting. 

Log on to greenby and make sure your email address is the same as the one you are using. On one account according to greenby.com my email address was different so I just created an alias in greenby's webmail app and it's been working ever since. The other one I had to change my thunderbird User Name: in Server Setting to my full email address. It makes no sense as I use Thunderbird on 2 pc's and one my account name is my username and on the other it is my email address, same account but both work?  

Thanks for the warning. I did go check my mailboxes are correct since I read about that too. It looked right, and I double-checked by sending an email to myself from another account to make sure it was still receiving. That is really my biggest worry; that I miss any important incoming mail. 

-

Thank you everyone for your help and advice. It's all been very helpful and reassuring, since official information is so sparse and confusing, and so far Greenby's performance had been less than great. 

Simon

[#8]

Brief addendum - I just received the multiple test emails I sent when I was fiddling with with the Thunderbird Outgoing server. This was when I tested sending and when I didn't receive it on my Gmail, I fiddled with the settings and tried again until it worked. 

I am guessing that they didn't simply disappear but went somewhere for a while before they went out. Or maybe got held up somewhere? Very strange. It probably meant my original attempts using <account> wasn't entirely wrong. I think I will leave things alone to how I ended up though with <account>+<mailbox> combo, since that appeared to actually got sent-and-received immediately. 

So confusing

Simon

[#9]

Update:

I couldn't get email today in thunderbird so login into Greenby and went Mail, no mailboxes! I created a ticket and it's up and running again.

On a Force9 account it too stopped today and was my first to get changed over Nov 25, so I logged on to Greeby.com and faced with   To access your mailbox you will need to upgrade your mailbox.... Upgrading cost.... 

So I could still get to ticket and typed

I am a plusnet customer although I have a force9 account as well.
I have had no email from Greenby since the 18/11/25 welcome to Greenby with exception on Ticket created emails.
I tried to login to Greenby again today and I can but I faced with pay £15 to read your emails.

I was under the impression Plusnet customer

Free for 2 Years, Then Just £15 Per Year. Your Greenby email service is free for 2 years. After that, an annual fee of £15 (including VAT) applies to continue using the service. During the free period, you’ll have full access to your email and all of Greenby's great features. We've also increased your mailbox size from 1GB to 2GB. If you ever need more space, upgrades are available.

And if that wasn't the case surely you should give us 30 days notice that you were stopping it so we could contact people with a new address! It's been 4 months since you took over so this seems like a fair assumption.

Every time I pressed create it came back with OOPS something went wrong!

[#10]

3 or 4 times now I've started thunderbird up and I 100-300 emails I already have from over the last months arrive, Luckily I thought to listing by unread and delete them before I had doubles most of my emails but not all of them.

I said this before, it's worth loging into greenby and checking what's in the junk folder I had 14 emails I wanted in there this week, even though I added the email address and the subject to the whitelist so they should always be redirected to the inbox   

[#11]

Doesn't help you (handfordjeffes) with your random mailbox disappearing but one of the first things I tried to look for is confirmation n when things expire and I found it under Billing -> Services. I found I had a webdomain that I forgot existed (I used it once upon a time for a hobby thing) with an end in 2027,  and my email with an end date of 2028. 

For people with multiple mailboxes or domains etc, I think it is definitely worth having a look in that section to double-check exactly what Greenby had set up and the end dates etc. And possibly take a screenshot of that for your records. 

Hope you can get on top of your problems. 

[#12]

Today my emails are working again on Thunderbird but if I go to Greenby and login I get the you must pay, so if I click on Account settings it takes me to the support page? 

If I click "Questions? Contact our Support Team" it takes me to my support page, if I then click billing, I can find how to add a credit card which tells me to click Billing, if I click billing I go to the welcome screen??!!