iCloud and Mail

After 20 years of using a web based e-mail account, the site is folding and I have to get a new account. The #1 criteria is no ads. So, gmail is out. I'm looking at Outlook.com and iCloud.

I see that I set up an iCloud e-mail account in System Preferences. Doing that will give me an iCloud.com address.

Do I have the choice of reading/sending e-mail in Safari, or will I have to open Mail?

I've read reviews online, but any pros and cons anyone can offer will be appreciated.

You can use Safari to go to iCloud.com and read/send/manage mail from there. But it is a lot easier to just use Mail, IMHO.

Outlook also had ads. It also has rather strange junk mail detection whereby it will identify much of your 'proper' mail as Junk no matter how often you tell it that items are not junk and even moving mail from Junk to your inbox is not guaranteed to work as the mail will jump back to Junk. Even adding senders in your contact list won't prevent it. To top it all some of the most obvious Junk mail goes into your inbox.

Thanks for the replies. The first reviews I read were old, but a quick search just now revealed the introduction of ads on Outlook.com just months after that review was written.

What makes Mail easier to use than Safari for e-mail?

Also, what about on an iPhone? Is Mail easier there as well? Is trying to manage it with Safari a headache?

Doesn't System Preferences automatically set up your iCloud.com address in Mail using IMAP? Not that you would have to use it, but, some websites default to Mail when you want to Contact the customer service staff. I've always worked around that; never tried to set up our e-mail in Mail, although it is possible.

@toMACsh

With your very considerable experience, it humbles me even to offer some advice:

In my view, Apple's Mail app is sound and reliable and I would always prefer Mail to handle all my accounts rather than use Safari or other browser to gain access to a particular Website.

The obvious candidate for a new account is @iCloud.com which sets up your account within Mail by default - and yes, it is IMAP only. It is incredibly easy to set up.

Should you wish to, access to the iCloud website is very easy and can be achieved via System Preferences > iCloud - or via Safari > https://www.icloud.com (Apple ID needed in all cases).

An iCloud account can be used with 2FA if that is something you are interested in; and notwithstanding some of the problems people have experienced with Apple's 2FA.

What makes Mail easier to use than Safari for e-mail?

Click to expand...

Everything is delivered straight into your Mail app Inbox, instead of having to go and seek it. You can use an excellent Spam Filter app like SpamSieve (pay for); you can easily set up rules which can: send mail straight to Trash, put mail into any Mailbox of your choosing etc.

You can also set up business or personal signatures within Mail.

These are some of my humble offerings.

Ian

EDIT

Here are couple of Links which might help:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22315?viewlocale=en_MK&locale=en_MK
http://macinspires.com/blog/2013/05/the-benefits-of-apple-mail/

Thank you, Ian.

Now, does anyone know how to import addresses/contacts into my new account while in Mail? I looked briefly, and have to get back to it, but if someone already did this, that would make it easy. I exported them to a .csv file.

I don't understand how gmail has ads? I've been using it for as long as I can remember, and there are no ads in my browser view.

I also use my Gmail accounts integrated directly into my iPhone, my Mac, my iMac, and my iPad in the "Mail" application. Again, no ads anywhere.

I wouldn't try and use a web-based interface on a mobile device - not even on my iPad Pro 12.9". Tying it directly into the mail application is just so much easier.

Good to know, Ember. Thank you. I will want to access it in a browser on other computers. But that's a task for another week.

Contacts are my focus now.

I see in iCloud Help that I can import contacts from a vCard. It tells me what that stands for (v=virtual) but does not tell me how I would create that. I must search for a method of converting a .csv file into vCard format. Wish me luck, or better yet, if anyone has done this and can remember how you did it...

P.S. One of the "cons" most reviews of gmail cite is that Google "mines" information from your e-mail in order to target ads to your "tastes". I guess I assumed those ads would then show up alongside your e-mails, but maybe they show up as e-mail messages. (??)

toMACsh said:

Good to know, Ember. Thank you. I will want to access it in a browser on other computers. But that's a task for another week.

Contacts are my focus now.

I see in iCloud Help that I can import contacts from a vCard. It tells me what that stands for (v=virtual) but does not tell me how I would create that. I must search for a method of converting a .csv file into vCard format. Wish me luck, or better yet, if anyone has done this and can remember how you did it...

P.S. One of the "cons" most reviews of gmail cite is that Google "mines" information from your e-mail in order to target ads to your "tastes". I guess I assumed those ads would then show up alongside your e-mails, but maybe they show up as e-mail messages. (??)

Click to expand...

Neither, I believe... I believe the advertising stuff is shown when you do a Google search.

I keep all of my Contacts in Google, too. They are sync'ed to all devices as well.

One way to get from csv to vCard would be to use your Mini, with Contacts, to import the CSV file into contacts and then export from there to vCard format for Mail/iCloud. But even better, once you import them to Contacts, the Mail app will be able to use the contacts for email addresses directly.

Forgot to add that Google can import CSV files into your contacts.

@toMACsh

CSV to vCard:

You might give this app from the App Store a try: https://www.subclassed.com/apps/importer-for-contacts/convert-excel-and-csv-files-to-vcards-mac

And this article might help: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/solution-for-how-to-convert-csv-file-to-vcard-format-easily

Ian

Hey! Even easier, upon a second look, I had the option to export in vCard format! First time, I didn't know about vCard but had heard of .csv
All done, imported, ready to roll.

Sounds like you're in decent shape, toMACsh (very clever name, btw).

I use Gmail for my email and store my contacts in Google as well. I'm also a user of Google Voice. So, this setup gets me about the best overall integration of information that I could ask for. Google contacts are sync'ed to all of my devices, including my MBA and iMac, and any device with a native email client (all of them... ) has those accounts set up as well. I do NOT use mail or contacts through iCloud at all.

At any time, I can launch a web browser to access my email from any device and everything is available to me, including contact information.

Unless you count Hotmail, I've not been using Web based mail readers for 20 years like OP, because in the interim I moved them all to the Mail app (around 2005). I have about 7 Gmail accounts (G Suite for Education, G Suite - for Business, G Suite - for non-profits, Google Apps - free grandfathered from long ago, 2 different public Gmail accounts - due to different activities and one general purpose Gmail account), one iCloud account (from the .mac days), now the G Suite ones work best with selecting "Exchange" as the type of account. I also have my original Hotmail account and two Outlook.com accounts (needed that for two subscriptions of Office 365 Home - we have 8 PCs/Macs so this is actually really good for us). Everything is in the Mail apps of my Mac, iPad and iPhone. Sometimes 2-Step Verification gets in the way of the Outlook.com ones since there is no easy way to enter in the OTP (one time password - or authentication code). It takes a lot of tries to get that right. The biggest advantage is that sometimes I get community service emails into my iCloud email but one of the public Gmail accounts is just for that. In the Mail app, it's real easy to move from the iCloud account to a folder (ok, technically "label") in my community service Gmail account, by just dragging and dropping. Additionally, even if within (outside works as above), the Mail app in MacOS and iOS "remembers" where you've filed some email (it looks like 3 saves causes it to offer up the last save). Right click oh the mail and if you want to file, in the Mac app, there is a choice "move to <mailbox name>" and on iOS, it comes up in the file to folder option.

For Web based access, iCloud.com is usually what I use. It won't have all the different accounts available, like the Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook.com. Gmail (G Suite and Public) and Outlook.com have a few more features in the Web version (like out of Office notices, auto forward, etc.) Rather, both the Mail app and the Web versions are complimentary. I'd like to offer up that 2-Step Verification or better yet, 2-Factor Authentication when available (I even use it on Evernote, Amazon, cloud based storage, any where possible, I've enabled it. Now I know that 2SV and 2FA are not end-all-be-all totally secure, but at least in the basic sense, you'll at least be aware that someone is attempting to access your account and have your password, where you can change it before they do.

Google does NOT support the ActiveSync connection any longer (The "Exchange" one you are talking about), at least for the free accounts, as it costs them money (they had to license it from Micro$oft). Even those that are currently using that connector will lose it when they change out their device.

I specifically said for the G Suite version previously known as Google Apps for Work (previously Business), for Education, for Non Profits, etc.. I never said to use the "Exchange" setting on the public Gmail. Particularly G Suite (Google Apps for Work nee. Google Apps for Business), which is paid for service and you own the domain(s), not Google and you have to maintain that yourself, including the MX record.

No, G Suite still supports Google Sync. see: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/138740 and under there is "Add an Exchange account to your device". For Android this is not necessary. If you are a paid for service, like G Suite, Google Sync is still active and you can still add new devices. So, part of your fee is paid to MS.

What does this mean?? Which site is folding?
Gmail is out? Does this mean need to create a new email address to replace gmail???
I have all my emails in gmail.

lori5060 said:

What does this mean?? Which site is folding?
Gmail is out? Does this mean need to create a new email address to replace gmail???
I have all my emails in gmail.

Click to expand...

No, gmail is still up and running. That's not what the thread is about. You can keep using your gmail address.

Chicago
Thanks for yr reply.
guess I should not be reading new posts. Bring a relatively newbie, don't understand many things of Apple.