thinking of changing up my email handling...tips?

[rscaramelo]

I have been using a custom domain for many years. I have one address for personal and another for work stuff. I have bounced between Google Workspace and Zoho for handling this. Everything goes to 1 inbox and I just pick which address to send emails from within it. It works ok. One problem is my domain is my last name and ends in .net. People mispell my last name and put a .com often even when I spell it out. It is annoying. The .com is owned by some Spanish company and I don't think will ever be available.
I am thinking of just getting a simple email from one of the big guys since everyone assumes email ends in gmail, outlook, yahoo, etc. I probably will slowly transition my personal stuff to this. I will still keep the domain of course, especially since my business email uses it.
Suggestions on a nice neat setup where I can access all this in one inbox but change up the "from" / alias? FYI: I have a love/hate relationship with gmail. I like google services but hate gmail's interface. I think because a want an easy .com it rules out my current situation because I use my primary own domain address to access Zoho and Google WS.
Thanks in advance.

[TenFour]

Well, obviously you can do all this from within Gmail quite easily. I use a Gmail address for many things, and I can easily connect any other email accounts via POP3 to be collected in my Gmail account, and I can send and receive as those other email addresses. You choose a default send-from address in settings, and all the others are available in a drop down when composing an email. There is a setting to automatically reply using the address the email was sent to. Purelymail is one cheap option ($10 per year) to handle multiple domain email addresses at multiple domains.

Or, maybe you want to go another way and just get a Gmail or other free address and have it forwarded to your domain email. I have found Gmail and Outlook email forwarding is quite reliable.

There are several important advantages to using Gmail as your main address. Nobody blocks them, so deliverability is great. Their search works well to find any old email quickly. Their service is very reliable and doesn't get knocked off by denial of service attacks.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by TenFour

There are several important advantages to using Gmail as your main address..

I see one (slight) disadvantage of Gmail for incoming mail. Their spam filer is a tad too aggressive for my liking. This can easily be overruled with filters, but it means some training work.

[rscaramelo]

Originally Posted by janusz

I see one (slight) disadvantage of Gmail for incoming mail. Their spam filer is a tad too aggressive for my liking. This can easily be overruled with filters, but it means some training work.

I tend to agree. Also I just don't love the Gmail interface but that is more of an esthetics thing. I would love to use outlook but they have made a mess of things the past couple years for people using their own domain.

[TenFour]

Their spam filer is a tad too aggressive for my liking.

I've found the Gmail Spam filter very good, but occasionally misses an email that should go in Spam. Very rarely does something get labeled Spam that isn't. One thing I do is regularly review my Spam folder and delete everything that is Spam, so when new ones arrive the Spam folder label goes bold and I can see there's a new email there to check. Probably check it once a day.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by TenFour

... Probably check it once a day.

That's the main drawback to this scheme: the spam isn't forwarded, so one needs to go to the Gmail account to check for false positives. And spam filtering that delivers spam to spam folders rather than blocking it's delivery tend to be more aggressive since it is assumed that the user checks the spam for false positives and reports any mistake (marking as "spam" or "not spam"). That's another drawback of filtering and then forwarding: there is n feedback to the spam filtering algorithm. A better way is if the forwarding service marks spam and forwards everything, and then the final destination client can use this marking of spam for final spam filtering, and best if it has some method of reporting mistakes in the classification of spam (and "learns" from this feedback).
When email is used for work false positives can represent loss of business.

[TenFour]

That's the main drawback to this scheme: the spam isn't forwarded, so one needs to go to the Gmail account to check for false positives.

Sure, but if you use the Gmail account as your main interface it is right there and very easy to check. I suppose it varies a lot, but I get maybe one or two false positives each month. With Outlook.com I get more than that each day. With most other email services I get too many false negatives--spam and phishing showing up in my Inbox. For me Gmail's spam and phishing filters have been the best I have tried.

[rscaramelo]

Originally Posted by TenFour

Sure, but if you use the Gmail account as your main interface it is right there and very easy to check. I suppose it varies a lot, but I get maybe one or two false positives each month. With Outlook.com I get more than that each day. With most other email services I get too many false negatives--spam and phishing showing up in my Inbox. For me Gmail's spam and phishing filters have been the best I have tried.

Are you using regular or Workspace for this? Not sure if it makes a difference.

[TenFour]

Are you using regular or Workspace for this? Not sure if it makes a difference.

Currently I am just using my free Gmail account, but I have used Workspace also. I forward some domain email addresses to Gmail and others I have set up so I can pull them into Gmail via POP3 and also send. My business use is just my personal freelancing I do. Frankly, for most business use it is better to go with Workspace if for no other reason than being able to access real customer service when something goes wrong, and for the additional storage. Plus, you can then have your own domain email managed by Google.

[SideshowBob]

Unless you want to use gmail for everything, I'd just get a second domain IIWY.

[markwolk]

If you are a 1-person company, maybe you could register firstnamefamilyname . com and transition to it (whilst always keeping familyname . net ) ?

[rscaramelo]

Originally Posted by markwolk

If you are a 1-person company, maybe you could register firstnamefamilyname . com and transition to it (whilst always keeping familyname . net ) ?

I was thinking about something like that but I then would need to decide if I access it via my domain provider or use another service like a gmail. I just don't love gmail. I am leaning towards zoho. The 2 that I would like to use (iCloud and outlook) have issues that preclude me from using them.