Advice on moving from local to cloud-based e-mail, contacts, calendars

Involute · 05 Mar 2017

I'm currently on a Win 7 desktop. In a week or two I'll be upgrading to a Win 10 desktop. I also regularly use an iPhone and iPad. When I travel, I use a laptop that duplicates my desktop environment; I use SyncToy to maintain the file system. I use Outlook for POP3 e-mail, contacts, calendars, and notes. SyncToy copies the .pst back and forth between the desktop and laptop, and iTunes does an increasingly poor job of maintaining calendar and contacts integrity between Windows and iOS.

I'm going to use the Win 10 upgrade as an excuse to improve this situation, and I'm seeking advice on the best way to do it. It seems like creating a Google G Suite or Exchange Server account somewhere are the main options. Pros and cons? Other options? What are the offline experiences of both (e.g. how do you access G Suite contacts and calendars when offline?)? Thanks for input.

Samuria · 05 Mar 2017

Welcome to the forum. Google makes it very simple Gmail can collect email from other services or you can use Gmail it's self I use Thunderbird and that downloads Gmail to the PC for offline use, Google drive syncs files to any PC I use or I can use any device to access files which sync back when online

Involute · 05 Mar 2017

Thanks, Samuria. How do you access contacts and calendars when offline? How are they synced on PCs and iPhones?

telepro21 · 05 Mar 2017

Hello Involute-

Over the years, I have used Google Gmail and I have used Thunderbird and I have used MS Outlook, too. For the longest time I used Gmail. For my desktop, I used Thunderbird as my email client pulling email from several accounts. I really liked Thunderbird. In my work life, I have used Outlook forever.

As my personal needs began to expand with a need for a common platform for Contacts and Calendaring and Email, especially between family and friends, I settled on Outlook and have a personal subscription to MS Office 365. I have used this platform for three years now and do not see this changing.

Here's why: I have installed Outlook on all of my devices: PC, Laptop, iPhone 6s, Android LG G5 and my Amazon Fire HDX. I get email, contacts and calendaring in Outlook everywhere. The Outlook app is easy, intuitive and sleek.

My two cents, anyway.
:)

jimbo45 · 09 Mar 2017

Hi there

I have OUTLOOK in office 2016 -- I still can't find any email client that is as convenient to use as Outlook.

If you set the mail server(s) up as IMAP rather than POP3 you don't need to use any specific cloud hosting services and you can still use gmail with outlook if you need to.

Seems to be no trouble in keeping emails in sync across computers and mobile devices and for offline use you can simply copy mail from the imap folder(s) to local outlook ones.

I usually LOATHE webmail type of clients --slow and often riddled with ads. Outlook simple, fast and you can have as many accounts as you have mail servers both for receive and send.

Cheers
jimbo

lx07 · 09 Mar 2017

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

I have OUTLOOK in office 2016 -- I still can't find any email client that is as convenient to use as Outlook.

If you set the mail server(s) up as IMAP rather than POP3 you don't need to use any specific cloud hosting services and you can still use gmail with outlook if you need to.

Seems to be no trouble in keeping emails in sync across computers and mobile devices and for offline use you can simply copy mail from the imap folder(s) to local outlook ones.

I usually LOATHE webmail type of clients --slow and often riddled with ads. Outlook simple, fast and you can have as many accounts as you have mail servers both for receive and send.

Cheers
jimbo

I agree totally with this. If you can use IMAP not POP everything will be so much simpler. Gmail, Outlook.com and almost every email provider does IMAP these days. For the last decade anyway

Outlook is a excellent client - I use it - my only complaint is it doesn't do a consolidated inbox on Windows (or if it does I don't know how).

I use Outlook on Android and it works fine with gmail, work and MS accounts. It is better than the Windows version in some ways. I don't know how good the iPhone app is but it definitely exists Set up email in Outlook for iOS mobile app - Office Support

jimbo45 · 10 Mar 2017

Hi there @lx07

It's not quite "True" consolidation but say you have 3 email servers / accounts in Outlook the easiest solution is for email accounts 2 and 3 to be relayed to account 1's inbox. You probably need to set the email servers settings to do the relay -- I have accounts in UK , Belgium and Iceland and relay the UK and Belgian accounts to my primary one in Iceland -- no probs whatsoever. Outlook is still by far IMO the best and most flexible email client out there for handling multiple accounts.

For SENDING there's not a problem since when sending from outlook you can select which account to use of course.

Remember also if you use this method to eventually clear the inboxes of accounts 2 and 3 or set the server to automatically archive / delete after so many days.

The Android version is fine too -- much the best email client out there -- and I've tried loads in my time.

However what would be nice for people who haven't got access to Office 365 / Office 2007/2010/2016 would be for Ms to bring back Outlook Express again - it was a really brilliant simple email program which was included with Windows XP / W2K3 server and earlier.

Cheers
jimbo