So You Want To Pick An Email Provider?

There are so many email providers out there that it can be difficult to figure out which one will best suit your needs. Here are some of the major factors to consider.

1) Usage: This is generally divided into commercial and non-commercial usage. If you’re simply looking for a personal email address then you won’t need to shell out a dime. You can, of course, pay for upgraded plans if you so desire.

Businesses should ideally have an email address that reflects either the business or domain name. These commercial accounts are usually more secure and feature-driven than personal email accounts. However, the choice is ultimately yours.

2) Availability: Pick a name…any name. Now try to sign up for a Hotmail or Yahoo email account with that name. Chances are if you can think it, it’s been taken. You have a higher probability of getting a short, easy to remember email address from a smaller, lesser known email provider. If you really want to open an email account with one of the larger providers, your best bet is a combination of letters and numbers.

3) Space: I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm constantly in contact with freelancing services and clients. I write fiction and always get feedback from readers. I also volunteer as a beta reader so I regularly receive new chapters from authors. I can never seem to find the time to delete all the old emails so they keep piling up. Why am I telling you this? Because I'm using a whopping 2% of my 1GB+ limit.

In the land of email accounts, size does not necessarily matter. Unless you plan on using the same email address for the rest of your life while never deleting a message, or you’re actually certain that you will have use for the space, don’t limit yourself to a huge inbox. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign up if you want to, but you’ll probably be fine with an inbox between say 100MB and 250 MB.

4) Security Tools: There are a lot of bad things out there and most of them find their way into your email. I'm not even going to tell what’s been popping up in my junk mail recently. If you’re considering an email provider that doesn’t supply the following, we have one word for you…don’t.

Anti-virus: No self-respecting email account should be without this. If you know that you’re going to be downloading anything at all from your emails, look for an email provider that offers scans using some of the more reliable programs such as Norton or McAfee (please note that this is not a substitute for having your own antivirus installed).

Anti-spam: Users of Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are well acquainted with errant spam creeping into their inbox from time to time. Sigh...anti-spam software rarely seems to be 100% effective, but some protection is better than none.

If you have an absolute zero tolerance for spam, you might want to consider paying for a service such as that offered by Bluebottle. In this sender verification system, only emails from senders who are on you’re allowed list make it to your inbox. Anyone else receives a confirmation message that must be clicked on before the email is allowed. This eliminates the possibility of automated spam getting in.

5) Filters: Yes, sending spam to the bulk folder is a sort of filtering but that’s not quite what I'm talking about. What I mean is that you should have the ability to create folders and send relevant new emails there automatically. This saves time, especially if you receive a lot of emails.

6) Attachments: It is important to remember that not all personal email accounts allow attachments. There are two things to take into consideration: both the total size and the number of files you can send through your email. You’ll need to find a balance between the two. It doesn’t make sense being able to send unlimited files with a size limit of 2 kb per file, now does it?

So, taking all these factors into consideration, which email provider would I recommend?

Yahoo Mail has recently introduced some new mail domains, such as ymail.com, so the unavailability issue may have eased up a bit. Still, there is the question of spam. Nevertheless, it continues to be one of the strongest candidates. Another good email provider is Hush Mail. In terms of paid services, Bluebottle wins hands down...so far. All email providers have their advantages and disadvantages so I'll leave it up to you to choose the one that's perfect for you. I hope that this information has been useful to you.