flexible email provider

[stuck]

My ISP gives me a very flexible email service. It allows me to create as many email addresses as I want by simply changing what comes before the @ symbol. The bit after the @ symbol cannot be changed. Thus I have an address for myself in the style 'me@fixedText.ispName.com' and another one for my wife in the style 'her@fixedText.ispName.com'.

In addition, it allows me to set up an email address as either an 'alias' or as a 'mailbox'. Thus mail for me goes to one mailbox and mail for my wife goes to a different mailbox. I use MS Outlook as my mail client. Each 'mailbox' is added to Outlook as a separate account, which means the folder pane in Outlook has a set of In, Out, Sent, etc. folders for my mail and another set for my wife's mail.

I've a feeling that in coming months I will have to find an alternative mail provider. My initial searching suggests that most providers allow the creation of multiple addresses but all of those addresses would end up in one mailbox, meaning I'd have to rely on Rules in Outlook to separate messages out into folders for myself and my wife. While that would work, it is a lot less elegant than the set up I have at the moment.

Does anyone know of a mail provider that offers the sort of service I've already got?

Thanks,

Ken

[HansV]

Gmail (Google) and Outlook.com (Microsoft) let you create multiple email accounts, each with their own email address. Each account will have its own set of folders.

[stuck]

I suppose so but are not such accounts completely independent? My current arrangement gives me a single point of access to manage my many addresses. It's simple (unless you make a mistake, remember my recent 'confession' in the Test Area?).

Ken

[HansV]

You can add multiple Gmail and/or Outlook.com accounts to Outlook. Each will be displayed in the folder pane.

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[StuartR]

My email at names.co.uk allows this

[stuck]

Thanks Stuart. I'll take a look at names.co.uk. Meanwhile, this:
    https://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting
appears to be what (I think) I'm looking for.

Ken

[StuartR]

I looked at mythic beasts. It is much cheaper than my provider. I can't find detail of email things like SMTP and DKIM that would be important to me

[robertocm]

This perhaps?

SMTP2GO
www.smtp2go.com

Cited here:
https://inveigle.net/cmail

[BobH]

Ken, I'm currently working with Fastmail.com to do something similar. Fastmail sends mail as you described being that it sends all mail with whatever precedes the domain name (@fasmail.com in my case) to one address. I use Thunderbird and have set up rules to filter incoming email to the inbox set up for each addressee. I have not yet succeeded in making this all work as I want but am very near to getting it sorted.

I should add that Fastmail support has been fantastic, but it is support via exchanging email messages. They are in Australia and I'm in Texas which means that I get about one exchange per day due to time (and date) differences.

I'll report back when (if?) I get it all sorted.

The reason I wanted an independent email service provider was twofold: Gmail has limited the number of accounts I can associate with my phone number (and I don't really care for the Google business model nor fully trust them); and I want email addresses with domain names independent of my ISP allowing me to change ISP without a kerfuffle with email addys.

HTH

[stuck]

...have set up rules to filter incoming email to the inbox set up for each addressee...

It's having to use filters to separate out incoming mail that I want to avoid.

Ken

[jonwallace]

I purchased a domain and email package from 1&1 (now ionos) many moons ago. I don't actually use the domain for anything other than my email address, and the basic email package gives 5 email addresses and virtual addresses for a bit less than my netfl*x subscription.

My mail is collected happily by pop or imap by Thunderbird and there is a basic webmail functionality that I can access from phone or tablet if I feel the need.