I know this is not selfhosting, but I randomly replied about this a couple of weeks ago on a yet another email hosting post and today got my 4th DM asking about it.

iCloud+ (which is when you pay for iOS backup) includes custom domain hosting. I had no idea too. There are no hacks or undocumented stuff involved. I’ve been paying for the 50GB storage option because it’s only $1 a month and makes switching between iOS devices so easy and convenient. I have also been paying for mailbox.org for years. This year mailbox.org raised their prices from $1 to $3 a month and included a bunch of additional online meeting, docs, etc services that I have no use for. While I understand the need to keep up with inflation and everything, I’m a very light email user. I have maybe 700MBs in total in my email account, and send maybe a dozen emails a month. I started shopping around for a mailbox alternative when I learned that I could already cover this with my iCloud+ subscription (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201238) and my mind was blown.

I used to use fastmail before mailbox.org, and the process for updating DNS was always straightforward, but manual. You just go through their docs, copy/paste a couple of stuff, and you’re good. iCloud honestly took it to another level for me. It asked if I want an automated setup, I said sure, it asked for my domain, figured out it was from cloudflare, poped up a cloudflare SSO I’ve never seen before, then proposed a bunch of changes to my DNS records that I approved, and everything was done.

Anyway, just thought I’d post about this here in case anyone was interested. I searched this sub for iCloud, and didn’t find a similar post so excuse me if it’s a duplicate.

After getting tired of my three spam filled gmail accounts, along with an increased interest in privacy, I've decided to work on getting a better email setup elsewhere using a custom domain and email aliases.

After doing a bit of research, I've landed on either Fastmail or iCloud+ as the options I'm considering. I already have a custom domain and am just trying to decide where to ultimately go.

My main goal is to use aliases for my different accounts and only give my actual email address (which has my real name in it) to personal friends and family. The aliases will make it easier to cut out spam or quickly change things up in the event of a breach for that one account.

With iCloud it looks like I'm limited to three email addresses with my custom domain and then I would use Hide My Email to create a new alias for each account.

Fastmail seems to do this very well and I especially like that I can create all of my aliases with my custom domain so I can take everything with me in the event I change providers or Fastmail shuts down. Unfortunately Fastmail also costs $50/yr and I figured it was worth looking at iCloud given I'm already paying for iCloud+.

I'm just curious to hear how people like iCloud+ for email. I know lots of people have transitioned over from other providers. How was it? Do you regret moving to iCloud, if so why? I'm especially interested in anybody who chose between iCloud and Fastmail, or even better has used both products.

Thanks all!