Over the last two years I have noticed that many of our customers have email accounts from their internet providers. To me this is concerning…what happens when you change providers? You lose your email account after a time, or in some cases immediately, as they are no longer your provider and you are no longer paying for their services, which includes that email account. Unlike the myriad of free email providers, your internet provider gives you an account as part of your service package, rather than as a stand-alone service.
There are a number of great free email providers including Gmail, iCloud, and Yahoo. I personally use Gmail because of the number of other services included. Gmail accounts come with 15 GB of free cloud storage. The other major feature is the apps you can access through Google Drive. Google Drive apps include a word processing app, a spreadsheet app, presentation app, and many more.
iCloud email provides many of the same features as Gmail and is also connected to your Apple ID. Some of the included services that can be accessed via your Apple ID are contacts, iCloud drive (cloud storage), calendar, look for missing Apple devices using Find my iPhone, and iCloud Photo Library.
When you are looking for a new email provider I highly suggest looking at free email providers not your internet provider. If you are concerned about missing emails, most providers allow you to set up forwarding so that emails to your old address get forwarded automatically to the new one. If you need any help getting this set up (email routing can get confusing, especially when multiple devices are involved), please email us at consulting@smalldog.com or give us a call at 1-800-511-MACS and dial extension 515 for consulting.