I was going to use iCloud email

I’m getting sick of Gmail, and it’s only for one reason: it doesn’t like to delete things. Whenever I come across an application for email, I have to test of Gmail actually deletes when the app tells it to delete. Sometimes, when Gmail gets a request to delete a message, it just archives it. I like the idea of archiving, it’s so much easier than having to put everything in to folders. I just have this weird thing, when I hit delete, I mean delete, not archive.

Here is a quick look at how each client I use behaves when I click Delete.
Outlook – Delete
Apple Mail – Archive
Gmail on iPhone Mail – Delete (there is a setting asking you if you want to use archiving, I leave it as deleting)
Gmail (as Exchange) on iPhone Mail – Archive

That last one is important, because that is the only way to get push mail to work for Gmail on the iPhone. I’d also like Apple Mail to work. For the next few months I still need to use Outlook for school, so I’ll have it open a lot. Once that is gone, I’ll hopefully be rid of Outlook.

I looked around for which services offer push mail on the iPhone. All I could really find was Yahoo! and iCloud. I’m not going to use Yahoo! Mail. iCloud is free and I was curious to give it a shot. Yes I’d be going even further into the Apple ecosystem, but it seemed fairly harmless. It’s IMAP afterall.

Why I gave up on iCloud Mail after after a few hours …

• Rules don’t have Make As Read as an option. This was the no question dealbreaker. I have tons of rules in Gmail for all the mailing lists I’m on. I don’t want to unsubscribe from them, but I also don’t need my phone alerting me to those emails coming in as new, I’ll get to them later.
• No Send As option. I have my domain which I forward my email to whichever service I’m actually using. I’d prefer everyone use that email in case I find a new service I want to switch to. In that case, which could have been now, I won’t have as much pain telling people to start using a new email address. They likely won’t even know.

iCloud Mail works as simple email. The web app looks nice, it works well on the phone and email apps. Most importantly, delete actually deletes. I’d recommend you try it out if you are in the market for just email. If you are looking for something a little more than basic, then maybe stick to Gmail.

I’m open to something new. As usual, I’m going to keep my eye open for new email servies. They don’t seem to pop up that often anymore.