Free IMAP mail services

These services use the IMAP protocol to give you exceptional control over your mail

FEATURED

With a choice of over 50 domains, this rapidly-evolving email service comes with a stack of features, including a spellchecker, email autoformatting options, IMAP and web-based access and more. Offers 10MB of storage at the free level; various low-priced membership options give access to POP3/SMTP, more storage space and many other features.

Bluebottle [new window]

DOMAINS: bluebottle.com

SUPPORTS: IMAP POP3 SMTP WEB

Free spam-protected email with 250MB of storage, webmail, POP3/IMAP access and outgoing SMTP. Bluebottle can be used to consolidate and spam-protect up to 3 external email accounts (including Hotmail accounts). One key feature of Bluebottle which makes it stand out from most email services is that it will only accept emails from trusted senders. Senders can be flagged as trusted manually inside the Bluebottle interface, or they can complete a verification step to prove that they are mailing from a real email address.

Cwazy Mail [new window]

DOMAINS: @cwazy.co.uk, redwhitearmy.com, caths.co.uk, marketweighton.com

SUPPORTS: POP3 IMAP WEB

Free POP3/IMAP and web-based email service with 30MB of storage space, spam protection and email filtering. Also includes remote POP3 mail collection facility and secure POP3/IMAP access.

EZRS [open in new window]

DOMAINS: ezrs.com, yapost.com, yebox.com

Free email accounts with 20MB of storage quota, accessible via web interface and via POP3/IMAP and secure IMAP. Service also supports outgoing SMTP mail, and includes anti-spam and anti-virus filtering. You will need an alternate email address as you have to specify it during the signup process in order to receive your account activation password.

Fastmail.fm [open in new window]

@fastmail.fm, @myfastmail.com, @fastemailer.com, @eml.cc, @veryfast.biz, @letterbox.org and many other domains (over 50 in all!)

Rapidly-evolving email service with a raft of features, including a spellchecker, email autoformatting options, IMAP and web-based access and more. Offers 10MB of storage at the free level, plus a number of low-priced membership levels giving access to POP3/SMTP, more storage space and many other features.

RECOMMENDED PROVIDER

SAFe-mail [open in new window]

DOMAINS: safe-mail.net

SUPPORTS: IMAP POP3 SMTP WEB

SAFe-mail offers a free email service with 3MB of storage space and powerful encryption that can be used to send highly secure email messages between any two SAFe-mail accounts. This secure email facility also protects the integrity of any email attachments. Features include IMAP/POP3 support as well as web-based access to email accounts and outgoing SMTP support, address books with secure sharing facility (to transmit address books between SAFe-mail users), folders and sub-folders for sorting email, secure message boards and online document storage space. Premium versions of the SAFe-mail service extend the available storage space.

VFEmail [open in new window]

DOMAINS: vfemail.net

SUPPORTS: IMAP POP3 SMTP WEB

Free email service with web-based access, POP3 and IMAP support, plus SMTP service for outgoing email. The storage and monthly bandwidth quotas are both fixed at 15MB for free users, though premium upgrades are available. Other features include built in virus scanning and spam protection, and an address book that will hold up to 100 entries.