> For reasons that I cannot fathom, Microsoft wants to act as the relay to my self-hosted e-mail account

I can conjecture some reasons. Datamining would be high on the list, since MS can read your mail and thus market to you more effectively. Governments might also be happier if MS can provide them with one-stop access (like Prism) to otherwise self-hosted e-mail accounts proxied through a central server.

Or, you know, similar reasons as why people use Cloudflare as a reverse proxy.

I would strongly doubt (though not completely rule out) that Microsoft is reading your personal mail hosted on your personal mail server. Like what would that even look like, their IMAP client is forwarding email to headquarters?

BUT, more likely, it's some sort of "check in" or "dial home" feature that isn't working. Or plausibly, maybe they count "local user checked email" and their analytics endpoint is down.

Regardless, it's definitely surprising that a traditional desktop application would be blocking when only polling from local/trusted data sources.

It probably is a mirror for caching purposes for the mobile app or something. It lets them control the protocol between the client and their server as well.

But a check in or analytic counter wouldn’t stop you from receiving email. This is most likely due to Microsoft’s server (not your local computer) being the one fetching the mail.

It is normally probably more reliable; except when their server is down.

They proxy the whole ball of wax. Have done for years.

My understanding is: the IMAP client is hosted. The local app talks to a HTTP service, and doesn't have mail processing capabilities of its own.

[delayed]

That's why we are building www.ariamailclient.com , JMAP based, your app, your provider, nobody in between.

This is your own fault for using their BS app.

you're getting downvoted but I agree.

play stupid games win stupid prizes.

maybe its the support desk burnout talking, but if you rely on MS apps and services you're gonna have a bad time.

Don’t get the downvotes. Why would you put in all the effort to self host mail and use something that proxies your mail?

I mean, I can still switch to Thunderbird anytime I want, because I use IMAP and don't yank the mail messages from my mail server. And I can still receive mail on my iPhone anyway.

It's just funny that Outlook breaks this badly.

"New" Outlook does route all traffic through Microsoft servers. I assume it's so you can get a "unified" mail look on all your devices (phone, etc), but likely a nice source of data mining

And I hope all of us have learned a valuable lesson.

Personally, I can't reconcile having a self-hosted email server and using Outlook to access said email.

I'm being an ass in saying this, because I'm aware human motivation is a beautiful kaleidoscope of variables, but I would have guessed at the venn diagram of 'those willing to compromise and use a Microsoft product' is mutually exclusive with that of the 'I'm hardcore enough to self-host email'.

I will say, however, that Outlook used to be one of the better desktop email programs, so I'll grant some legacy lenience.

What's your preferred email client? Just wondering what other people are using.

I use FairEmail on Android, which aggregates both my Gmail and self-hosted accounts.

I use Gmail's web interface for my Gmail account (which, I'll admit, makes my little rant above more than a little hypocritical)

And in my self hosted email setup I use RoundCube (web interface).

> (which, I'll admit, makes my little rant above more than a little hypocritical)

Na, that would simply be the kaleidoscope part you mentioned, wouldn't it? For what it's worth, I found the combination just as peculiar as you did.

Best one I've ever used was Fastmail's web mail. But it's locked to their platform, so yeah.

Mac/iOS Mail is pretty lightweight. I used to use Thunderbird on Linux.

Surprisingly, Mac mail is a really nice client. It reminds me of how quick eudora was back in the day.

Pegasus Mail.

Almost as good as mutt.

EmClient, Mailcraft

eM Client for various M365 and IMAP accounts. ElectronMail for the 9 ProtonMail accounts I have (allows "tabs" for each account in one client).

Thunderbird still reigns supreme

Mine is Becky! Internet Mail https://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky.htm (sincere)

Eudora

That’s a name I haven’t heard in a longgg time. Google says it’s still being used by some enthusiasts. Were you being sincere?

Thunderbird (desktop), K9 (Android).

The Bat!

The Bat! was my email client of choice for many years, many years ago. Will take another look, thank you for the reminder.

You're not being an ass. You're being a logical person who is advocating for individuals taking responsibility for their choices/actions.

Unfortunately, being someone who speaks up nowadays has been portrayed as being an asshole.

How dare you!?

> Personally, I can't reconcile having a self-hosted email server and using Outlook to access said email.

In a corporate environment, I don't think this would be that unusual. But yes, it's hard to imagine someone would do that in a personal setup.

It does have to do with the fact that Outlook still looks better than Thunderbird.

outlook 2010 works just fine

> For reasons that I cannot fathom

Biggest data heist and most obvious US intelligence operation in human history. I can't fathom why AVs don't treat "Outlook New" as info stealer malware.

I’m pretty certain their desktop client applies filters server-side.

I’m pretty certain because my company’s phishing-test emails skip my filters (I assume admins have a “skip filters” toggle). Which, hilariously, makes it even easier to ensure there’s a place that contains only phishing test emails (filter all not on allow-list of domains to one place, filter all on that list to another, ta-da, the main inbox now contains only phishing test emails)

I assume they do the same thing with non-MS email if you use their client, rather than maintain two filter implementations.

All around, yeah, wow, super gross.

Why would you self host, then use a client with a dependency like this? Seems like the worst of both worlds.

Allegedly, It's so they can use push notifications efficiently from a central place for new mail notifications. Mobile IMAP clients cannot reliably keep a TCP connection open, due to on-device power-management and network management purposes. IMAP natively supports push-based notifications, but mobile networks make that impossible to work reliably.

Which is odd. I also have Outlook for iOS, and the accounts I add in Outlook for Windows don't automatically appear in my Outlook for iOS, even though I have the same Microsoft account logged in in both. So I don't understand how they plan to make push notifications work better for me on my iPhone by relaying my IMAP e-mail account.

Surely you can just use another email client to get the email from your self-hosted server right?

[delayed]

Because the new Outlook app is actually a web app talking to a Microsoft Web Server that does the actual mail retrieval. This is all clearly explained in their documentation.