I don't know why anyone would use a catch-all these days, unless you want to get inundated with spam.
I use a catch all on (several) domains and have received a stunning 5 spam-mails within the last 2 years.
iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
51–60 of 145 posts
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
We just went down the rabbit hole of trying to migrate to Microsoft 365 Family with custom domain. You (officially) need to move your domain to GoDaddy, which was unfortunately a blocker for us as they don’t support our domains TLD. From what I read DKIM also isn’t offered on Family which is disappointing. Business plans get expensive quickly when you want Office apps as well.
I know they really try to sell you on GoDaddy, but it's possible to set it up with using another registrar.
Microsoft having a blessed registrar brings the risk of very poor support if you have any issue using other registrars.
Even if they do problematic changes, as long as it works with GoDaddy you’ll have no ground to get your issues fixed.
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#53I was irrationally hoping Apple would offer a service that allowed for custom domains with accounts outside the family group. E.g. so I could let my extended family enjoy the benefits of our custom domain, but also have them manage their own billing direct with Apple.
I'm just going to switch over to Fastmail (currently on an end-of-life'd gsuite setup).
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#54Hey Email has been super cool about all this for small family use.
Hey Email looks to have some great features, but at $12/user/month it's more expensive than Exchange Online or Google Workspace, which means it's more a choice about whether a user values Hey's nifty features (and they do look nifty) than an easy option for email domain hosting vs the OP's issues with iCloud+.
For my family's email needs, $12/user/month is a bit of a non-starter given the competition.
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt its on purpose. My mum's work email address changed and we changed the email address associated with her apple ID. She had no end of tiny bugs pop up - especially in the first couple of weeks after the change. Apple's systems in general don't seem to cope well with email addresses changing or being deleted. I think lots of software engineers use email addresses as if they're an immutable primary key. This jus…
The claimed one-year period from deletion to when it becomes available for use as custom domain actually makes me think that it is on purpose. I just don’t understand what that purpose would be. I would think it was a bug if it just wouldn’t let you use an email currently or formerly used as another Apple ID, no matter how long ago.
Could it be that they're trying to make sure that any old online accounts on the old email address isn't able to be hijacked? In most tech workplaces when you leave, your email address is being put in a holding place and not reused - i.e. I never got daniel@ as an email address in any of my companies because there was always a Daniel before me, and once they leave they don't want me to reuse the address because I could reset the password for any of their accounts that had used that email address.. Less likely scenario in families but you could still imagine some family conflicts or falling outs and then someone goes and does bad stuff with accounts? Just a thought.
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#56Catch-all addresses are a must have for me now. I allocate unique addresses to every website as these are more robust then using the + operator because they can't be stripped off. I've already busted one company (I presume selling) my email address to a cloud provider for them to send me marketing material. I emailed their privacy officer and didn't even get a reply, but that's OK, if it continues, one sieve rule and…
I use "-" instead of "+" with a regex: "/^name-.*@mydomain\.tld$/".
Then I block them when I get spam after they get compromised. Many spammers already know to remove anything after the +-sign.
But I must admit that the biggest benefit of this setup, was listening to my girlfriend on the the phone explaining to someone, at some company, the reason that their name was part of the email-address:
"That is because if I get SPAM, I know that I can't trust you."
...
"Just make sure that you don't sell it, or get hacked."
...
"If you are already expecting to get hacked, or sell it... why should I do business with you?"
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#57I'm optimistic that Apple is working on most of these issues (especially catch-all) right now and this is just representative of their new offering. Like many things I've seen from Apple it will take a release cycle or two (of 1-2 years per cycle) to bring in this arguably basic functionality - as is tradition we'll groan about other issues being held back in favour of fancy new features. I have no doubt they intend…
I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it. This is not central to their business and Apple trims such things very agressively. I would always buy a domain-email from somebody who has this as their main business, and I would never couple my email to Apple which could lock me out of my account if they think I "behave suspiciously".
> I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it.
It seems unlikely, given that it's tied into Family and Apple One offerings.
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#58Like many, I got bit by the end of legacy free Google Workspace so I've been figuring out my options. One related issue is how to get email off of Google Workspace. After checking out various options, I've settled on using imapsync ( https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync ). Unfortunately, the official Docker image was throwing errors for me while trying to move an almost 100k email account. Ended up building a modifie…
Having to exactly match records -- SPF included -- is one of the grievances outlined in the article. What I should probably have also mentioned is I also reported these using Apple's iCloud feedback form [1], and it might be helpful if others did as well. Unlike Radar / Developer Feedback, Product Feedback doesn't reply back with an ID you can use to track the feedback status :-(
Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#59Catch-all addresses are a must have for me now. I allocate unique addresses to every website as these are more robust then using the + operator because they can't be stripped off. I've already busted one company (I presume selling) my email address to a cloud provider for them to send me marketing material. I emailed their privacy officer and didn't even get a reply, but that's OK, if it continues, one sieve rule and…
Why not use iCloud’s private email feature to generate a new email that forwards to your regular email for these purposes?
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Re: iCloud+ custom email domains should be better
#60Catch-all addresses are a must have for me now. I allocate unique addresses to every website as these are more robust then using the + operator because they can't be stripped off. I've already busted one company (I presume selling) my email address to a cloud provider for them to send me marketing material. I emailed their privacy officer and didn't even get a reply, but that's OK, if it continues, one sieve rule and…
Why not use iCloud’s private email feature to generate a new email that forwards to your regular email for these purposes?
I use an email like this for our ISP at home -- one time I was asked what the email on the account was. Much easier to remember and dictate something like comcast@surname.com than one of Apple's "Hide my email" emails.