Emailing from Mac OS 9

Until recently, it was possible to connect to gmail through email clients on Mac OS 9 and I had played around with this some time ago. Now that this is no longer possible, I was looking for a way to bring emails back to my macintosh once more. Fantastic resources like system7today.com describe how this can be done using the Mac Garden email SSL tunnel to overcome forced SSL encryption and the website states that a couple of email hosts are compatible. This got me looking into paid email hosting, and I decided to take a gamble and see if I could register for an email hosting service and connect through Mac OS 9.

I opted for Fasthosts which included a custom .co.uk domain name and website hosting, as well as a free email address, all for a couple of quid per month. Guess what...it works! Here's what I did:

1. Bought a webhosting package from fasthost.co.uk

This included a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth, 100GB SSD storage, and one email address. Other packages are available. The cost was 50p per month for 6 months, then £5 per month thereafter.

2. Set up email account with fasthost.co.uk

Following the instructions provided by fasthost, I was able to set up my email address (louis@themacofmyeye.co.uk) and clear instructions on how to connect to the service through POP and SMTP were provided.

3. Setting up Outlook Express

Although I chose to use Outlook Express as my email client, this also works with the mail program in Classilla. Using the following settings:

Also be sure to click in the advanced sending options to check "SMTP server requires authentication" and add in your login credentials.

Then you're good to go with receiving and sending emails.

4. Email forwarding

I use iCloud mail as my main account, so I set up email forwarding so all of my mail ends up in the same place. Of course, I won't be able to reply from my icloud account, but I rarely send emails anyway. This is an optional extra.

Conclusion

This was a remarkably simple way to get emailing again on my macintosh. Of course, the disadvantage of this approach is that it isn't free - although will I get £5/month enjoyment from being able to email from my old macs and tinkering with this website? The answer is probably yes! So in my situation, it's worth every penny. Why not drop me an email to say hi!