Spark last week issued a shock update about Xtra Mail, one of the country’s oldest free email service providers, which still has tens of thousands of users.
From May 16, Spark advised, Xtra Mail will cost $5.95 per month for Spark broadband customers, pay monthly mobile and landline customers, and $9.95 a month for everyone else.
In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, that will sting many users who have stayed with Xtra Mail simply out of inertia rather than the service having legions of raving fans. Xtra Mail has high usage among pensioners, who probably first got their Xtra address more than 25 years ago and aren’t inclined to change it.
I’m still bemused to get invoices and correspondence from tradies via an Xtra address - they should all have their own custom domain name and email address, as well as a website, if they are serious about operating their business in the 21st century. But Xtra Mail has been a free and hassle-free option for a long time.
Spark’s justification for starting to charge for Xtra Mail is that the service is increasingly expensive to provide. Users may bitterly remember a tumultuous period around a decade ago, when more than 70,000 Xtra Mail accounts were hacked and used to distribute spam email.
Xtra email addresses were hosted at the time by Yahoo, Telecom’s partner in the YahooXtra venture. Spark shifted to New Zealand mail provider SMX for a more secure service and it’s largely been smooth sailing ever since.
Spark said the Xtra Mail service is being shifted to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which is a natural progression for the service, but will inevitably come with some upgrade costs, which Spark is clearly unwilling to shoulder on its own.
Xtra Mail - staying and paying
So, what are Xtra Mail users to do? Well, start paying, if you want to keep your Xtra Mail address and hosted email service. That will cost you $71.40 a year if you’re a Spark pay monthly customer or an eye-watering $119.40 if you are not.
Many clubs, community groups, and small businesses with large groups of contacts will be alarmed at having to change email addresses so may opt to stay and pay. With Xtra Mail, you get a barebones service offering up to five mailboxes. Xtra Mail had previously offered an unlimited number of email addresses per account, but is now limiting it to five, a restriction it says, “will help with security and spam prevention”. Existing Xtra Mail customers will be able to keep the email addresses and aliases they’ve currently set up.
Xtra Mail comes with a healthy 1TB (terabyte) of storage, ample for personal use, and simple calendar and contacts features. It also has the benefit of being advertising-free, something that can’t be said of the free email providers mentioned below.
However, there are some compelling free email options out there, so if switching email address doesn’t completely fill you with dread, here’s where Xtra Mail refugees can find a new home.
Gmail - the top alternative
Google-owned Gmail turns 20 this year and is the world’s most popular free webmail option. It is free to use, though you will be served adverts, which are fairly unobtrusive, but are shown to you based on your online activity while you’re signed into Google. If that’s not a deal-breaker, you’ll find Gmail vastly more useful than Xtra Mail. Gmail is famous for its incredible search function, which changed how I use email.
I no longer delete any emails or sort them into folders. I simply search for what I need and mark with a star emails that are important, so I can easily find them. I’ve set up category tags, so certain emails, such as newsletters and correspondence from clubs I belong to, go into dedicated places so they are easy to find.
As well as calendar and contacts functions, Gmail offers a tasks list, access to Google Keep, a handy tool for taking notes from your web surfing activity, and allows easy messaging with other Gmail users, and access to the Google Meet video conferencing platform. In addition to Gmail, you also get access to Google Drive, a convenient place to create and store documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. There are a host of useful plug-ins for Gmail and Google Drive which will make you more productive.
Gmail comes with a generous 15GB (gigabytes) of storage and has very effective anti-spam and phishing protection. Two-factor authentication allows you to protect your account as well. You can set up Gmail to deliver your email to a desktop client like Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. I’ve opted to pay $9 a month for a Google Workspace account giving 2TB of storage for Gmail and Google Drive but am only using 300GB of that capacity. I’ve been a Gmail user since 2004 and have never looked back.
Overall, I think Gmail offers the best collection of features and ease of use, which has cemented its position as the world’s number one email service.
Rating 4.5/5
Microsoft Outlook - a productivity powerhouse
If you inhabit the Microsoft world, creating Word documents, Powerpoint presentations or Excel spreadsheets on a regular basis, Microsoft Outlook is a logical option to explore for life beyond Xtra Mail.
Outlook.com is a free online email service that comes with 15GB of inbox storage and an additional 5GB of OneDrive storage for documents and files. It allows cutdown access to web and versions of the Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, so is a very powerful productivity platform. Outlook’s calendar is very useful.
Outlook also displays adverts in the free version, and they are a lot more noticeable than in Gmail. There is a way to limit what ads are displayed, but it’s a tad complicated.
If you are an Office power user, you’ll be frustrated by some of the missing features of the free web versions of Office programs, so will want to opt for a Microsoft 365 subscription ($129 per year or $12 a month). That includes 50GB of inbox capacity and 1TB of OneDrive storage. With that, you get Microsoft Defender to secure your devices, and access to the Teams video calling, messaging and collaboration platform.
If you are familiar with Microsoft’s user interface, you’ll feel at home in Outlook. It is feature rich, intuitive, and while a bit more complicated than Gmail, it has everything you need, including encryption, excellent anti-spam and phishing protection. Its search function isn’t as good as Gmail’s.
You can set up the Outlook or Apple Mail desktop client to receive your email directly to your computer while keeping a back-up copy on the web mail version. Outlook only offers end-to-end encryption when you subscribe to Microsoft 365.
Outlook will appeal to small businesses and those needing to work with letters and documents. While you can easily do these things with Gmail, Microsoft’s legacy providing Office gives it an edge in the productivity department.
Rating 4.5/5
Proton Mail
If you value secure and private email over everything else, you likely moved on from Xtra Mail long ago, or never had anything to do with it in the first place. Proton Mail has become the go-to email provider for the security-conscious, popular with businesspeople, journalists and dissidents alike.
It’s owned by a Swiss company and offers end-to-end encryption of your email transactions and storage by default. You don’t have to give away any personal details on sign up, so can effectively use the service anonymously.
Proton Mail is simple and easy to use, but has some big limitations, such as the 500MB (megabyte) inbox limit, which you can increase to 1GB by giving Proton Mail your email address or phone number. There are restrictions on the number of folders, labels and filters you can use, and you are limited to sending 150 messages a day. Proton Mail has strong anti-malware and anti-spam features. There’s a calendar function which does a reasonable job.
The free version doesn’t have support for email clients, so you’ll be restricted to accessing your email via the Proton Mail app. However, there is a virtual private network (VPN) built into Proton Mail to mask your tracks online and cloud storage for your files - limited to 500MB on the free account. The proton Vault lets you securely store passwords and notes. A Proton Unlimited account ($17.70) bumps up the storage allowance to 500GB, offers two-factor authentication and removes the restrictions on free accounts.
There’s not enough here to interest the average web mail user, but if you really value private and secure email, there’s nothing stopping you from setting up a Proton account for private correspondence while using Outlook or Gmail for everything else.
Rating: 4/5
Next steps
Spark will start charging for Xtra Mail from May 16. If you want to shut down your Xtra Mail account, you need to tell Spark to do so by May 10th, to avoid being billed monthly for the account.
If you are leaving Xtra Mail, register your address with a new web mail provider as soon as possible. Then email your Xtra Mail contacts or set up an auto-responder email letting people know your new address. For important correspondence, such as receiving bills electronically, log into your accounts and update the email address or call your provider to make the change.
You may also want to keep all of those old emails sitting in your Xtra Mail inbox. The easiest way to do so is simply forward them to your new email address so they will appear in your new inbox.
It will take a bit of time and planning for a smooth transition away from Xtra Mail, so don’t leave it to the last minute to seek out an alternative.
