Seeking IMAP Server for email

[hameau]

I bought a domain which I thought I might use for my permanent personal and professional email address(es). Is there a good provider of free or inexpensive imap server services?

In my opinion, 'free' is false economy -- you'll end up with having to work around limitations that cost you more time (time is money, after all).

First choice should be your hosting provider (unless you use free hosting, too ...). If you do use free hosting, then consider a paid hosting account that will also give you email hosting. Cheapest is not always best; email with a hosting company tends to be a poor relation to the web side, as you have found. There's nothing stopping you using different services for web and email, it's just a matter of DNS settings.

Because of the limitations of email with my web hosting provider (OVH France), I use Fastmail to host email for my work domain, plus another fastmail.fm address for personal use (thus two accounts). Annual cost for the two accounts is US$24.85 and service is impeccable. Incremental costs for additional accounts are only a few dollars per annum and all can be managed from a master account. (Use this referral link if you like ...)

If you prefer a European service, I toyed with a Runbox test account. Very good – perhaps a bit better than Fastmail – but it is a bit more expensive, though you do get five accounts for your 29,95 €. Being Norway based, it is less likely to have daily backups made by the NSA, if you consider that important.

Be warned that you can go round in circles for a long time comparing providers! Sometimes it's better to just jump in, as the differences are small.