The webmail component that is part of 1and1 hosting plans is one of the worst email systems the Secure Surfing Organization has worked with.
Even using the optional “1&1 Easy Login” the webmail interface takes an unacceptably long time to load. It also does not play nice with some security software, causing users to disable safety precautions.
There are no options to filter mail, so if you wish to use the 1and1 webmail as your primary email, you will have to manually
create create folders and then manually move messages to their folders every time you decide to save a particular message.
There is no ability for individual email accounts to create custom junk filters, black lists or white lists. To have any effect, the user must select an individual message, select the Mail drop down, select Add to White/Black list and confirm the choice.
If you have built up whitelists or blacklists over time, you have no way to add them to your 1and1 email until each individual sender sends you an email so you can add them to the appropriate list.
Similarly, there is no way for a user to configure trigger words or phrases for marking inbound mail as junk. You cannot let 1and1 mail know that you want everything that contains the word v1agra to be treated as junk mail. Your only control is limited to marking an individual message as Spam when you open it or going into the Spam folder and marking a message as Not Spam.
This is all very inconvenient for the user and simply not up to the standards of free email services, let alone those services included as part of hosting or domain name packages.
The IMAP service is better, but finicky. Copying folders to the IMAP account was a hit-and-miss affair in our testing, with some folders stopping halfway, with no user feedback to alert the user that not all the mail was copied.
We also experienced severe problems in applying sorting filters to IMAP folders, with failure to copy being the norm. For these reasons we consider 1&1 IMPA email to be unreliable.
POP mail service is much better. By relying on own email client to accomplish sorting to folders, applying junk filters and white/blacklists, those limitations are addressed. Email pickup and delivery worked quickly and without apparent incident.
Our recommendation is that you do not use 1and1 services at all, instead using the web agency Walking Dolphins to meet your complete needs, or an alternative better hosting provider such as Lunarpages Web Hosting. But if you simply must use 1&1, then we recommend you restrict your email use to the POP mail function.
