Zoho Mail - a cautionary tale, with a happy ending?
Once upon a time . . . well, around February 2012 (to narrow it down!), I signed up for a Zoho Mail Free account. A short time later, I guess I must have abandoned it and forgot all about it.
Fast forward to the present day, I've had a Zoho paid account for a few months, and I decided to move one of my domains over to this email provider. All proceeded according to plan - domain was verified, DNS records all propagated, and it just remained to create aliases for that domain.
First problem encountered: I created a few new aliases, but when I tried to add another specific alias to my account, I got this warning:
The email address you have entered belongs to a different deployment/region. Please contact support for assistance.
I looked in my password manager (I still have old databases saved) but could not find anywhere that I had used this domain with Zoho. So, I approached Zoho Support and they gave me a 'rough' indication of the username that the alias had been used. I made a guess at the username and got that right, then I was stumped (of course!) by the password - I made a few educated guesses, but not educated enough! So, the next step was the 'forgotten password?' option. Luckily, I still had the recovery address, and so got the new password - and finally got into the account - the account that I had set up in 2012!
Looking into the Admin Console, I saw that I had deleted the domain in question, but hadn't deleted the alias - and THAT was the big mistake on my part!
Second problem encountered: Now, to get rid of the alias. I tried to delete it, but Zoho wanted me to verify myself using 2FA authenticator code!
Hmm, now this IS a problem!
Where would that code be? I must have saved it somewhere!
What phone was I using 13 years ago? I've slept a few times since then, and can't remember. Would the code be in an authenticator app on that phone anyway? That's the million dollar question!
I was, more or less, resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be able to use that alias in my current Zoho account, but gave it one last try. After further experimentation, the problem was the lack of the authenticator code - whatever I tried, I came up against that brick wall.
Delving further into the account settings, I then looked at the 'MFA Mode' and the 'Authenticator app' option. There was the 'secret key'! I copied that key into my phone authenticator app, and finally managed to complete the deletion of that alias!
Going back into my current Zoho account, I then added that alias - success!
The cautionary tale is: Never abandon a Zoho Mail account if you've attached any own domain aliases to it!
The happy ending?
Well, apart from finally solving the alias problem, I now also had full access to that 2012 account - and that account has 40GB of storage (basic plan of 5GB plus 'Add-on allotted' of 35GB) and 25 licences!
Plus, even though it's a free account, I am able to access my emails using IMAP/SMTP, via my choice of desktop and phone apps.
Now, I need to figure out a use for that old account!