ActiveSync

[fbartels]

I would already call a mailbox around 10gb big to be honest.

Navigating inside the mailbox is not necessarily the problem, in the end outlook saves the data in the same ost filetype locally (which btw has a file limit of 50gb). The problems come when:

• the user realises that a lot is not possible with an activesync mailbox (no native folder sharing, no out of office, not even able to move message between accounts in outlook since the activesync version used in outlook does not support to just "create" objects)
• you need to resync folders because they get out of sync
• microsoft breaks activesync with an update and takes its time to remedy the problem, most recent one was https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-outlook-clients-not-syncing-over-exchange-activesync/
• or if you open the same mailbox with multiple users at the same time

In the end Microsoft added activesync support to Outlook as an inbetween step to migrate users from hotmail.com to office 365 and never really intended it to be used in an office context.

[AartJansen]

50Gb is a soft limit you can change that with a simple registry edit. I have no doubt its set by default to that for a good reason though.
Out of office is clunky with non-exchange servers, resorting to webmail interface is usually the best option. Buts it's hardly a "must have feature", in my experience.
My end goal is to have a stable, low maintenance server, the mail client users have on the desktop is secondary to that. That said, I've tried multiple mail clients in an attempt to replace outlook, and they all have worse issues than outlook, even the ones with better features like ...
The BAT!
Thunderbird
emclient
Add to that sometimes people run their line of business app that integrates with MS office / outlook (ie sending invoices via email), and wont work with other mail clients at all.

[nebulon]

@vladimir-d worked on enabling active sync for SOGo however I am a bit at a loss how to test this even on windows. For some reason I all the outlook/mail/office365 clients I have tried from Microsoft only support adding exchange server via the Microsoft account.

Does anyone have a good guide on how to add a custom active sync server so we can test and fix the SOGo app?

[fbartels]

Under windows 10 you can use the "Mail" app.

When you add an account you need to scroll down to the "Advanced setup"

And then you can choose Exchange ActiveSync as the account type:

The data for the server should look something like this, you can leave the domain setting empty:

[AartJansen]

Can you use microsofts remote connectivity test site?
https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/tests/O365Eas/input

[Jarod]

Don't want to create bad blood, but you could take a look at the mailcow SoGo implementation. It has working ActiveSync.

[nebulon]

@fbartels unfortunately the "Mail" app which is installed on that machine only has exchange together with an MS account. But also the app icon is already slightly different. Not sure how I can get the older version of it back.

That's a bit of the issue with all those guides I found, little match to what I see.

[fbartels]

@nebulon you can use dockurr/windows for a simple throwaway machine with windows 10, just use the following docker compose file:

version: "3"
services:
  windows:
    image: dockurr/windows
    container_name: windows
    environment:
      VERSION: "win10"
    devices:
      - /dev/kvm
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    ports:
      - 8006:8006
      - 3389:3389/tcp
      - 3389:3389/udp
    stop_grace_period: 2m
    restart: on-failure

after a docker compose up it will download the windows 10 iso, do an unattended installation and a few minutes later you can see the windows desktop through port 8006 or via rdp. This one above still has the old mail app as well.

[nebulon]

@fbartels great suggestion! Works well via browser vnc and I was able to set up exchange via SOGo. Login works however various Windows error codes are thrown when syncing or sending mails. So this will probably require more work.

[nebulon]

In the latest package now has active sync enabled. It should be enabled without having to adjust configs just update to latest. Please report back any issues!

[Jarod]

@nebulon Works great. Maybe add an hint somewhere, that you have to point you mail client to the sogo domain and not the mail server domain. It is logical but I only got to the conclusion after a few seconds of receiving an error.

[privsec]

What what!?!

Active sync is now working!?!!!

[scurtis]

What is the format of the Activesync URL for SoGo?

I was trying to set it up on iOS which logs in fine but doesnt sync. Am assuming the Activesync URL is more than just the https://sogo.domain.name

Thanks.

[girish]

Something like:

[scurtis]

Thanks for the screenshots - all working now. Appears to be working well - this is a really good choice for email/calendar/contacts all synced to iOS now.

I also tried adding autodiscover DNS CNAME and SRV entries as per a post on the SOGO mailing list - but that doesn't seem to work. Might be nice if the correct DNS entries for this could be worked out to simplify client setup.

[girish]

@scurtis from what I have read in msn docs, you have to set up a autodiscover.xml. Maybe you can try https://docs.cloudron.io/email/#autodiscoverxml

[Jarod]

This post is deleted!

[andreasdueren]

Seems to work well on iOS, thank you so much for finally implementing this!

However on macOS I can connect to it but it won't actually load my mails in the app:

Any idea what's wrong?

[fbartels]

@andreasdueren the macOS mail app only implements ews (exchange webservices) and not eas (exchange active sync).

[crazybrad]

@andreasdueren FYI, I found this Apple reference and it seems to imply a difference between mac OSX and iOS/iPadOS support... which was more clearly summarized by @fbartels:) And this Microsoft reference on the difference between EAS and EWS.