Email providers in China

[JSu]

I was wondering whether or not gmail and outlook work in China.

 

If not what are the ones that do work.

[michaelS]

Gmail doesn't, outlook, yahoo, lycos and most others do

[JSu]

I'm using this site to check: http://www.blockedinchina.net/

 

According to the link for outlook/windows live is blocked.

 

Is the availibility of outlook consistent or is it distrupted?

[grawrt]

 

According to the link for outlook/windows live is blocked.

 

Is the availibility of outlook consistent or is it distrupted?

 

Not true. Sometimes it goes down but for the most part I haven't had trouble accessing outlook. It's my primary email here in China.

 

to the OP, gmail works on some cellphones (without a VPN) although its extremely slow, especially with sending emails.

[JSu]

Thats good to hear that outlook is available.

 

On the topic of VPNs is it common for people to have them in China?

[Johnny20270]

VPN is essential in my view here, mainly because i use Chrome as a browser, Gmail and a Google phone.

 

Life is just hard without it unless your Chinese level is high and you can use baidu taobao etc effectively

[Johnny20270]

Not true. Sometimes it goes down but for the most part I haven't had trouble accessing outlook. It's my primary email here in China.

 

 

Outlook is just the application to access the email, what email provider do you use?

[michaelS]

I'm sure he'll mean outlook.com / live.com / hotmail.com

 

Those are all fine - for now.

[889]

I've found access to overseas websites and VPN restrictions seem to vary, both over time and by location in China. So when heading to China it's best to simply assume the worst and be sure you're not reliant on either accessing websites/services China doesn't like or using a VPN. In fact, life online will probably not be that bad in China, but it's safest to be prepared otherwise.

 

Also, beware of some gotchas. For example, you can set up Yahoo Mail to download mail from your gmail account in case your direct gmail access is blocked. But when you sign into Yahoo from a new and distant location, like China, it may require you to first verify your identity by inputting a code it sends to your gmail account. But in China you won't be able to access your gmail account to get the code, and thus may be locked out of Yahoo as well.

[ChTTay]

Hotmail/Outlook works most of the time in Beijing but it can be really slow some days. Also, downloading attachments can sometimes take forever. On the whole, you should have no problems using this service.

 

A few of my friends just switched to QQ mail for work related emails. They have an English language website which you know won't be blocked. The email service is pretty basic/bare bones and has some querks but it's useable.

[Demonic_Duck]

Life is just hard without it unless your Chinese level is high and you can use baidu taobao etc effectively

I don't think it has anything to do with Chinese level. If you want to consume content that can only be found on youtube, you need a VPN. If you want to use Gmail as your email provider, you need a VPN. If you want access to uncensored news (especially uncensored news in Chinese), you need a VPN. If you want to use Google or Duckduckgo for search, you need a VPN.

 

If you want to use Taobao, you're gonna have to suck it up and either learn the Chinese, get a friend to help you, or rely on machine translation. Whether or not you have a VPN is neither here nor there.

[rayne]

I tried to send some emails to people in China and they didn't receive it. I am using a @live.ca (a division of hotmail/outlook). I sent it to different Chinese email providers and none of them received it so I think it's a problem with my email address? 

 

Should I open up an email account from a Chinese provider? Can anyone recommend one (hopefully one with an English version)? Thanks!

 

---

 

And they sent me emails that I couldn't receive either. 

[ChTTay]

As my post above, try QQ mail.

[shuoshuo]

Outlook works. Gmail works if you use the QQ email app (you can add all your email accounts to it), you don't even need a VPN, you can send and receive your Gmail emails with no issues. Tried the Gmail app, that doesn't work for me.

[Demonic_Duck]

Gmail works if you use the QQ email app (you can add all your email accounts to it), you don't even need a VPN, you can send and receive your Gmail emails with no issues.

 

Are you sure this still the case? If so, that's genius!

[imron]

It sure is genius - on behalf of the government.

If you can't get gmail to open their servers for monitoring of emails, get people to read their mail through a client which is much more government friendly.

[Demonic_Duck]

That's double-genius!

 

Don't really fancy having other people reading my emails, though, so no thanks.

[889]

Just to be clear, there are two approaches to getting gmail via qq.

 

First, you can give qq your Google password and then let qq download your gmail via imap. And yes, this opens all your Google services to whoever controls qq, at least until you change your password.

 

Second, you can tell gmail to forward your mail to qq. This doesn't expose your Google password, but obviously you need access to Google to set this up. (Though don't you also need access to Google to authorise an email agent to download your gmail?)

[laogui]

I have been scratching my head - moving to China and having to change Phone numbers.  To enable data roaming and keep my Aussie phone number costs $500 deposit in their account, so no go.  Most Chinese email servers want phone number too, that's the same problem from the other end.  

 

Instead I opened a mail.com account - no phone number, no location checking.   The whole security and location checking has gone totally out of control, so I'll revert to the unprotected.  Protection is so obtrusive and inconvenient.

[Guest]

I tussled with the same problem when arriving in China, particularly due to gmail being blocked. Last year I used a singaporean version of Yahoo Mail, which does work, but is a tad clunky. For the past few months I've been using a regular Outlook account, and it's been running beautifully. I've had no problems using it in China, Australia and the UK. I think I got locked out once, but it was easy enough to get it unlocked again.

 

If you're (still, despite this thread's age) looking for an email service provider for use in China, I'd definitely recommend outlook for its functionality and versatility location-wise.