Mail, contacts, calendar – Set up comfortably with custom Apple profiles

Not every provider of email, calendar, and contact services offers its own app that allows users to conveniently use their services on their respective devices.

Mailbox.org, for example, is my provider of choice (because it is based in Germany, highly customizable, has been on the market for a long time, offers good data protection, and has a very flexible pricing model with monthly cancellation, various payment methods, etc.). However, it does not offer its own apps. There is a web application (Open Xchange UI) that leaves nothing to be desired and allows convenient management of emails, calendars, files, etc. via the browser. But on mobile devices, you prefer to use other apps.

Here, mailbox.org offers an IMAP/SMTP account, CardDAV (for contacts) and CalDAV (for calendars), and WebDAV (for files). Anyone who, like me, has several devices to set up (Mac, iPhone, iPad…) will quickly find this inconvenient. Fortunately, Apple offers so-called profiles (.mobileconfig files) that can be used equally well on MacOS and iOS.

Many providers – at least mailbox.org – offer these profiles for download directly in the web interface. These can be used easily in the standard case: download (for iPhone also via QR code), install, confirm, enter password – done. A simple matter for standard users.

However, those who have a slightly more customized setup and, for example, use multiple mail aliases/senders will still have to do a little more after installing these ready-made profiles.

Create a custom profile

There is an app called “Apple Configurator” available for free from Apple. After downloading it, you can open an existing profile and customize it (if necessary, remove any existing signature from the provider via “File -> Remove Signature” first, as signed profiles cannot be edited). Of course, you can also create your own profile from scratch.

Now you can take the mailbox.org profile, for example, and customize it. In my case, I removed the calendar setting because I don’t use the calendar.

Set up email aliases

I also use email aliases (i.e., multiple email addresses with their own domains, all running through the same account. I would like to be able to select any of these as the sender in the mail program).

To do this, go to the “Email” section in Apple Configurator and simply enter all aliases separated by commas (without spaces after the commas!) in the “Email Address” field.

Note: Currently, you cannot specify different sender names for each alias. I asked about this in the Apple forum. However, I assume it will not work because iOS Mail does not support this. In MacOS Mail, you can manually customize the names after installing the profile (Settings -> Accounts -> Dropdown Email Addresses -> Edit).

Install the profile

Once you have customized everything in the profile (feel free to click through the settings, you might find something else useful), you can save the profile and you will then have a .mobileconfig file that you can install on macOS and iOS devices.

In my case, I simply placed the file in iCloud Drive and installed it on all my devices from there. Just open the profile file in Finder/Files app. Then you have to go to “Settings” and look for the “Profile loaded” entry, which is quite prominent there. Click on it, take a quick look and select “Install.” Since your profile does not have a signature, an additional warning must be confirmed.

Then you have to enter the passwords for the respective services (IMAP/SMTP, CardDAV, etc.) and everything should work.

Note: You can also save the passwords in the profile right away. But then you have to decide whether you want to upload it to iCloud Drive.

You can then manage the installed profiles:
On Mac: Settings > General > Device Management
On iOS: Settings -> General -> VPN and Device Management

Conclusion

Profiles are a convenient way to distribute multiple accounts across multiple devices without using provider apps. They often even offer many useful settings that apps don’t have. Unlike provider apps, they use Apple’s standard account management, which opens the doors to services for multiple apps. This means you can use the standard Apple apps (Mail, Calendar, etc.), but of course you can also use alternative apps that also support the Apple standard.

With emails, for example, I have the problem that there are hardly any providers where push notifications work properly. Especially when emails are marked as “read” on one device, the push notification usually does not disappear on the other devices. So I often have the problem that I see a notification for new mail on my iPhone, and only when I open the mail app does it disappear because I have already read it on my Mac. If you use IMAP and select “Retrieve” instead of “Push” and set a suitable interval, it doesn’t work in real time, but it is reliable.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)