No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

Outraged. Just referred a colleague to use her domain (not posting it publicly here) to Zoho, just as I have other colleagues, clients, friends. Expected the exact same free plan features as I have and as everyone else I ever referred got. 

I was helping her set it up, and after creating and starting the migration following all the DNS MX SPF DKIM changes, went to enable IMAP in the Control Panel. I know from having used Zoho for 5 years that though IMAP access is always included, for some reason it is never defaulted to on, only POP. 

To my surprise, I see that POP and IMAP are both disabled. No problem, I think. I go to enable each one and to my disgust and dismay, discover that "Available exclusively with paid plans" pops up instead. No POP, No IMAP, no SMTP, it turns out that Zoho Free is now only a crummy substandard webmail-only plan. Maybe webmail and your own app, but utterly locked out of any "real email programs". Not what I had, not what most of us had, not what anybody expected they were referring as a good thing. 

NO PRIOR NOTICE. (Yes, that is yelling. I'm quite upset at your sneaking in this degradation of what you offered.) 

Anyone of us Zoho Free users likely expects that when we refer someone new to Zoho to use the same service with which we have been very satisfied, she or he is going to get the same service. 

There was no message there that IMAP and POP are no longer included (and obviously not SMTP either anymore.) Even on the signup plan choice, there's a positive note of "webmail access" but by any sensible expectation, the classic "reasonable person" (as the lawyers love to say in court) expects that means, "Oh that's lovely, they also have webmail, how convenient", not, "Oh no, it is ONLY webmail." 

Please reverse this really bad policy. It is not going to help you get new paying customers, it is just going to block off the inflow of new customers overall. Your free service has sufficient limits, especially on overall storage space, that there are plenty of incentives for upgrading if people discover they really like Zoho and start using you a lot more, including docs and file space. Also, for significantly growing small but many-employees businesses. 

Shutting off "normal email access" (POP, IMAP, SMTP are what is "normal" in the email world) just is going to anger and dismay existing customers enough that you won't get nearly as many referrals anymore. Plus we won't trust that you won't suddenly change the terms of the deal for existing users. I know that I will be warning all my existing referred users, who are at present quite happy with Zoho, to consider getting out from you before you take away what they have.

At minimum, you should have done very obvious notifications, not fine print in misleading ways, for many months, including a proactive message upon referral BY a free-with-IMAP user TO a new user that their referred colleague was going to get a lousy bad plan in comparison to what the referrer had. 

And anybody who got referred without that should immediately get an upgrade, not to the full features of the paid plan, but to the features of the old free plan. 

I feel both cheated by you, and that my professional credibility was damaged by you, due to this inadequately announced degradation of what I referred, thinking it was the "real Zoho" plan. I fully expect you to fix my latest referral's account to have those capabilities on her free plan. (Everybody else's too, I would hope, as there is a whole class of people who probably were damaged by your inadequately disclosed action.) And then to start making a better announcement in advance, a real announcement, really in advance, so that we existing users don't get fooled into referring someone to something that is no longer as good as what we thought it was. 

Please do the right thing. Make it right for recent referrals, defer this change until you have given many months of really OBVIOUS notice. Then it's all fine, then people can make smart decisions about whether to refer you and to what kind of plan to use in the referral. 

      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Pocket from Mozilla is closing shop. Don’t lose your favorites . Move them to Zoho Mail Bookmarks now! 📥🔖

            The end of Pocket shouldn't mean the end of your important links and content. Easily import them into Zoho Mail's Bookmarks and continue right where you left off. You can bring over your entire Saves, Collections, and tags just the way they are. Bookmarks
          • Zoho Mail POP & IMAP Server Details

            Hello all! We have been receiving a number of requests regarding the errors while configuring or using Zoho Mail account in POP/ IMAP clients. The server details vary based on your account type and the Datacenter in which your account is setup. Ensure
          • Workplace - Zoholics Europe Customer Awards

            Dear Zoho Mail Community! 📣 We're excited to announce that at this year's Zoholics events across Europe, we're holding customer awards for the first time ever! Workplace - Zoholics Europe Customer Awards This is your chance to shout about the amazing
          • Important update on Group Management | Zoho Mail

            Dear Zoho Mail Community, This post is to inform you all of the following updates on the Group Management in Zoho Mail. Group Member Addition: If a group member is added to an organization group in a Zoho Application, the member will be automatically
          • Mastering email etiquette and best practices to follow in Zoho Mail

            Hello Zoho Mail Community, We’re thrilled to invite you all to our upcoming webinar: Mastering email etiquette and best practices to follow in Zoho Mail. Join our live webinar for expert etiquette tips to enhance your professionalism and elevate your

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Embed Report with Auto Height

                                    Hello Developers, When we embed report within Page, we are getting one awesome feature to adjust the report height. "Auto" and "Custom' height. This "Auto" option works well when we have no records. But I want to embed report based on some conditions
                                  • Zoho Payroll: Product Updates - August 2025

                                    This month’s updates to Zoho Payroll bring enhanced efficiency and smarter features, simplifying payroll management for users in India, UAE, KSA, and US. Read on to explore how these updates can streamline your workflow. Filter Pay Runs by Type (India,
                                  • Numerical Rating for Interviewer Assessments

                                    Introducing Numerical Rating, a powerful new addition to interviewer assessments that brings precision and flexibility to candidate evaluations. ✅ What is Numerical Rating? Numerical Rating lets interviewers assign a score for each question in the assessment,
                                  • User Tips: Adding Multiple Products (Package) to a Quote v2.0 (with Client Script)

                                    This solution is an improvement on the original idea which used deluge. My solution was posted in the comments are: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/adding-multiple-products-package-to-a-quote The updated version uses client script instead
                                  • Are downloadable product available in Zoho Commerce

                                    Hi all. We're considering switching to Zoho Commerce for our shop, but we sell software and remote services. Is there a features for downloadable products? I can't find any information about this. Thank you very much Alice
                                  • Custom image for each contact using merge tag

                                    Hi, I'm wondering if it's possible to set up an email campaign to display a different image for each contact using a custom field for the image url. I tried inserting custom html: <img src='$[UD:APP_IMAGE_URL||]$'/> but the editor seemed to reject this and did not actually add anything to the email template. Has anyone got any ideas? cheers, Jeremy
                                  • Comment Reactions like a Thumbs Up

                                    Can we please have the ability to emoji react on comments or at the very least, thumbs a comment up? Literally every other project management system out there can support this and it is very much needed to just acknowledge a comment instead of completely
                                  • Zoho Mail Search Engine Sucks

                                    Hello There! I really like all the features of Zoho Mail and I believe is way better than Gmail except for the Search Function. I believe Zoho Mail has a very poor search function, if you misspelled a word in the search box, Zoho Mail won't display any
                                  • Allow Subtasks and Task Lists to have their own Layout

                                    I'd like to have the ability for subtasks and task lists to have their own layout.  A subtask for us doesn't require all the fields that a parent task has.  The subtask seems cluttered with all the extra fields. Within a project Task List had different purposes.  I'd like the task layout to be different for some task lists.
                                  • How to update Customers in Zoho Books through Zoho Flow?

                                    Updating customers in Zoho Flow using a "update customer" action is deleting contact persons in Zoho Books.
                                  • How to transfer credit between customers?

                                    Hi All, We have a slightly odd situation. It happens that we have two separate customers that are related to each other personally. One customer has an amount of credit, and would like to use that credit to pay the *other* customers invoice. How would
                                  • Zoho Books Reports: Basic report with total items sold and Cost of goods sold

                                    How can books show a report with Item Name || Qty Sold || Total Revenue || Total Cost of Goods Sold || Margin I need to factor in also invoices that have been credited where customers returned good. This seems like such a basic report, I'm sure I'm missing
                                  • The amount entered is more than the balance due for the selected bills."

                                    Hi Team i am trying to record payments for vendors using API and getting this error in response as { "code": 28011, "message": "The amount entered is more than the balance due for the selected bills." } JSON is prepared according to Documentation and
                                  • VBA handling named ranges

                                    In VBA I'm able to work with a single cell named range. E.g. Set Jr = Range ("Year").Value. Also other options are working fine, like Range("Year").Address shows $L$3. However a named range refering to multiple cells is not working for me. Eg. tbl_Test
                                  • Kaizen #176 - Optimizing the Use of Record ID Variables in Zoho CRM Queries

                                    Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen! Since the release of Queries, we have covered Handling Query Variables in Zoho CRM, Serialization and Schema Management, and Leveraging the 'crmAPIResponse' object in Queries in previous posts. Today,
                                  • Unbilled Items Report?

                                    Hello! Is there any way to display a list of items that remain unbilled, without creating an invoice for each customer to see if the unbilled items box is displayed? ;-) Ben
                                  • Consolidation of Multi currency

                                    Would like to discuss on the possibility of consolidating the ZOHO companies
                                  • Landed Cost Allocation / Custom Duty manual data entry

                                    My client is an import business. They must manually enter the duty for each item with landed cost allocation in Bill. This is because customs duties cannot be allocated based on Quantity, Value, Weight, and Dimensions. Manual data entry is highly time-consuming
                                  • Territories Just Don't Work

                                    I have been on chat and screenshare support for the past 3 days and am getting no resolution so hopefully, someone here can help me. I am the Super Admin of my organization. We publish books globally. I want to break down the books into territories so
                                  • Negative Opening Balance

                                    How can I add Negative Opening balance - meaning a credit balance to a Customer or a debit balance to a vendor? If I go thru Sales-->Customers, and if the opening balance is Rs. 1000 (credit balance), it does not allow me to enter a "minus" sign or mention
                                  • Single-Line Invoicing from Sales Order Despite Multiple SKUs Shipped

                                    We deal mostly with Government Tenders And Lets say we got a tender that needs 125 XYZ Laptops Then we found 95 Laptops with a different SKUs and 30 Laptops with different SKUs We talk with the IT department of the government company and they approve
                                  • 📣📣 Zoho Bookings Schedulathon 2025 is here!

                                    Hey Zoho Bookings fam, We're excited to invite you to our first-ever hackathon: Yes, Zoho Bookings Schedulathon 2025 is live now. This is a virtual event and you can participate anywhere from the world. Businesses should be able to set up meetings from
                                  • I want to send out a new newsletter each month

                                    Without rebuilding a whole journey is there a way to create a new newsletter that is sent to an existing journey monthly?
                                  • Reinstalling Workdrive Truesync client

                                    Hi, I attempted to update to the beta version of TrueSync, but it was unstable and kept crashing, so I need to revert to the stable version. How do I properly reinstall TrueSync on a Windows PC? I couldn't install the 3.15.x version directly over the
                                  • Evaluating Creator; yesterday fine; today connection times out

                                    Yesterday I spent hours creating a new app, and it worked fine. Today I cannot access creator.zoho.com. Is this common? I'm in the evaluation mode, but I'm thinking I'm going to keep looking. It worked from my home computer, and now I'm checking it from my work computer. My work computer always works just fine, so I shouldn't htink there would be special settings or anything. If there are, how to find out what they could be? Using Chrome on Windows XP The error I get is: The webpage at https://creator.zoho.com
                                  • Pivot Chart seems to show "old" data - how do I make it update?

                                    I wonder how to make a Pivot Chart "update" its data contents. Here is the background: I need to report a subset of data that is so complicated that it is easier to make a calculation and put the result in a "reporting form", and then display the data from that form.  So, I get data from the "original form" GRANTS, make some calculations and put the result in the "reporting form" PERIOD.  Now I can watch the result in a list called LIST, which works fine. The list LIST shows that form PERIOD contains
                                  • Upcoming Changes to LinkedIn Parsing in Resume Extractor

                                    Starting 31 July 2025, the Zoho Recruit Resume Extractor will no longer support direct parsing of candidate data from LinkedIn profiles. Why Is This Change Needed? In accordance with LinkedIn’s platform policies, extracting profile data through browser
                                  • how to create view in leads module to that will show all leads + converted leads?

                                    is it possible to make custom view that combine all leads + converted leads? how to do that
                                  • Avalara Sales Tax integration - AVATAX

                                    Just wondering if anyone else is having troubles with this integration?  Seems as though Avalara changed their billing process, unbeknownst to Zoho, and now ALL transactions are counted by Avalara, not just transactions in a taxable jurisdiction.  This caused a huge price adjustment billed to us by Avalara within a month of us signing up.  And Avalara is not cheap to begin with! Avalara has been great in waiving that increase, but there seems to be no fix.  Zoho is aware of the problem, but slow
                                  • Invalid value passed for description

                                    Dear Sir, When I am entering the purchase bill , the following message showing "Invalid value passed for description" what should I do ? I am attaching screenshot. With Regards, Harish harish@cracku.in 7978841636
                                  • Zoho Creator - 2024 Release Projection 1

                                    Hello everyone! As we enter 2024, we'd like to extend our warmest wishes for success and prosperity. Your fantastic response to our Product Roadmap page last year has been incredibly motivating. Continuing on this path, we're excited to share a glimpse
                                  • Automation Assistance for Zoho Form Integration and Workflow

                                    Hi, We are currently using a Zoho Form to send out our Global Credit Application and would like to automate the process further. Specifically, we’d like the ABN number submitted through the form to automatically populate the GST/VAT Number field in Zoho
                                  • COQL does not return queryable value if the result set is empty

                                    See linked video for running code illustration of the problem: https://workdrive.zohoexternal.com/external/d49bb40033b43b288d56fdf843095b7c65b28391d3ec5d09c854f416d853003d Moderation update: We are appending the comment that was removed, to add context
                                  • Zoho CRMでの商談の管理のしかたについて初歩的な質問です。

                                    先月からZoho CRMを試験的に導入して運用しています。 商談の管理(運用?)の仕方について教えてください。 商談の数が増えてくると、ダッシュボードの「ステージ別進捗状況」にどんどん過去の商談が蓄積されてくると思うのですが、 現在動きのあるものを中心に確認したくなる気がします。 そのあたりについては、どのように運用が一般的なのでしょうか? アドバイスいただけるととてもありがたいです。 よろしくお願いします。
                                  • Composite Items & Purchase Orders

                                    The Composite Item is great way to bundle different products and services into a single line and sell it as a single line item in Estimates, Sales Orders and Invoices. However, on the other side - i,e,. Purchasing - this item creates quite a bit of a
                                  • using custom function is it possible to update the created by field in Zoho Crm custom module

                                    using custom function is it possible to update the created by field in Zoho Crm custom module
                                  • Slow Sloww Slowwww Responses

                                    Good day, Has anyone been experiencing slow responses from support? Since Thursday I migrated my Whats app to Sales Iq and I had to synch with Social to get the otp they were sending. Apparently What's app can't be automatically added so I reached out
                                  • You have exceeded the maximum number of attempts for this action. Please retry doing the same in 30 minutes.

                                    When one of Zoho Books user tries to select a vendor, recording a new bill, these message appears: You have exceeded the maximum number of attempts for this action. Please retry doing the same in 30 minutes. Other user, at the same time, but different
                                  • Enable Conversation Context Retention for SalesIQ Answer Bots

                                    Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We have noticed that SalesIQ bots currently fail to maintain conversation context in Hebrew. For example, when we follow up on a previous answer or ask for clarification in Hebrew, the bot either provides
                                  • Automatic Hebrew Small Talk Setup Without Duplicate Term Errors & Manual Configuration

                                    Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request an enhancement to the Small Talk feature in Zoho SalesIQ, specifically for Hebrew language support. Current Challenge: When setting up Small Talk for Hebrew, we encounter multiple issues: Simple
                                  • Next Page