Posteo awarded climate mobility prize from Deutsche Bahn

Created on 05. July 2023, 10:00 | Category: Blog

The award presentation at Deutsche Bahn

Posteo is the winner of Deutsche Bahn’s “Climate Mobility Challenge 2023”: At the award presentation in Berlin on 29 June, we were recognised for our sustainable mobility program.
Since 2022, Deutsche Bahn has aimed to incentivise companies with their competition to reduce CO2 emissions through environmentally-friendly mobility practices.

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After the jury nominated us for the award in the “small company (up to 50 employees)” category, the final decision was made by the audience on Thursday evening during Deutsche Bahn’s “Mobility Symposium”. Afterwards, Posteo founder, Patrik Löhr and Dean Ceulic, accepted the award from Deutsche Bahn executive board member, Stefanie Berk.
We are pleased about the award!

An overview of our award-winning mobility program

Our team consists of 40 employees spread out all over Germany. Our mobility program is a part of the entire company’s sustainability strategy – over the years we have continued to expand upon it.

No Flights Policy: For climate protection reasons, we have refrained entirely from aeroplane travel already since our founding in 2009. In our experience, we have found that many destinations in continental Europe are also very accessible by train with regard to business trips.

Facilitating environmentally-friendly trips: Since 2014, we grant our employees 2 additional vacation days per year if they refrain from using aeroplanes when travelling abroad privately – and we also contribute towards travel costs (150 €, net) for the train ticket. Our intention with this voluntary offer is to create an incentive for environmentally-friendly trips by train and to compensate with additional vacation days for the longer journey. Since many years, this offer has been adopted and valued by our team.

Remote Positions: Most team members can work fully remotely as their positions allow for this. This reduces commuting and CO2 mobility-related emissions. We have decided to continue to offer remote work on an ongoing basis, even after the pandemic.

Free public transportation ticket: We provide all employees with a public transportation ticket free of charge. In fact, this also applies for those who work exclusively remotely or do not live in Berlin, where our company is located.

Accessible location: our offices are located centrally in Berlin and are easy to reach using public transportation, by bike or by foot.

Bike repair: we cover maintenance and repair costs, including replacement parts, for bikes that are also used for travelling to work. Our team gladly takes advantage of this offer. Additionally, we have rented car parking spots in the underground garage located beneath our office to set up secure bike parking.

Idea pool for companies

The “Climate Mobility Challenge” (German link) is a competition from Deutsche Bahn for companies and organisations to make sustainable employee and event mobility visible:
Company mobility policies are presented from a wide range of industries and company sizes on the competition website. As a result, it also serves as an idea pool for companies that are searching for sustainable mobility solutions.

In total, 54 companies participated in the competition this year. There were three categories: small, medium and large companies. Additionally, there was a special award in the “event mobility” category. In total, there have already been 120 mobility policies presented on Deutsche Bahn’s idea platform

“Employers are multipliers, bear responsiblity and can do a lot to avoid emissions through company policies. At Posteo, we also try to incentivise more climate protection in everyday life with free additional benefits for our team. Participating in the competition motivated us to expand upon this”, said Posteo founder, Patrik Löhr, during the award presentation.

Girls'Day 2023 at Posteo

Created on 11. May 2023, 17:30 | Category: Blog

Making coding exciting for girls: This is what our team set out to do for this year’s Girls’Day.
It was a special experience for us to welcome female students interested in computer science at the Posteo Lab located on top of Berlin’s Kreuzberg – and to give them insight into the job of a software developer.

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The Posteo Girls'Day Team — Email workshop at Girls’Day 2023

Starting steps for computer science

After a round of getting to know each other, our developer Monika shared how she trained for her profession. She told the girls what subject matter should be expected when studying computer science and what job possibilities exist afterwards. She then answered questions regarding choosing a profession and everyday life on the job.

Workshop: How email protocols works

Afterwards, there was a more detailed look into working as a developer. Our team explained to the students what protocols are, what role they have in the global exchange of information – and how the SMTP protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is used for transferring emails.

Finally, it was the girls’ turn: With help from Anne, a team leader from our technical support, they could communicate with an email server using SMTP protocol, enter commands and deliver emails from the command line.

The Posteo Lab with a Posteo flyer in the foreground — Girls’Day 2023 at the Posteo Lab

Choosing a field of study or profession without gender stereotypes

Our Girls’Day Team enjoyed the day very much. “We want to give girls the chance to meet women who work in software development and by doing so contribute to changing old role models. The profession is multifaceted, attractive and it should be normal for girls to pursue it if they are interested,” says Posteo developer, Monika. “It was so nice to see how motivated the girls were to participate. We will definitely take part again next year.”

Girls’Day is a day of action for career guidance in Germany. On this day, girls in the 5th grade and higher can gain more insight into jobs that are primarily chosen by men.
This includes software development. Posteo’s development team has a balanced ratio between men and women. Many of our features were programmed by women: for example the Posteo migration service, our mobile user interface, the attachment browser with photo stream – and also our new dark mode. But it’s not like that everywhere: In computer science studies and in the technology sector, women in Germany are still strongly under-represented.

New at Posteo: Many Colors and Dark Mode

Created on 20. April 2023, 16:45 | Category: Info

The new colors of Posteo

Dear Posteo customers,

Starting today, we will be gradually releasing new features for you: Just in time for the beginning of spring we are bringing some color to your mailbox – we are now offering our user interface in 10 new variants. Additional updates include dark mode as well as two levels of contrast.

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Regardless if you prefer yellow, pink, red or neutral colors like beige, brown or blue: From now on, the color of the user interface can be adjusted in the settings. The selected color will be applied to all areas, such as the calendar, notes, the attachment browser or in the Posteo web app.

Each Color in Two Contrast Levels

It is also new that all color variations are now available in two contrast levels. If you regularly work several hours in front of a screen, a color and contrast selection tailored to their own needs can be much more pleasant. Please try it out!
The contrast toggle switch can be found in the settings directly above the color selection.

Dark Mode

Another update: Starting now, you can activate dark mode. The background will then be displayed darkened and the text brightened – in the color you have selected. dark mode is especially useful for reading emails in darker settings. Many people also consider this more pleasant on the eyes in general.

Additionally, you have the option to automatically control Light and dark mode based on your operating system settings: The Posteo interface will then adapt accordingly – also on smartphones using the web app.

There is a toggle switch for dark mode and auto dark mode directly above the color selection.

We will gradually release all new features over the next few weeks. As soon as they have been released for your account, you will find the new options in Preferences via “User Interface”. These features are available free of charge without any further action on your part.

Video and Help Guides

In our video, you will learn how to select your personally favorite color and contrast level – and how dark mode works. There are also versions of the video available in French and German.

You can find step-by-step guides in our help section here:
How do I change the color of the Posteo webmail interface?
How do I activate dark mode for my account?
How do I install the Posteo web app?

Best regards,
Your Posteo Team

New security feature: The deletion notification

Created on 17. March 2023, 12:30 | Category: Info

Dear Posteo customers,

Perhaps you have already noticed that we have released a new feature: the deletion notification. The new security feature protects you from unnoticed data loss; for example, if you have accidentally deleted emails from your account. The new feature has proven to be successful in everyday use. That’s why we would now like to officially present the deletion notification in our blog.

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It is not so uncommon for customers to accidentally delete emails or an entire folder. We would like to provide you with the best possible protection for such cases: Posteo has always offered a special service of creating daily security backups of all email accounts and storing them 7 days for you. If needed, we can then restore these backups for you free of charge.

We have developed the new deletion notification because on a daily basis it was sometimes not satisfactory for us when customers would notice too late – after more than 7 days – that they – or the programs and devices they use – accidentally deleted many emails. We were then no longer able to help them.

With the new deletion notification, this no longer happens. Our system automatically sends a notification via email as soon as the amount of emails in your account is reduced by at least 50 emails within the past 24 hours.
And we can already say that the new feature is a complete success. Meanwhile, almost all customers that accidentally deleted emails contact us in time so that we can restore their data from our security backups. We have been happy to see the positive and relieved responses – thank you for this.

Notice:

Posteo will never request in an email that you click on a link and enter data on a website. Even our deletion notifications are purely informative without such prompts. Have you received an email that appears untrustworthy? Contact our support team for an evaluation at: support@posteo.de

Unlocked cell phones, errors in local clients

The main reasons for accidentally deleting emails can be quickly listed:
Often customers report of “cleaning” gone wrong in their own account – or from smartphones that were not locked in a pocket or bag.

Deletions are more likely to go unnoticed when customers are unaware of deletion settings in their local email clients – such as in Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. Therefore, it’s generally worth it to check the deletion settings in external email programs. Also, when updating these email clients, errors can sometimes occur that cause emails to be deleted unexpectedly.

By the way, out of principle Posteo never deletes emails from your email account – not even if your storage quota has been filled. We often receive this question.

I received a deletion notification – what do I do now?

If you receive a deletion notification from us in the future, follow these steps:

If you intentionally deleted the emails, simply ignore the deletion notification.

If the messages were accidentally deleted, verify if apps or email clients on your devices are automatically deleting emails. Perhaps your email client (e.g. Apple Mail) automatically emptied the trash. This is sometimes set by default in some email clients. You can, however, change this setting retroactively if you do not want emails to be automatically deleted. For example, also check individual folders, such as the “Sent” folder or your archive.

We do not have any information whatsoever regarding which emails were specifically deleted. The deletion notification has been implemented in a privacy-friendly manner and is entirely generated from values when calculating storage space. We do not look into email accounts and we also do not log which emails were deleted.

Should you be missing emails that you still need and do not have your own backup, please request for us to restore a backup within the next 7 days. This can be done in your settings via “Restore emails”. The backup contains all of the data in your account before the time of deletion. Alternatively, you can request to restore a backup from our customer service via email.
If needed, you can also adjust the deletion settings in your external email client to prevent unwanted deletions in the future.

Adjusting or deactivating deletion notices

Another tip: You can specify in your settings via “Password and security” to receive a notification only when more emails are deleted. This setting is particularly useful for people who regularly delete a lot of emails. If you no longer wish to receive deletion notifications, you can also deactivate the feature there.

We also recommend regularly creating your own backups of all saved data.

Best regards,
Your Posteo Team

New security certificate

Created on 30. January 2023, 17:43 | Category: Info

Dear Posteo customers,

Over the next few days we will update our main security certificate. Security certificates are only valid for a specified time period and need to be renewed from time to time. Because of this, we will be changing this certificate before February 14, 2023.

In most cases, you will not notice any change.
All clients like Thunderbird or Outlook will automatically find the new certificate. You do not need to do anything. However, should your client display a certificate error during this changeover process, please restart your client. This should fix the error.
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If you manage the trustworthiness of certificates manually, you can find the fingerprint for the new main certificate that we will shortly begin using below. You can also find complete fingerprints for all certificates in our legal notice.

New fingerprint for the TLS security certificate for posteo.de:

Geotrust:
SHA256: E8:E2:06:71:4D:15:6E:68:DF:24:CE:FD:7F:53:5D:EE:E1:FA:75:5A:87:14:6D:EC:36:76:15:70:E1:09:8F:92
SHA1: 27:CD:27:2F:23:5B:B8:1F:89:72:8A:71:9B:1A:A0:70:F6:8B:49:BE

Best regards,
The Posteo Team