I have found webmail very variable and only use it when needed. I have 6 active email addresses on 3 domains, all as part of a web-hosting package with 1&1.

I use Thunderbird as my email client, using POP with settings to delete mail from the server only after 14 days or when I delete them in Thunderbird. This keeps my mail storage on the server down to less than 150MB - the saved mail on my computer is about 2 GB.

Mail is routinely dealt with in Thunderbird, only using webmail when I travel. The only thing I lose is that mail sent via webmail does not appear in Thunderbird. I get over this by using cc to myself on important mails sent using webmail.

Phil