I've used fastmail since 2014. No complaints!

a bit overpriced, overall

The last tine I tried to switch from Gmail it was a complete failure and the main reason was spam. I get --a lot of it-- and I've even had trolls sign me up for spam lists before. I think conceivably the biggest reason to use Gmail is now gone because LLMs could classify spam almost perfectly.

If I were to try switch again I'd look for a mail service that specifically mentioned using LLMs for spam. If they say they're using one of the "open source" spam prevention solutions I can almost guarantee you its not going to do shit. They aren't good enough to catch all the permutations of serious spammers (who probably test on those tools before sending anyway.)

Edit: it also occurs to me that you could simply download all your mail locally and pipe it through a local model. That could actually work really well, tbh. If you hosted that on a server you would have the advantages of online access with gmail-grade spam filtering at any standard host.

Long time Fastmail customer here. They need to stop their recent trend of breaking their UI, especially in backwards-incompatible ways.

They recently recently removed app-based font size from the backend (but just for mobile), and released an updated Android app which only uses the system-level font scaling, which broke it for people who hadn't upgraded yet. Plus the app-based functionality was useful. Not sure why couldn't just add a new "Use system font-scaling"

Then there was the debacle of removing horizontal separators in the list view. After backlash, they added an option.

The pricing page is dishonest. It says prominently £4.50/month but that's for an annual subscription (£54 for 12 months is in smaller text below).

If you want a monthly price you have to tab across to get the true figure of £5.40.

The higher price wouldn't put me off - it's still very low - but the deception erodes trust from the very start.

I made this exact move a month or so ago when google threw some money Musk’s way - and I gotta say, the transition was almost imperceptible. An hour, maybe, of configuring and testing, spaced out over a couple days, and boom, it’s like I was never on gmail.

fastmail really needs inbox categorization on the level of gmail

Subdomain addressing really is a killer feature. Since developers are braindead and can't implement a valid email address parser to save their lives, 'foo+bar@mydomain.com', 'foo-bar@mydomain.com', and 'foo.bar@mydomain.com' often get rejected as "invalid email addresses". But 'foo@bar.mydomain.com' always works fine.

Fastmail's Gmail integration to injest mails and calendars works fantastically. I've only had the calendar integration fail once, and was easily able to reconnect it. And iirc, you can even send mail through Gmail from Fastmail, so you can use Fastmail as an interface for both systems.

Up until recently my biggest gripe was the lack of offline mail, but finally both the web app and mobile app have offline now. The UI is still a teeny bit clunky (the whole email view reloads itself, even in the mobile app, for no reason), but I barely notice it. It's very stable, fast, reliable, and simple. I even use the 'file storage' feature as a replacement for GDrive sharing the occasional file.

One thing you don't realize when you leave Gmail is just how much crap you've signed up to over the years. I haven't used my Gmail for several years now but it still gets mail. (I'm keeping the account active so nobody else takes it and uses it for a weird attack)

Having started down this path of non-big-corp hosted email and my own personal domain (which is definitely not self-hosting, though I'd never want that inflicted upon me) almost a decade ago, I won't say it's been a rabbit hole. But there have been some learnings over the years — realisations, rather. The biggest: I went overboard with everything around moving my email away from Gmail. Almost like what I did with seedboxes over the years, until I realised I didn't need most of what a seedbox offers, and that I didn't need a seedbox in the first place.

Whenever this discussion comes up here, or say on Reddit, the focus immediately moves to privacy, anonymity, tracking. Those are valid points, no doubt. What takes a back seat, I suspect, are aspects like reliability and some sort of accountable customer support — and no, a smaller company doesn't need an army of support agents, just a few people and an intention to help and solve problems, delays being okay. Many utterly irresponsible hosted email providers get a pass just because they posture with an activist flag. The whole virtue signalling in this sub-industry muddles things.

Some are worse. Some deny you basic email access in the name of things like e2ee. Now e2ee is a fine idea, but enforcing it unilaterally — and yet not really enforcing it, because let's face it, you can't until you "move" your ecosystem, the way Signal has been "moving" it. Locked to the app, locked to the web app, yet your emails flow to other systems and addresses that aren't e2ee (as they should!). You just can't use IMAP, among other things. This has become such a toxic topic on certain forums that I start wondering if maybe I'm the one holding it wrong.

Another observation: bundling things that aren't email. This is another contentious topic. I wish there were more mainstream, custom-domain-hosted email providers that just did email, nothing else. I first started using disposable email designed to route to my domain via my mail host (a German one). It was as convoluted as it gets, and still is. Then came Apple's HME, with limitations I wouldn't wish on an enemy. Finally settled on SimpleLogin. Not the best, but what I like is that it gets out of the way — I can receive emails on those addresses and send from them easily. It's also a separate service, not hooked to my mail host, and I wouldn't want that now.

What would I do if I had to go back to when I was starting?

1. I wouldn't look for a "private" email provider — just get my own domain (which I did) and sign up with a better-priced, responsible, email-only provider (preferably something larger).

2. Never use the free email that comes with the mail host account.

3. Let go of privacy and tracking on email. It's almost painful to say, but I'm tired of that part.

And if Gmail hadn't done idiotic things like forcing "folders" on my account with no way to change or delete them (Important, and whatnot), I might have just stayed with them. At least my emails would have been delivered — unlike with my current host, which doesn't do "emailing" up to standard. For heaven's sake, just let my email through, and let senders get through to me as long as their ID is verified and they're not on any spam list.

Hell, I am thinking of moving a domain of mine to Zoho. A company I'd have never imagined thinking of in the same breath and it has not become "better" somehow. But here we go, a decade later. This is just a rant I guess. But I am really exhausted and yes switch mail providers even with your own domain is daunting! The apprehension of downtime, fear of losing emails, something breaking etc are just too much. But at least there's a possibility.

tl;dr: If I do it over and Gmail stayed what it was back then, I'd just go back to them, just with "my own domain." Not that Google got better; just shows how disillusioned I am with the personal-domain-hosting hype.

My own domain, nothing else. Not the rest of what I've done chasing for "this kind of" mail hosting.

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