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Wow what a coincidence — I switched from Gmail to Fastmail exactly 1 year ago today. I couldn't be happier. I mostly use native clients, but the Web client is

Wow what a coincidence — I switched from Gmail to Fastmail exactly 1 year ago today. I couldn't be happier. I mostly use native clients, but the Web client is a joy to use, and everything I've observed about Fastmail gives me confidence in their service. I never used the Gmail-exclusive features like labels, so switching was pretty easy. I highly recommend it to anyone considering it. Keep up the good work, guys.

mycoborea 9y ago
Been using them for a few years now and they're great. Some things I like: - plays nice with mbsync - sane system: real folders, not labels - customer service with an IRL person - identities feature
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, why do you consider folders to be sane, and labels not? To me I always found labels to be the exact same as a folder, but not bound to a single instance. Ie, it is everything a folder has, and more. What am I missing?
  - danieldk 9y ago
    Labels are one of the very few things I miss when I switched from Google Apps to Fastmail, but labels sometimes do not work well with IMAP. Google Mail exposes labels as IMAP folders, but in an IMAP client, you will have identical messages in different folders. And since traditional IMAP clients are not really equipped to deal with them, label management gets annoying.
  - mycoborea 9y ago
    I should have been more clear. Folders play way more nicely with IMAP clients as opposed to gmail labels, in my experience.
333c 9y ago
I'm considering switching (in fact I just registered for the FastMail trial). I'm especially interested in the ability to use catchall addresses with a custom domain, which would allow me to give out an address like <hackernews@mydomain.tld>, and thus determine who shared my email address if I start receiving spam at that address. This is partly possible with Gmail, as you can use addresses like <myname+servicename@gmail.com>, but not all sites support emails with a + in them. What differences have you noticed in your year since switching? I'm especially interested in any downsides. My biggest worry about Gmail is the lack of privacy from Google.
- JosephRedfern 9y ago
  I'm not suggesting (at all) that you use them over FastMail, but GSuite also supports catch-all email addresses.
  - ehPReth 9y ago
    Indeed - but replying from an arbitrary address is one big downside of G Suite’s implementation. In FastMail you can add <star>[0]@example.com as an identity. Selecting this when composing an email allows you to edit the localpart entirely. Similarly, when replying to an email sent to your catch-all and you have an <star>@ identity for the hostname FastMail will automatically set your from address for you. In Gmail (with G Suite) one has to manually add every identity they may wish to reply from - there’s no <star>@ option. Additionally, it’s impossible to hide your real email address/Google Account address. It’ll always be disclosed in the email headers unlike FastMail. I’d love if G Suite would make such a workflow easier.. [0] escape characters don’t seem to work here, <star> refers to what’d you think it does
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
      Selecting this when composing an email allows you to edit the localpart entirely. Similarly, when replying to an email sent to your catch-all and you have an <star>@ identity for the hostname FastMail will automatically set your from address for you. I didn't know that, but it's fantastic news! I was doing things the awkward "gmail" way.
gst 9y ago
How's the spam filter compared to Gmail?
- Karunamon 9y ago
  Fastmail does this thing where it uses a global set of filter rules for everyone, and then after you've spammed/unspammed something like 150 messages, it switches to a more personalized ruleset based on the spam you actually get. I wager I get one, maybe two spam messages in my inbox per month (out of hundreds captured), and maybe one or two false positives in my entire couple years of having mail there. In any case, that's a better record than Gmail - they've got a huge issue with directing legitimate mail into the spam can.
- bgrohman 9y ago
  I switched to FastMail from Gmail a few months ago and haven’t had any issues with spam.
- bovermyer 9y ago
  I've been using Fastmail for over two years now, and I have had zero spam enter my inbox. On occasion, I've had one or two legitimate emails end up in the Junk folder, but it's extremely rare.
- danieldk 9y ago
  It is worse than GMail. It tends to come in waves, there can be weeks where I barely get any spam in my inbox and then there is sometimes a couple of messages per day. I guess marking spam (Fastmail also uses a naive-bayes-based filter) and/or servers being added to a blacklist stops those waves. I don't recall the opposite (false positives) ever happening. I would say the numbers are generally small enough that it does not bother me.
  - lightbulbjim 9y ago
    You can also tweak your spam score threshold in settings.
- joemi 9y ago
bachmeier 9y ago
> the Web client is a joy to use Their web client is the only one I've ever been able to use without wanting to quit email.
- carussell 9y ago
  When I was moving away from Fastmail, I noticed that Rainloop[1] is a pretty slick, Gmail-inspired webclient, and it's FOSS, but I couldn't find any provider who was actually using it. Can anyone comment? 1. https://www.rainloop.net/ https://www.rainloop.net/
  - davem_ 9y ago
    I'm using Rainloop for my personal domains and so far love it. There's very good integration of GPG and (e.g.) Google Drive. Didn't take me long to move away from SquirrelMail or Roundcube after that. Highly recommended.
bovermyer 9y ago
The only thing that I complain about with Fastmail is the lack of ability to use the calendar outside of the web UI. The email side is fantastic.
- news_to_me 9y ago
  I haven't had that experience — I have it hooked up as CalDAV to my mac and iphone's native clients.
  - bovermyer 9y ago
    Hmm, maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
    - lancewiggs 9y ago
      I found the Fastmail calendar to be far more reliable and compatible than Gmail.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  CalDAV works great! I use their calendar on my Windows Mobile device without a problem[0]. FastMail even, when they had a change that might negatively affect some calendar clients last month, bothered to test large number and notify users who might be adversely affected. I got an email telling me how to resolve the issue with my Windows Mobile device, for example. https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/11/04/shared-calendar-improvements/ https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/11/04/shared-calendar-improve... [0] Actually Windows 10 has a strange quirk of CalDAV/CardDAV support: It's only supported as part of iCloud account support. The solution is to create a fake iCloud account, and then change the advanced server settings to your CalDAV and CardDAV URLs instead of Apple's URLs. And then put in the correct credentials. This is true of desktop and phone Windows 10 alike.
- ac29 9y ago
  Check out DAVdroid if you are on Android (there are other options too). Provides CalDAV/CardDAV to sync with Androids native calendars and contacts.
goerz 9y ago
They're generally great, except for the fact that the iOS client does not allow to send plain text emails. The settings are there, but broken (and have been for about two years). I've reported the bug to them, but they literally told me "it's too much work to fix".
speg 9y ago
The only thing that keeps me switching away from Gmail is loosing the actual email address.
- goerz 9y ago
  Fastmail can both send and receive your gmail address (even proxying through Google's SMTP server). So it's easy to switch over gradually, and quietly keep your existing address indefinitely
- pfranz 9y ago
  Why not POP forward? You can also set a custom From...I use a custom domain instead of my old gmail because I was tired of hopping from juno to yahoo to gmail to fastmail.
  - VectorLock 9y ago
    juno? Damn blast from the past there.
kareemm 9y ago
Interesting. I switched a little over a year ago too. I like not being the product but find the web client painful. Specifically: 1. No Send and Archive 2. Sending is slooow. E.g. compose email, hit Send, wait several seconds, go back to Inbox. Gmail is instantaneous. 3. Hitting Reply is SLOOOOW to bring up the Reply pane. Fastmail does a POST that takes from 500ms to 5000ms (usually on the lower end but even that is noticeable. On the rare occasion it's longer it's incredibly frustrating). 4. Replying to a message in a thread requires the mouse. In Gmail, the keyboard shortcuts will act on the highlighted message in-thread. In Fastmail the keyboard shortcuts only act on the most recent message in the thread. 5. When viewing an email that is a response to another email, Gmail collapses the initial email and lets you expand it with an ellipsis. Fastmail does no such thing, which means you need to scroll (and scroll and scroll...) when looking up through long threads 6. Search is just OK vs. Gmail, but that's not a huge surprise. In general Fastmail hasn't impressed me with the pace of development on the web app at all - the issues I had with it a year ago are still exactly the same issue I have today. I don't know how anybody who works on it and dogfoods it can't notice the speed issues every time they send an email. But it's still nice to not be the product.
- llimllib 9y ago
  A few years on, muting a thread is the #1 feature I miss from gmail
- morganvachon 9y ago
  Interesting, I've only ever run into these kinds of speed issues on the iOS client. I've found the web client (and usually the mobile client) loads a large inbox (hundreds to thousands of messages) much, much faster than Gmail; in fact, that was one of the first things in testing that told me I'd like using it. I will say that Gmail handles threading better, as you said. Fastmail goes for a more traditional native-client-like approach; it didn't take long for me to switch back to that paradigm, but someone who has only ever known Gmail would definitely see it as a pain point.
  - kareemm 9y ago
    The FM web client loads messages faster, but is slower to use in my experience. I’d rather pay a one-time loading cost up front for an app experience that feels native-ish and snappy like Gmail vs having the app feel laggy when I do mainline use cases like send email or compose a reply. Re threading I’ve had email for 25 years now and def. feel Gmail’s approach is superior, if only because you don’t have to scroll so freaking much!
AhtiK 9y ago
Are you happy with the FastMail native mobile apps? I've tried to use Android FastMail but it's quite clumsy compared to Google mail or apps like AquaMail. I did switch to AquaMail and configured it to use FastMail through IMAP but there is no fast search. A good and fast search for mail is super critical. Because of the lacking mobile app I'm unfortunately considering the move back to Google Apps.
morganvachon 9y ago
> "Wow what a coincidence — I switched from Gmail to Fastmail exactly 1 year ago today." Same, in fact I just got my renewal notice over the weekend, which means either yesterday or today was the day I turned Gmail off for good. > "I couldn't be happier. I mostly use native clients, but the Web client is a joy to use, and everything I've observed about Fastmail gives me confidence in their service." I vastly prefer Fastmail's web client to any modern native client, though Claws mail comes close if only for its abundantly configurable interface. I really enjoy the extras with Fastmail too; the Notes and Files apps are perfect for quick access from any device. The fact that their iPhone app is a near perfect mirror of the desktop web client helps too. > "I never used the Gmail-exclusive features like labels, so switching was pretty easy. I highly recommend it to anyone considering it." Coming from over a decade of IMAP folders, I hated Gmail labels and found them awkward. Fastmail uses folders and I'm in my happy place with them. I never thought I'd pay for email service beyond hosting my own, but Fastmail is definitely worth it to me.
- distances 9y ago
  > the Notes and Files apps are perfect for quick access from any device Thanks for this heads-up! I've been looking for a super-simple notes taking method that would span work, home, and mobile. I never realized FastMail has one just under my nose!
  - lloeki 9y ago
    Notes even used to work with Notes.app on iOS and macOS before the latter moved to iCloud backed storage.
julenx 9y ago
I've thought about switching many times, and would see myself using the web client, however I wonder if they support the "undo send" feature as GMail does. I cannot see it listed in their features page [1] at least. Can someone shed some light, please? TIA. [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/features.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/features.html
- unhammer 9y ago
  > JMAP will enable various long-desired features (e.g. snooze, delayed/undo send). says chrismorgan at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15856942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15856942
  - julenx 9y ago
    Thanks for the info, that's great to hear :)

mycoborea 9y ago

Been using them for a few years now and they're great. Some things I like: - plays nice with mbsync - sane system: real folders, not labels - customer service with an IRL person - identities feature

notheguyouthink 9y ago
Out of curiosity, why do you consider folders to be sane, and labels not? To me I always found labels to be the exact same as a folder, but not bound to a single instance. Ie, it is everything a folder has, and more. What am I missing?
- danieldk 9y ago
  Labels are one of the very few things I miss when I switched from Google Apps to Fastmail, but labels sometimes do not work well with IMAP. Google Mail exposes labels as IMAP folders, but in an IMAP client, you will have identical messages in different folders. And since traditional IMAP clients are not really equipped to deal with them, label management gets annoying.
- mycoborea 9y ago
  I should have been more clear. Folders play way more nicely with IMAP clients as opposed to gmail labels, in my experience.

333c 9y ago

I'm considering switching (in fact I just registered for the FastMail trial). I'm especially interested in the ability to use catchall addresses with a custom domain, which would allow me to give out an address like <hackernews@mydomain.tld>, and thus determine who shared my email address if I start receiving spam at that address. This is partly possible with Gmail, as you can use addresses like <myname+servicename@gmail.com>, but not all sites support emails with a + in them. What differences have you noticed in your year since switching? I'm especially interested in any downsides. My biggest worry about Gmail is the lack of privacy from Google.

JosephRedfern 9y ago
I'm not suggesting (at all) that you use them over FastMail, but GSuite also supports catch-all email addresses.
- ehPReth 9y ago
  Indeed - but replying from an arbitrary address is one big downside of G Suite’s implementation. In FastMail you can add <star>[0]@example.com as an identity. Selecting this when composing an email allows you to edit the localpart entirely. Similarly, when replying to an email sent to your catch-all and you have an <star>@ identity for the hostname FastMail will automatically set your from address for you. In Gmail (with G Suite) one has to manually add every identity they may wish to reply from - there’s no <star>@ option. Additionally, it’s impossible to hide your real email address/Google Account address. It’ll always be disclosed in the email headers unlike FastMail. I’d love if G Suite would make such a workflow easier.. [0] escape characters don’t seem to work here, <star> refers to what’d you think it does
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    Selecting this when composing an email allows you to edit the localpart entirely. Similarly, when replying to an email sent to your catch-all and you have an <star>@ identity for the hostname FastMail will automatically set your from address for you. I didn't know that, but it's fantastic news! I was doing things the awkward "gmail" way.

gst 9y ago

How's the spam filter compared to Gmail?

Karunamon 9y ago
Fastmail does this thing where it uses a global set of filter rules for everyone, and then after you've spammed/unspammed something like 150 messages, it switches to a more personalized ruleset based on the spam you actually get. I wager I get one, maybe two spam messages in my inbox per month (out of hundreds captured), and maybe one or two false positives in my entire couple years of having mail there. In any case, that's a better record than Gmail - they've got a huge issue with directing legitimate mail into the spam can.
bgrohman 9y ago
I switched to FastMail from Gmail a few months ago and haven’t had any issues with spam.
bovermyer 9y ago
I've been using Fastmail for over two years now, and I have had zero spam enter my inbox. On occasion, I've had one or two legitimate emails end up in the Junk folder, but it's extremely rare.
danieldk 9y ago
It is worse than GMail. It tends to come in waves, there can be weeks where I barely get any spam in my inbox and then there is sometimes a couple of messages per day. I guess marking spam (Fastmail also uses a naive-bayes-based filter) and/or servers being added to a blacklist stops those waves. I don't recall the opposite (false positives) ever happening. I would say the numbers are generally small enough that it does not bother me.
- lightbulbjim 9y ago
  You can also tweak your spam score threshold in settings.
joemi 9y ago

bachmeier 9y ago

> the Web client is a joy to use Their web client is the only one I've ever been able to use without wanting to quit email.

carussell 9y ago
When I was moving away from Fastmail, I noticed that Rainloop[1] is a pretty slick, Gmail-inspired webclient, and it's FOSS, but I couldn't find any provider who was actually using it. Can anyone comment? 1. https://www.rainloop.net/ https://www.rainloop.net/
- davem_ 9y ago
  I'm using Rainloop for my personal domains and so far love it. There's very good integration of GPG and (e.g.) Google Drive. Didn't take me long to move away from SquirrelMail or Roundcube after that. Highly recommended.

bovermyer 9y ago

The only thing that I complain about with Fastmail is the lack of ability to use the calendar outside of the web UI. The email side is fantastic.

news_to_me 9y ago
I haven't had that experience — I have it hooked up as CalDAV to my mac and iphone's native clients.
- bovermyer 9y ago
  Hmm, maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
  - lancewiggs 9y ago
    I found the Fastmail calendar to be far more reliable and compatible than Gmail.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
CalDAV works great! I use their calendar on my Windows Mobile device without a problem[0]. FastMail even, when they had a change that might negatively affect some calendar clients last month, bothered to test large number and notify users who might be adversely affected. I got an email telling me how to resolve the issue with my Windows Mobile device, for example. https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/11/04/shared-calendar-improvements/ https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/11/04/shared-calendar-improve... [0] Actually Windows 10 has a strange quirk of CalDAV/CardDAV support: It's only supported as part of iCloud account support. The solution is to create a fake iCloud account, and then change the advanced server settings to your CalDAV and CardDAV URLs instead of Apple's URLs. And then put in the correct credentials. This is true of desktop and phone Windows 10 alike.
ac29 9y ago
Check out DAVdroid if you are on Android (there are other options too). Provides CalDAV/CardDAV to sync with Androids native calendars and contacts.

goerz 9y ago

They're generally great, except for the fact that the iOS client does not allow to send plain text emails. The settings are there, but broken (and have been for about two years). I've reported the bug to them, but they literally told me "it's too much work to fix".

speg 9y ago

The only thing that keeps me switching away from Gmail is loosing the actual email address.

goerz 9y ago
Fastmail can both send and receive your gmail address (even proxying through Google's SMTP server). So it's easy to switch over gradually, and quietly keep your existing address indefinitely
pfranz 9y ago
Why not POP forward? You can also set a custom From...I use a custom domain instead of my old gmail because I was tired of hopping from juno to yahoo to gmail to fastmail.
- VectorLock 9y ago
  juno? Damn blast from the past there.

kareemm 9y ago

Interesting. I switched a little over a year ago too. I like not being the product but find the web client painful. Specifically: 1. No Send and Archive 2. Sending is slooow. E.g. compose email, hit Send, wait several seconds, go back to Inbox. Gmail is instantaneous. 3. Hitting Reply is SLOOOOW to bring up the Reply pane. Fastmail does a POST that takes from 500ms to 5000ms (usually on the lower end but even that is noticeable. On the rare occasion it's longer it's incredibly frustrating). 4. Replying to a message in a thread requires the mouse. In Gmail, the keyboard shortcuts will act on the highlighted message in-thread. In Fastmail the keyboard shortcuts only act on the most recent message in the thread. 5. When viewing an email that is a response to another email, Gmail collapses the initial email and lets you expand it with an ellipsis. Fastmail does no such thing, which means you need to scroll (and scroll and scroll...) when looking up through long threads 6. Search is just OK vs. Gmail, but that's not a huge surprise. In general Fastmail hasn't impressed me with the pace of development on the web app at all - the issues I had with it a year ago are still exactly the same issue I have today. I don't know how anybody who works on it and dogfoods it can't notice the speed issues every time they send an email. But it's still nice to not be the product.

llimllib 9y ago
A few years on, muting a thread is the #1 feature I miss from gmail
morganvachon 9y ago
Interesting, I've only ever run into these kinds of speed issues on the iOS client. I've found the web client (and usually the mobile client) loads a large inbox (hundreds to thousands of messages) much, much faster than Gmail; in fact, that was one of the first things in testing that told me I'd like using it. I will say that Gmail handles threading better, as you said. Fastmail goes for a more traditional native-client-like approach; it didn't take long for me to switch back to that paradigm, but someone who has only ever known Gmail would definitely see it as a pain point.
- kareemm 9y ago
  The FM web client loads messages faster, but is slower to use in my experience. I’d rather pay a one-time loading cost up front for an app experience that feels native-ish and snappy like Gmail vs having the app feel laggy when I do mainline use cases like send email or compose a reply. Re threading I’ve had email for 25 years now and def. feel Gmail’s approach is superior, if only because you don’t have to scroll so freaking much!

AhtiK 9y ago

Are you happy with the FastMail native mobile apps? I've tried to use Android FastMail but it's quite clumsy compared to Google mail or apps like AquaMail. I did switch to AquaMail and configured it to use FastMail through IMAP but there is no fast search. A good and fast search for mail is super critical. Because of the lacking mobile app I'm unfortunately considering the move back to Google Apps.

morganvachon 9y ago

> "Wow what a coincidence — I switched from Gmail to Fastmail exactly 1 year ago today." Same, in fact I just got my renewal notice over the weekend, which means either yesterday or today was the day I turned Gmail off for good. > "I couldn't be happier. I mostly use native clients, but the Web client is a joy to use, and everything I've observed about Fastmail gives me confidence in their service." I vastly prefer Fastmail's web client to any modern native client, though Claws mail comes close if only for its abundantly configurable interface. I really enjoy the extras with Fastmail too; the Notes and Files apps are perfect for quick access from any device. The fact that their iPhone app is a near perfect mirror of the desktop web client helps too. > "I never used the Gmail-exclusive features like labels, so switching was pretty easy. I highly recommend it to anyone considering it." Coming from over a decade of IMAP folders, I hated Gmail labels and found them awkward. Fastmail uses folders and I'm in my happy place with them. I never thought I'd pay for email service beyond hosting my own, but Fastmail is definitely worth it to me.

distances 9y ago
> the Notes and Files apps are perfect for quick access from any device Thanks for this heads-up! I've been looking for a super-simple notes taking method that would span work, home, and mobile. I never realized FastMail has one just under my nose!
- lloeki 9y ago
  Notes even used to work with Notes.app on iOS and macOS before the latter moved to iCloud backed storage.

julenx 9y ago

I've thought about switching many times, and would see myself using the web client, however I wonder if they support the "undo send" feature as GMail does. I cannot see it listed in their features page [1] at least. Can someone shed some light, please? TIA. [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/features.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/features.html

unhammer 9y ago
> JMAP will enable various long-desired features (e.g. snooze, delayed/undo send). says chrismorgan at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15856942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15856942
- julenx 9y ago
  Thanks for the info, that's great to hear :)