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This is one of the reasons why I've finally began migrating to a custom domain + proton mail. Can't imagine the time it would take me to get back all the accoun

This is one of the reasons why I've finally began migrating to a custom domain + proton mail. Can't imagine the time it would take me to get back all the accounts registered to my email, not to mention those to which access would be lost forever.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
I've been wanting to migrate off Gmail since Snowden, but never looked closer. I need to get on that.
- kelnos 6y ago
  I looked into this a bit a year or two ago, and wasn't happy with the alternatives. The main issue for me is that I never delete anything, and so I have nearly 500GB of email, dating back over 20 years (sadly I've lost earlier email due to the cost of even local storage back in those days). I don't want to deal with the data in any way, sorting through it, splitting it up, etc. I just want to dump it all into an email account and have it forever. Many of the alternatives that offer good privacy top out at 20GB or so for their most expensive plan (or less). Tutanota was the one service I found that let you add (IIRC) arbitrary amounts of storage to your plan, but I found their web interface to be kinda clunky, and let the account expire. I keep wanting to look into this again, but never get around to it.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    OneDrive is pretty damn cheap _and_ comes with access to Office on the web. 1tb per family member, with Office? Goodly. There's no official Linux client, but there are open source ones that perform well. You could drop your mbox onto a OneDrive sync and then use fetchmail or similar to rip it out of your provider. Each email could be individually encrypted, so you won't have to deal with a 500gb blob to sync.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I recently culled a few of my larger gmail accounts. This is what it took: * Connect to Outlook and sync locally * Sort All Mail by sender * Delete All Mail per senders that aren't important It took me a day, and I'm glad I did it. Not that painful. Outlook was a champ through the whole process. Now I can move somewhere else, which I will.
    - jeroenhd 6y ago
      I'm surprised Outlook held up. In my experience the program starts crapping itself after the first 3-4GiB of emails, and it only gets worse after that. I wouldn't rely on the file remaining intact for long with such a setup...
      - jasonv 6y ago
        It was Outlook on a Mac. I remember services available 5+ years ago that would help you with this kind of thing (scanning through email archives by sender), but the ones I remember have all morphed into "tame your inbox" apps, which doesn't solve the same problem.
  - coffeeling 6y ago
    Fastmail, maybe? Their premium tier offers a 100GB mailbox, looks like, and a retention archive on top of that.
blunte 6y ago
Unfortunately Protonmail is not good for long term mail storage. Their web mail app has hardly improved in years, and it is abysmal in terms of search and handling thousands of emails. If you depend on PM, you may find some years later that your emails are trapped and incredibly difficult to access except painfully individually, with much manual effort.
- dleslie 6y ago
  The bridge is open source and works on Linux, there are AUR packages for Arch. It's fairly easy to extract your data.
  - blunte 6y ago
    Yes, you can extract to local files, but if you just want to keep your data on PM and try to access it, it's a very unpleasant experience.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      Er, not really? I use Outlook to access it on my work PC, the Android app on my phone, and the web interface elsewhere. Seems quite usable and painless, to me; even search. But then, I fastidiously organize my email and so I don't need to rely on "smart" , privacy violating, deeply intrusive search.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Multi-year mostly-satisfied Protonmail user and ... can confirm this. My gold standard is mutt with its powerful and fast search filters (gmail is a serious downgrade). Protonmail's lack of search is crippling. Email export ... I don't even want to think about.
- eindiran 6y ago
  I’ve been using Protonmail for years, with many tens of thousands of emails, and this does not match my experience at all. It is far, far easier for me to find old emails sent to my Protonmail account than to my old Gmail account, which seems to randomly decide that some emails shouldn’t be searchable. With a paid account it is trivial to export your emails as well: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/export-import-emails/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/export-import-...
dade_ 6y ago
I switched to mailbox.org a few years ago. Service has been good and reliable at a good price.
dleslie 6y ago
I did it a few years ago and have been quite happy with the outcome. I still use a Google account for my Android phone, but my PinePhone should be shipping in a few weeks. I'm done with Google. Good riddance.
- zikzak 6y ago
  Are you hosting your own email server or going with a provider? Which provider, if so?
  - dleslie 6y ago
    I use ProtonMail with a custom domain; the braindead simple email encryption is useful.
laurent92 6y ago
Good luck when you notice your registar is less reliable than Google’s one-per-million account deletion.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  You have actual recourse--through TLD registry procedures or the courts--should your registrar Googleify your domain. You have no effective recourse should Google Googleify your Gmail account.
zikzak 6y ago
What is the advantage of using a provider like Proton Mail versus using a client to make a local back up of important Gmail labels (or regularly using Takeout to back up a email label with your most important stuff in it)?

theandrewbailey 6y ago

I've been wanting to migrate off Gmail since Snowden, but never looked closer. I need to get on that.

kelnos 6y ago
I looked into this a bit a year or two ago, and wasn't happy with the alternatives. The main issue for me is that I never delete anything, and so I have nearly 500GB of email, dating back over 20 years (sadly I've lost earlier email due to the cost of even local storage back in those days). I don't want to deal with the data in any way, sorting through it, splitting it up, etc. I just want to dump it all into an email account and have it forever. Many of the alternatives that offer good privacy top out at 20GB or so for their most expensive plan (or less). Tutanota was the one service I found that let you add (IIRC) arbitrary amounts of storage to your plan, but I found their web interface to be kinda clunky, and let the account expire. I keep wanting to look into this again, but never get around to it.
- dleslie 6y ago
  OneDrive is pretty damn cheap _and_ comes with access to Office on the web. 1tb per family member, with Office? Goodly. There's no official Linux client, but there are open source ones that perform well. You could drop your mbox onto a OneDrive sync and then use fetchmail or similar to rip it out of your provider. Each email could be individually encrypted, so you won't have to deal with a 500gb blob to sync.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I recently culled a few of my larger gmail accounts. This is what it took: * Connect to Outlook and sync locally * Sort All Mail by sender * Delete All Mail per senders that aren't important It took me a day, and I'm glad I did it. Not that painful. Outlook was a champ through the whole process. Now I can move somewhere else, which I will.
  - jeroenhd 6y ago
    I'm surprised Outlook held up. In my experience the program starts crapping itself after the first 3-4GiB of emails, and it only gets worse after that. I wouldn't rely on the file remaining intact for long with such a setup...
    - jasonv 6y ago
      It was Outlook on a Mac. I remember services available 5+ years ago that would help you with this kind of thing (scanning through email archives by sender), but the ones I remember have all morphed into "tame your inbox" apps, which doesn't solve the same problem.
- coffeeling 6y ago
  Fastmail, maybe? Their premium tier offers a 100GB mailbox, looks like, and a retention archive on top of that.

blunte 6y ago

Unfortunately Protonmail is not good for long term mail storage. Their web mail app has hardly improved in years, and it is abysmal in terms of search and handling thousands of emails. If you depend on PM, you may find some years later that your emails are trapped and incredibly difficult to access except painfully individually, with much manual effort.

dleslie 6y ago
The bridge is open source and works on Linux, there are AUR packages for Arch. It's fairly easy to extract your data.
- blunte 6y ago
  Yes, you can extract to local files, but if you just want to keep your data on PM and try to access it, it's a very unpleasant experience.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Er, not really? I use Outlook to access it on my work PC, the Android app on my phone, and the web interface elsewhere. Seems quite usable and painless, to me; even search. But then, I fastidiously organize my email and so I don't need to rely on "smart" , privacy violating, deeply intrusive search.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Multi-year mostly-satisfied Protonmail user and ... can confirm this. My gold standard is mutt with its powerful and fast search filters (gmail is a serious downgrade). Protonmail's lack of search is crippling. Email export ... I don't even want to think about.
eindiran 6y ago
I’ve been using Protonmail for years, with many tens of thousands of emails, and this does not match my experience at all. It is far, far easier for me to find old emails sent to my Protonmail account than to my old Gmail account, which seems to randomly decide that some emails shouldn’t be searchable. With a paid account it is trivial to export your emails as well: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/export-import-emails/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/export-import-...

dade_ 6y ago

I switched to mailbox.org a few years ago. Service has been good and reliable at a good price.

dleslie 6y ago

I did it a few years ago and have been quite happy with the outcome. I still use a Google account for my Android phone, but my PinePhone should be shipping in a few weeks. I'm done with Google. Good riddance.

zikzak 6y ago
Are you hosting your own email server or going with a provider? Which provider, if so?
- dleslie 6y ago
  I use ProtonMail with a custom domain; the braindead simple email encryption is useful.

laurent92 6y ago

Good luck when you notice your registar is less reliable than Google’s one-per-million account deletion.

bleepblorp 6y ago
You have actual recourse--through TLD registry procedures or the courts--should your registrar Googleify your domain. You have no effective recourse should Google Googleify your Gmail account.

zikzak 6y ago

What is the advantage of using a provider like Proton Mail versus using a client to make a local back up of important Gmail labels (or regularly using Takeout to back up a email label with your most important stuff in it)?