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Ask HN: Alternate Email hosting to G Suite

105 points by mrbonner 5y ago

I have been using at Suite with custom domain for my email since 2010. Now google is shutting down g suite and forcing a paid Workspace subscription. I only need to keep my email and domain. By accident, I deleted my g suite but still have access to admin console and the domain registration. Is there a recommended email hosting I could simply transfer to?

twistedpair 5y ago
AWS SES Inbound + a Lambda function to drop the mail where you want it (e.g. a topic, an S3 bucket, or forward it to somewhere else). Overall monthly cost is practically $0.
- SwiftyBug 5y ago
  That sounds like the exact experience I'd get for zero dollars.
  - twistedpair 5y ago
    If you've got a lot of domains, but need the `admin@<domain>.<tld>` registration emails to work correctly, you can route them all through SES + Lambda for nothing, rather than having to add hosting to all the domains. Impl works well for some use cases.
    - ramshorst 5y ago
      Would you have some more info on how to set this up ?
      - twistedpair 5y ago
        Here's an example [0]. [0] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-targeting/forward-incoming-email-to-an-external-destination/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-targeting/forward...
    - inportb 5y ago
      Then route your messages into S3, mount the bucket using s3fs, and point Dovecot at it (Maildir) to enable IMAP. Or just use a MUA that could read a Maildir directly. Going the other way, you could configure Postfix to relay via SES.
mrbonner 5y ago
I also notice someone mentioned iCloud+ as an alternative. I have an apple ecosystem at home so this would make the most sense for me.
0xJRS 5y ago
Protonmail's been fantastic
cpach 5y ago
Try the search function. There’s been lots of discussion about this the past weeks :)
dfdz 5y ago
Personally I use fastmail.com and I am happy with the service, but it costs $5/month so I am not sure that is what you are looking for. You could self host, but setting it up is a time investment and probably not worth it unless you have fun doing it
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
I use zoho. The free tier lets you use your own domain and so far that's been plenty for me.
- WallyFunk 5y ago
  Be careful. Zoho could perform a Google style rug-pull on you. Always scout for other options in that scenario. Personally I enjoy Purelymail[0] [0] https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/
  - lkxijlewlf 5y ago
    Yeah, I understand. But, so far (about 3 years), they've been really good. I also, back up any important emails. The rest, I can lose and not cry. Edit: Purelymail might be interesting if they had calendar syncing. Maybe when they've grown a bit more.
    - jlelse 5y ago
      Purelymail has calendar syncing using CalDAV.
    - mchristen 5y ago
      Well I've had my free gsuite account for almost 15 years so you still have some time before you get to Google levels of screwed over.
  - ValentineC 5y ago
    > Zoho could perform a Google style rug-pull on you. Zoho has done so, with the removal of POP/IMAP for their free tier without any notice.
- itake 5y ago
  I used zoho for a long time, but they started removing features from the free tier, like IMAP/POP access, so you're forced to use their client and can't backup your emails. B/c I use gmail for my personal email, I found that if I didn't have a unified inbox, I would miss reading important emails.
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
I am quite pleased with zoho feature rich and modestly prized. The nice thing is that zoho.com and zoho.eu are different entities.
mdibaiee 5y ago
I use Protonmail.com and I'm quite happy with their service. It does allow custom email domains, etc., but is paid.
hkhanna 5y ago
I second Fastmail for email & calendar. The key vendor lockin that has made it hard for me to get away from Google Workspace (f/k/a GSuite) is Google Docs. Lots of people in my work and personal life share and collaborate on Google Docs. That's not easy to deal with unless your email address is on the Google platform. I tried and desperately wanted to like Microsoft's equivalent Office 365 or whatever its called now. I quickly learned that to administer Microsoft's product requires a full time job. It's horrendously buggy, complex and not catered to SMBs. Microsoft Office itself is pretty good and Word's collaboration features are approaching parity with Google's. But administering a domain in Microsoft world is just not worth the effort. Google Workspace's domain admin panel, on the other hand, seems to strike the right balance between features and complexity and more-or-less works as expected. I am really trying to move my life away from Google, but as long as folks in my sphere use Google Docs, that is hard to do. If Google Docs doesn't concern you, I fully endorse Fastmail and have used it in my personal life since 2017.
- cproctor 5y ago
  This has mostly been my experience as well. I moved my email and calendaring to Fastmail, keeping my vestigal gmail address. I use this google account for Docs and nothing else. (For academics, do not keep your writing/cv/syllabi/etc in a Google account tied to your university email address!) I still get a personal email addressed to gmail every couple of months despite a years-long process of autoreplies asking family and friends to move to my new email address. It takes a long time but it's worth it. As I've started hosting more websites (mostly academic projects like unfold.studio or learning-machines.net), I have come to appreciate more and more the ability to point multiple domains' MX records to my single fastmail account. A nice additional benefit is the ability to handle wildcard email addresses. When I log in to ebay, it's with ebay.com@<subdomain>. When I log in to the IRS, it's with irs.gov@<subdomain>. When someone sells an email address or starts spamming it, I can cut it off. And I can hope that maybe a few less rows are getting joined in the big database in the sky.
  - extra88 5y ago
    > A nice additional benefit is the ability to handle wildcard email addresses … > When someone sells an email address or starts spamming it, I can cut it off. If you have your Fastmail account configured for wildcard, or "catch-all" addressing, does it let you cut off specific aliases? G Suite/Workspace lets you do catch-all addressing but if one address starts getting spammed, there doesn't seem a way to make it bounce, you can only filter it out. One thing Fastmail Standard accounts have over G Suite/Workspace is allowing an order of magnitude more specific aliases. When you use the address-per-site technique you describe you can easily hit the few dozen alias limit per-account on G Suite/Workspace.
jrib 5y ago
I'm going to switch to fastmail. Purelymail looks appealing but it seems less established. I may try it for my non-main e-mail. One thing I am not sure about is the fact that I also relied on using oauth with my custom domain through google. Some providers will let me reset the password via e-mail; but not sure that's going to work everywhere.
newman314 5y ago
I was thinking of using icloud with custom domains as it appears to be the cheapest, $1/mth but reviews seem mixed. Anyone that has used this config, please weigh in. Thanks.
- alanpearce 5y ago
  Works fine for me so far. From memory (like 7 years ago) gmail’s filtering rules are more powerful, but iCloud has the basics at least
- eknkc 5y ago
  It works fine. Lacks a lot of configuration functionality and the web interface is sub par but it works. There is no catch all feature though.
  - voisin 5y ago
    Any suggestions on maintaining Gmail labels in the migration?
constantinum 5y ago
1. https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/ 2. https://protonmail.com/ https://protonmail.com/ 3. https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en 4. https://mailbox.org/de/ https://mailbox.org/de/ 5. https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/ 6. https://www.migadu.com/ https://www.migadu.com/
- npteljes 5y ago
  I use and love Posteo but OP wants to keep using their domain. And Posteo doesn't do custom domains.
buro9 5y ago
I've just switched to fastmail for email from gsuite and Gmail. It was effortless and I feel it works better than the Gmail systems did. I also enjoy the ease with which alias and catch all emails from my various domain names work. The calendar though, this is proving the harder lock in from Google. Google calendar app on Android is superb but has no equivalent, especially if you have Google home devices or you use Android in your car, etc. At the moment I've moved my calendars to Google calendar and have yet to find an equivalent that works as well for it. Fastmail is good, but it's the apps for calendar which aren't quite there in my opinion.
- Macha 5y ago
  There's no need to stop using Google Calendar (Android App) because you stopped using Google Calendar (provider) if that's what you prefer, it'll let you view calendars from any provider installed on your phone. Fastmail themselves recommend DAVx to sync with your Fastmail account for this purpose (https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279881-Set-up-Fastmail-on-Android#calendar https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279881-Se...), though it would be nice if Fastmail's own app integrated with the OS a bit more in terms of providing a calender to the OS, and having widgets for mail folders.
  - Reitet00 5y ago
    That's right. Just by coincidence I moved my calendars to Etesync recently and thanks to Android's great calendar provider architecture the frontend calendar app did not change (I'm using Etar). This nice API was designed in good old times when Google actually cared about interoperability.
SwiftyBug 5y ago
After I switch to an alternate email host will my Google account still exist? Will I still be able to login to Google services using my@personaldomain.com?
shimonabi 5y ago
I switched to a http://www.migadu.com http://www.migadu.com trial plan last weekend and transfered my mail to a free Gmail account with https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync. I hope Google makes up it's mind soon about family accounts, otherwise I'm not going back.
- Reitet00 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity which email client do you use on mobile with Migadu?
  - shimonabi 5y ago
    K-9 mail.
ramsundhar20 5y ago
Zoho Mail
kk6mrp 5y ago
I use MXRoute [0] which is still offering a lifetime promo. Looks like it increased to $175 since I bought it. I haven't been disappointed and it is faster than Gmail from my experience. I host Cypht [1] instead of using their webmail which allows me to aggregate other emails and RSS feeds together in one interface. [0] https://mxroute.com/ https://mxroute.com/ [1] https://cypht.org/ https://cypht.org/
- kadoban 5y ago
  I'm always very wary of those. Once you buy it, they have no financial incentive to care at all what kind of service you get.
  - kk6mrp 5y ago
    I was also skeptical before I tried it however I have found it to be a quality reliable service.
- raghavtoshniwal 5y ago
  Tangential : Remember reading somewhere that 'lifetime' means the product's lifetime, not the user's
  - kk6mrp 5y ago
    Yes, it does however: > Lifetime means the lifetime of MXroute. If every other customer cancels service, no one orders any further service, and only lifetime services remain, then it’s obvious MXroute is nearing it’s end. There’s absolutely no reason for us to plan for that scenario or to act as though it’s an inevitable future. In no way is that a reasonable situation, we’ll always be competitive and creative to keep earning your business. But even if that situation occurs 10 years down the road, won’t you have gotten a pretty sweet deal that beats our regular price offers? [0] https://community.mxroute.com/t/isnt-a-lifetime-promotion-a-bit-scammy/891/2 https://community.mxroute.com/t/isnt-a-lifetime-promotion-a-...
- timothevs 5y ago
  +1 for MXRoute. I switched a few of my domains from Legacy GSuite in the last week, and the transition has been seamless. I am going to check out Cypht - that looks to be the answer to my last minor quibble.
somehnguy 5y ago
I'm currently deciding between Office365 Family or Fastmail. I would prefer Fastmail, they seem modern & less headache inducing than configuring Office365 for my custom domain. But some family members would benefit from having access to the Office suite of products, so that benefit is quite nice.
- sequence7 5y ago
  In case you didn't know Office365 family only works with GoDaddy domains, they used to support other registrars but have dropped that support which is why I'm looking for an alternative.
  - somehnguy 5y ago
    Hmm, I found a sort of workaround involving a temporary transfer to godaddy to get the records and then back to your preferred registrar. Any chance you know more about that?
  - devilkin 5y ago
    If you look around on reddit there are ways to use any domain registrar. Just needs some txt records.
caseyf7 5y ago
What’s the best way to transfer or archive your gmail in a way that keeps it searchable?
- osamagirl69 5y ago
  There is a button to import to fastmail, which worked very well--basically a seamless transition. The only manual part I had to do was copy over my filter rules.
  - horstm22 5y ago
    Fastmail also has a filter rule importer for Gmail!
smukherjee19 5y ago
Seems like Fastmail is extremely popular here, based on the other comments. What are its advantages compared to say, Protonmail?
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  I use Fastmail but can’t speak for Protonmail. I wanted to use Protonmail actually, because Australia, but they have an incomprehensible 5GB allowance. Fastmail is better with 30GB which still seems low IMO.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  The main reason why I switched from Fastmail to Proton is that you don't have to rely on their apps, even though they're far better designed and much more powerful. Example: Proton's Android application still does not support conversation/thread view but you can't even use IMAP/POP3 because of the encryption. I also believe that the benefit of Proton's client-side encryption is extremely limited because most of your contacts aren't on Proton so they'll keep a plain version of your emails. So you're only protected from Proton looking at your content (while you can pay them not to) or from the police asking Proton to share your emails. But Proton was recently forced to give on of their users' account because the French police abused the anti-terrorism laws (through Europol) even though the guy was only suspected of illegally occupying a building in Paris during climate protests. So you end up with lots of small disadvantages (running Proton's bridge for emails, or having to rely on their poor mobile apps) for little protection. Edit: also, when I trialed Fastmail, I discovered that the Protonmail mobile app fails at manual forward to my Fastmail email address (on a custom domain). I've reported the issue 5 times (with all the info to reproduce), reinstalled the application and tested on other devices bu they don't even recognize the issue. They do reply but I still can't email myself due to a bug in their Android apps (both stable and beta versions). Quite frustrating.
  - smukherjee19 5y ago
    Thanks for the detailed reply! Going by the narrative, did you mean you switched from Protonmail to Fastmail?
osamagirl69 5y ago
Fastmail. Been using them for ever and they have been nothing but great. Really nice to have actual support if you do need it (I did once for a misconfig on my end of my domain records, they got it sorted in a few hours). I used the auto-import tool from my existing google accounts and it took a while but successfully imported everything with basically zero effort.
riffic 5y ago
Cloudflare's doing free mail forwarding now. It's in beta but they're onboarding people pretty fast. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/ outgoing is going to be a bit more tricky. That's an exercise for the reader. edit: I have also failed to seen ImprovMX mentioned here, but they have a compelling offering for bulk domain owners. Run by a community member (cx42net: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22223783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22223783) I know there are some other niche mail services that are out and do the things you can find through other mentioned companies like fastmail, o365, migadu, mxroute, et cetera. One of these days I should put some sort of mail guide together to collect and untangle this ecosystem.
- throw_away 5y ago
  Could people who do this talk a bit more about how the outgoing side works out? Is there a way to do this where I don't have to jump through hoops just to hit reply to a message & have it come from my custom domain? Ideally, what I'm looking for: * wildcard routing * keep existing archive of mail * easy to use (replies make sense on mobile and web interface) * not have to replace google identity (for YouTube prefs + 3rd party sign-ins) There was this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30104783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30104783 about how a gsuite account could be converted to a free one, which sounds like it could work with this, but I'm still unsure about how sending mail would work out. The next best alternative I see is fastmail, but that saves me just $12/year + I have to do a lengthy export + I'm not sure how my google accounts will work out.
  - 617a6572 5y ago
    In the past, I utilized a standard Gmail account (no G Suite/Workspace) and had mail forwarding set up with a domain I had in Google domains. It supports using a wildcard (any email@domain.com). In terms of sending email as the alias, this is also easily doable: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157?hl=en https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157?hl=en
    - 5y ago
funstuff007 5y ago
If you have a high volume email inbox (role-based address), neither G Suit nor fastmail will suffice. Or they will, but you'll live in fear of a super high volume day when you get blocked, or start dropping messages. This critique is for inbound mail for DAQ, not outbound mail (spam). Does anyone know if G Suite, Fastmail or others offer a high volume option? receive 10K or more messages per day?
- CodeBytes 5y ago
  Fastmail Professional allows 80,000 inbound, 16,000 outbound per day [1]. [1]: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277382-Account-limits https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277382-Ac...
cjk 5y ago
I can’t recommend Fastmail enough. I used to host my own email server after moving off of Google Apps back in the day, and I don’t miss it at all. Fastmail is reliable and affordable, has great customer service, and supports the sieve language for defining filtering rules. Really tough to beat.
Pelam 5y ago
Aws WorkMail is ok.
unmole 5y ago
I switched to iCloud despite the fact that I have zero personal Apple devices.
- criddell 5y ago
  I've been thinking about iCloud because it's so inexpensive. How difficult was the transfer? Did you follow any online guides?
  - unmole 5y ago
    > iCloud because it's so inexpensive. That was part of why I went with it. > How difficult was the transfer? I didn't actually transfer any data. My old GSuite setup forwarded every incoming email to a Gmail account so, I already had a backup. I just updated the DNS records.
- peddling-brink 5y ago
  iCloud+ offers custom email domains on the $1 per month tier. Just point a few dns records and it “just works”. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-mma473945269/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-m...
christophilus 5y ago
I’ve loved Fastmail. Wildcard emails are really nice. It’s also much faster than Gmail, in my experience (I still have a Gmail account at work.)
gingerlime 5y ago
Slightly OT, but since you mention accidentally deleting it, how do I delete my G Suite? The screen to delete says > You have at least 1 active subscription. You need to cancel your subscriptions before you can delete this account. and when I click to cancel my subscription it says > All administrative controls available only with G Suite legacy (such as sharing policies, audit and reporting, and alerts) will be removed. To continue accessing these administrative controls, you'll need to purchase G Suite legacy again. > To use the Admin console free of charge to delete your organisation’s account, you agree to the Cloud Identity agreement. > You’ll lose access to your G Suite legacy service immediately You can’t undo this action So I'm paranoid of locking myself out with no way to still access the admin console to delete it... and with no support obviously
alphabettsy 5y ago
Zoho or Fastmail. Have been using both for years. Zoho is more of a GSuite competitor, Fastmail is perfect for family or personal.
martin_ 5y ago
Thanks for the headsup- looks like I'll be impacted by this too. My admin page links to a google form which lets you say you're using it for personal use only (I am) -- wondering if they'll grandfather folks in. Otherwise it sounds like fastmail is the favorite for HN! I found the form via their FAQ @ https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nonbiz&zippy=%2Cwhat-if-i-use-g-suite-legacy-free-edition-for-personal-use-and-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-google-workspace-subscription https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nonbiz&zippy=%2Cwh...
- TMWNN 5y ago
  I qualify based on what the FAQ says (fewer than 10 users, no commercial use), but see nothing relevant when I log into admin.google.com. Hopefully something will appear for me. EDIT: A link to the Google Form is at https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-suite-users-migrate-to-free-google-accounts/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-s...
Brajeshwar 5y ago
Migadu is an alternative with a competitive pricing model - https://www.migadu.com https://www.migadu.com
- Reitet00 5y ago
  Are you using Migadu on a daily basis? If so how is it?
  - jupblb 5y ago
    I use Migadu on a daily basis and the experience is absolutely incredible. The UX is very satisfying: everything is well described, it's a simple website and seems to just work. It serves a bit as a buffer for all my email traffic so I can use any client I like (even redirect to gmail if need be). The pricing looks reasonable to me. Overall I can highly recommend this.
- zeagle 5y ago
  Another vote for migadu. I've used migadu for my family between two domains on their cheapest plan. I've been very happy with it. Their webclient while functional is a bit barebones so we use phone email + emclient on laptops with nextcloud handling contacts and calendar.
hickimsedenolan 5y ago
I am currently using Cloudflare as an email forwarder, but used forwardemail.net before, and saw both are equally fast and secure. They forward emails to my random Gmail account, which I reply to as that domain.
jaytaylor 5y ago
I thought ElGoog announced yesterday that they’ve decided (for now) to reverse course on the plan to take away legacy G-suite accounts? Relevant links: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-suite-users-migrate-to-free-google-accounts/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-s... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30114343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30114343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30118907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30118907 In any case, good riddance. I’d love to get out of the abusive relationship I have with google and “Legacy G-suite”, so a workable long-term alternative would be great!
- riffic 5y ago
  I think we're way beyond the point where Google is simply not to be trusted with any of its communications regarding the longevity of legacy products. See the killed by google graveyard guy (https://github.com/codyogden/killedbygoogle https://github.com/codyogden/killedbygoogle) for all examples there.
- Macha 5y ago
  No, they've promised some as of yet undefined ability to move to consumer google accounts. Because of the limits that gsuite accounts have had for consumer products over time, this is something people have been asking for and google hasn't delivered in quite some time, so until they announce details, I'm expecting many strings attached to the migration process if it's something they've been pressured into doing quickly.
  - extra88 5y ago
    As explained in the Techcrunch regurgitation of an Ars Technica article [0], in addition to the migration, they're also inviting small (<10), non-business users to identify themselves, dangling the possibility of a better option for them (which might be a continuation of G Suite Legacy as-is, a slightly cheaper pricing tier, or something else). Nothing is happening to G Suite Legacy until May so there's no need to get off it now. It makes sense to start researching options now but there's plenty of time to wait and see what happens. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-relents-legacy-g-suite-users-will-be-able-to-migrate-to-free-accounts/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-relents-legac...
DizzyDoo 5y ago
I'm in the same boat - I have a free GSuite account and need to either pay Google for it or move elsewhere. What's not clear is that I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. Both the email and the YouTube channel are for my video games business, so I'm okay paying for the privilege of my domain with my email, but I'm unsure that I want to trust Google with that. The whole way they have announced cancelling this GSuite deal, which they originally promised they would never do (it was "for life"), makes me think that all the more. But my YouTube account is pretty important to my business and I don't want to lose that.
- ValentineC 5y ago
  > What's not clear is that I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. I believe the prevailing proposed solution is to migrate your accounts to the free Google Cloud Identity service [1] before cancelling your Workspace subscription. [1] https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=en https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=e...
- extra88 5y ago
  > I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. You will not. "If you don’t upgrade to a Google Workspace subscription, you will not lose access to other Google services, including YouTube, Google Photos, and Google Play, nor paid content, including YouTube and Play Store purchases." [0] Basically, your account is still a valid Google Account, you just lose access to the services that are actually a part of Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Meet). [0] https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217 https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217
vedtopkar 5y ago
Curious as to why no one is recommending just paying for Google Workspace? $6/month for Google vs $5/month for Fastmail seems similar enough to avoid the hassle of transferring email servers.
- Operyl 5y ago
  For me the annoyance was that I had 4 legacy organizations that I had to spend hours figuring out how to merge (incredibly non trivial to get drive contents from one organization to another, shared drives work but only with files and not folders, so I had to move stuff over a folder at a time). If they’re going to do this crap, I wish they had proper migration tools. They left a lot of us high and dry. A lot of people aren’t against spending money, but if we already have to spend the time to move crap around, we might as well pay an organization we trust.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  One reason I am looking to move away is that Google simply has too large of a market stake in the email business. If I'm going to pay, I'd rather pay a smaller company in order to stimulate diversity in the field; it's just better for open standards.
- nightgarden 5y ago
  I'm paying for Workspace and use it as my primary Google Account and really wouldn't recommend it unless you also have another regular Google account and use Workspace only for work, because the "Google experience" on a Google workspace account is really sub-par. Google assistant functionality is limited, you can't get invited to someone's home, you can't set up a family, actually you can't use Google One at all. The list of inconveniences is huge. I've been planning to move out of Google Workspace for years but it's a hassle to migrate primary inbox.
  - ValentineC 5y ago
    +1 to this. Adding on: I also can't use Google Pay on my G Suite Legacy account, we can't be invited to families for Google One/YouTube Premium either, and apparently my free Google Voice number might stop working if I fail to transfer it to a free @gmail.com account before they force me to downgrade.
agambrahma 5y ago
I'd recommend picking one between (1) Fastmail and (2) Hey. There are some pros and cons, but both are good. I went with Fastmail.
outime 5y ago
From all the places I'm surprised Fastmail gets so much praise in HN. I'm sure it's a nice paid service but it's based in Australia which is notorious for being a disaster for those who care for privacy. There are countless posts in Hacker News about this (just search Australia + privacy) and here's one [1] that's specifically addressing Fastmail and its situation over there. I'm not against Fastmail specifically but I'd definitely consider services based in countries which do better privacy-wise. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178
- Macha 5y ago
  Hierarchy of needs. For email I need: 1. To have control over my account, so I can use my custom domain and move to another provider without the years it takes for my family etc. to update everywhere they have my old address stored. So protonmail, posteo, etc., are out. 2. Able to use open tools to access my account. No IMAPS or SMTPS? Out. 3. To be safe against hackers etc. So Joe's Email Service, run out of his basement, that promises not to give the data to his government in Slovakia is out. 4. Privacy against governments is definitely a nice to have feature, _but_ anyone sending me email is probably using Gmail anyway, so it's not like the US government couldn't get it at the other end anyway. If we ignore for the fact that they share so much data, Australia is arguably preferable to the US having data, since I go to the US frequently and have business there and so if something happens like with the curl author where they decide they don't like someone I've done business with, the US is more of a problem. Fastmail has obvious failings on point 4, but providers need to cover points 1, 2, and 3 before I'm comparing them on point 4.
- cryptime 5y ago
  I second that. No difference between gmail & fastmail - mail scanning, automated address collection and no at rest encryption. Tutanota is the best of the lot with encryption at rest, ability to send both plain and encrypted email, custom domain support, and a responsive customer support with crypto payment support. Much better than Proton too minus the shenanigans.
  - devilkin 5y ago
allset_ 5y ago
I use Tutanota due to its privacy focus. 1€/mo is very affordable.
netfortius 5y ago
https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email- https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email- free email if you move the domain to their service. Pretty inexpensive (1/4 of go daddy).
xlii 5y ago
I've done the research (and already some action) even though I have only 2 non-related users on 2 different GSuites who use solely GMail. For myself I use FastMail and there is nothing I can complain about, however I wasn't really fond of migrating towards it, since that'd require 2 separate organizations, which would pretty much beat the point (pricing would be similar, but it takes some time). Few random thoughts about whole thing: - Fastmail is OK, there's nothing good or bad about it, however if someone is GMail user (with their fancy UI and filtering) they will be disappointed. One can add Sanebox but that's additional cost. - I'd stay away from Protonmail for two reasons - first is they don't really have IMAP (as it's encrypted etc.), so it's either hack your own bridge or use their applications. Second reason is that I've worked with few organization which perceived protonmail-based e-mails as spam and phishing (it's super easy to create anonymous e-mail account there so...) - iCloud+ provides custom domain support, it's kind of interesting how it works, and might save you few bucks, but the migration process is not exactly Apple-like - Migrating away is going to take a lot of effort. When I made decision I noticed that my DNS TTL were set to 604800. I set that domain LONG time ago, so I suppose those were recommended values back then. - Either forget about archives or be prepared for a long time to sync it. Google allows export (and that's pretty much the only way as there is 2500MB daily download quota for IMAP) but getting it uploaded is something else. - iCloud is funny because you can't really admin it - you add and setup domain and when you share it within family it's theirs to setup, one cannot make overreaching management For my 2 users I'm going for iCloud, cause they are already in the ecosystem quite deep, as paying customers and also it integrates nicely with other services.
- CraigRood 5y ago
  I've got a question if you don't mind. I'm set on moving to iCloud too for my domain as the only thing I really care about in the G Suite is just personal email via custom domain. Should I change the Apple ID of my account off my custom domain ? I can see a scenario where I can't access my iCloud because I need access to iCloud to verify the email.... I could move the domain records, but this won't be a 5 minute job.
  - xlii 5y ago
benbristow 5y ago
I've been using Office 365 for about a year now after moving from G Suite - didn't like how on G Suite I couldn't use certain products like Stadia and my Google account was essentially hostage to the monthly bill. I did have to go through the process of transferring my data (Photos) manually to a standard consumer Google account and losing some stuff like my Google Maps Local Guides status, Android purchases (I use an iPhone now anyway but not nice to lose the purchases in-case I switch in the future) and my YouTube account (wasn't much stuff on it anyway) and resubscribing to all my favourite YouTubers. Wasn't too painful - disgraceful how Google allow you to transfer your standard Google Account to a Gsuite one but not the reverse. Been a rather pleasant experience on the Microsoft side. Integration into the Outlook smartphone apps and Windows 10/11 mail client is second to none and the webapp is solid too. The spam filtering is excellent too. Quite nice how if you login to Microsoft services and have the same email address for your standard Microsoft account and O365 you can get the option to select which one when logging in. You can find resellers selling keys for a year of it, I bought mine from Amazon. Will definitely be renewing this year.
- gigel82 5y ago
  Tried it out, but the problem is no catch-all / aliases, and with the family subscription you're limited to 6 accounts. Also, you won't be able to sign in into Windows / Office with me@domain.com, you'd still need to use the outlook.com / live.com / hotmail.com address, which feels unnecessarily complicated.
rickmode 5y ago
I use Hover for my personal domain, and added a "small mailbox" for my email address. For calendaring, I use iCloud, which works fine since I'm an iPhone user and that thing is _always_ with me. I switched my personal website (which I basically never utilize), from Blogger to GitHub Pages. Should I ever want to post things, the Jekyll integration will be plenty. At the moment the page has 90s style "under construction" notice, which I find mildly amusing and is all I wanted over Hover's own missing website page. I looked at other options -- ProtonMail or FastMail -- but figured my needs were fairly basic. I don't use multiple mailboxes, I very rarely search my email history, iCloud handles my calendar (I had switch this up already), and I don't need a huge amount of space. After 10+ years on G Suite, my personal email was 1.5GB, so I figured any email host would work. I didn't bother importing all of my email to the new Hover email, nor did I want to. Instead I archived my G Suite email and copy / pasted my current Inbox across, which was 20-some messages (I practice a slightly messy version of Inbox Zero). If I ever need to search the old email history, I'll import the old G Suite email archive to Thunderbird or Apple Mail. About having my domain and email hosted by the same provider: I understand the risk, however I have managed to keep my personal website and email going consistently for over two decades, and I'm not terribly worried. Plus I have auto-renew enabled.
- skydhash 5y ago
  If you have iCloud+, you can add your domain to your account. I use Mail.app so I don't know how exactly to set up them in an email app (you receive email through your iCloud account in Mail.app). There is no real need to change, but it is a nice feature and as good as free.
b20000 5y ago
fastmail is one of the very few good options. it’s not great, but it’s OK.
e-clinton 5y ago
I’d go with fastmail or proton if it were just me, but my extended family is using my domain and I’m not paying $60+ a year per user. I’m currently evaluating Zoho Mail as their prices are pretty reasonable.
invalidname 5y ago
My current direction is to setup an email server on one of my Linux boxes and forward everything to my gmail account. That way my regular gmail account has full domain support like before. Cloudflares forwarding is great for one email but useless for many emails/domains as I have quite a few domains and a few users.
- skoskie 5y ago
  Funny, I do the opposite. I pass email through Gmail just for the spam filtering and then to my real inbox.
yumraj 5y ago
I've been using Zoho. Seems to work well and is one of the cheaper ones out there.
akaij 5y ago
I just helped a couple friends move to iCloud+ for the custom domain email feature. It was very simple to set up and got it working under 15 mins. Highly recommended, especially if you're already on iCloud+.
- ThatPlayer 5y ago
  I was looking into iCloud+ myself, but the biggest issue is there doesn't seem to be support for catch-alls?
voussoir 5y ago
I have been using Purelymail since July 2021 and it's worked very well for me so far. You can have as many domains and accounts as you want and the pricing comes down to total usage. For me it's been $0.40 per month.
akvadrako 5y ago
mailbox.org is good if you want to avoid the USA and Australia.
seanwilson 5y ago
Check if your domain comes with free web forwarding and SMTP outgoing mail because you can wire this up to a free gmail account to get email behind a custom domain. I know Gandi offers this for every domain for example but I don't know how common it is (Namecheap offers web forwarding but not mail sending for example). Do other registrars offer this?
- tkiolp4 5y ago
  Agree. I have a domain with Gandi and use it for my primary email address as well. For silly websites I used protonmail.
ab_testing 5y ago
I think it depends on the price point you are comfortable with . There is Zoho at $2/user, Rackspace at $3/user and then GSuite and Office 365 at $5/user per month if paid annually. There is also Namecheap business email from $.90 to $1.50 per user price point depending on how many users you are looking for.
beaugunderson 5y ago
I really like pobox.net. They handle storing and forwarding email for my domain. I forward from my domain to a regular Gmail account and primarily use Superhuman as my interface to Gmail. If Gmail ever goes away or I want to switch services I can just point pobox (and thus my domain) at another service, or use pobox directly.
ziffusion 5y ago
Having just done this myself I would HIGHLY recommend transferring email using a IMAP based tool. Any POP based tool will not retain any of the folder organization you may have in your Gmail mailbox. Gmail implements folders via labels, and the only way that I know of how to pass these through to the new mailbox (whether it be Gmail or not) is by using IMAP. I used: https://imapsync.lamiral.info/#install https://imapsync.lamiral.info/#install This one is free if you don't need support. There are others. The email hosting service I settled for is: https://mxroute.com https://mxroute.com Use them only for forwarding, so their cheapest package is OK for me.
devilkin 5y ago
I can recommend Fastmail. Switched to them a few years back. Privacy they aren't the greatest - Australia based company. Besides that: * They do mail, and do it well * Calendar/contacts support * they use standards (IMAP/caldav/cardav) * Webclient is OK - faster than Google, and for me it just works better. * They have labels! This is a killer feature, I really did miss it coming from Google. I have a bunch of filters that label my mails accordingly, I just hit archive when I'm done with them so they disappear from view * Android client is 'ok'. To get the contacts/calendar in the Android apps I recommend DavX5. * Catchall * Recently added "Masked Email" - you create a random alias on your mail account to use to sign up for services. If you have 1Password it'll even generated a pw for you. When I first switched I had issues with an iCal feed from O365 where MS didn't honor the spec, and this caused duplicate issues. FM implemented a fix. Forget about this kind of service from Google or MS, unless you are an international multi-million dollar company.
hongkonger 5y ago
Both iCloud and Zoho free tier were good options to park one's custom domain for email. Both services support security features like SPF and DKIM, without which you may experience bounced email due to the spam filter on receiving sides. Eventually I picked Zoho because it supported catch-all email account, and its instruction to set up DNS records were easy to follow too. I used Namecheap for domain transfer, and found its support responsive. For example, I found that I could immediately resubmit transfer request with its refund, after I failed the first transfer attempt due to GoDaddy's "protection" measures. For old emails, Google Takeout let you download a mbox file that you can easily open on Mozilla Thunderbird. Takeout also downloaded all your content in Photos and Drive etc that you can keep offline. Now that I don't have a custom domain associated with my G Suite account, I can sit back and let Google do its things. Overall, on positive note, this was a good excuse to learn about / brush up one's knowledge on domain transfer, DNS records (MX/TXT/CNAME), SPF/DKIM email security, mbox import.
samieljabali 5y ago
I recently moved from Gmail to Fastmail, and noted a detailed process here: https://sami.eljabali.org/how-to-replace-gmail/ https://sami.eljabali.org/how-to-replace-gmail/

105 points by mrbonner 5y ago

twistedpair 5y ago

AWS SES Inbound + a Lambda function to drop the mail where you want it (e.g. a topic, an S3 bucket, or forward it to somewhere else). Overall monthly cost is practically $0.

SwiftyBug 5y ago
That sounds like the exact experience I'd get for zero dollars.
- twistedpair 5y ago
  If you've got a lot of domains, but need the `admin@<domain>.<tld>` registration emails to work correctly, you can route them all through SES + Lambda for nothing, rather than having to add hosting to all the domains. Impl works well for some use cases.
  - ramshorst 5y ago
    Would you have some more info on how to set this up ?
    - twistedpair 5y ago
      Here's an example [0]. [0] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-targeting/forward-incoming-email-to-an-external-destination/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-targeting/forward...
  - inportb 5y ago
    Then route your messages into S3, mount the bucket using s3fs, and point Dovecot at it (Maildir) to enable IMAP. Or just use a MUA that could read a Maildir directly. Going the other way, you could configure Postfix to relay via SES.

mrbonner 5y ago

I also notice someone mentioned iCloud+ as an alternative. I have an apple ecosystem at home so this would make the most sense for me.

0xJRS 5y ago

Protonmail's been fantastic

cpach 5y ago

Try the search function. There’s been lots of discussion about this the past weeks :)

dfdz 5y ago

Personally I use fastmail.com and I am happy with the service, but it costs $5/month so I am not sure that is what you are looking for. You could self host, but setting it up is a time investment and probably not worth it unless you have fun doing it

lkxijlewlf 5y ago

I use zoho. The free tier lets you use your own domain and so far that's been plenty for me.

WallyFunk 5y ago
Be careful. Zoho could perform a Google style rug-pull on you. Always scout for other options in that scenario. Personally I enjoy Purelymail[0] [0] https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  Yeah, I understand. But, so far (about 3 years), they've been really good. I also, back up any important emails. The rest, I can lose and not cry. Edit: Purelymail might be interesting if they had calendar syncing. Maybe when they've grown a bit more.
  - jlelse 5y ago
    Purelymail has calendar syncing using CalDAV.
  - mchristen 5y ago
    Well I've had my free gsuite account for almost 15 years so you still have some time before you get to Google levels of screwed over.
- ValentineC 5y ago
  > Zoho could perform a Google style rug-pull on you. Zoho has done so, with the removal of POP/IMAP for their free tier without any notice.
itake 5y ago
I used zoho for a long time, but they started removing features from the free tier, like IMAP/POP access, so you're forced to use their client and can't backup your emails. B/c I use gmail for my personal email, I found that if I didn't have a unified inbox, I would miss reading important emails.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago

I am quite pleased with zoho feature rich and modestly prized. The nice thing is that zoho.com and zoho.eu are different entities.

mdibaiee 5y ago

I use Protonmail.com and I'm quite happy with their service. It does allow custom email domains, etc., but is paid.

hkhanna 5y ago

I second Fastmail for email & calendar. The key vendor lockin that has made it hard for me to get away from Google Workspace (f/k/a GSuite) is Google Docs. Lots of people in my work and personal life share and collaborate on Google Docs. That's not easy to deal with unless your email address is on the Google platform. I tried and desperately wanted to like Microsoft's equivalent Office 365 or whatever its called now. I quickly learned that to administer Microsoft's product requires a full time job. It's horrendously buggy, complex and not catered to SMBs. Microsoft Office itself is pretty good and Word's collaboration features are approaching parity with Google's. But administering a domain in Microsoft world is just not worth the effort. Google Workspace's domain admin panel, on the other hand, seems to strike the right balance between features and complexity and more-or-less works as expected. I am really trying to move my life away from Google, but as long as folks in my sphere use Google Docs, that is hard to do. If Google Docs doesn't concern you, I fully endorse Fastmail and have used it in my personal life since 2017.

cproctor 5y ago
This has mostly been my experience as well. I moved my email and calendaring to Fastmail, keeping my vestigal gmail address. I use this google account for Docs and nothing else. (For academics, do not keep your writing/cv/syllabi/etc in a Google account tied to your university email address!) I still get a personal email addressed to gmail every couple of months despite a years-long process of autoreplies asking family and friends to move to my new email address. It takes a long time but it's worth it. As I've started hosting more websites (mostly academic projects like unfold.studio or learning-machines.net), I have come to appreciate more and more the ability to point multiple domains' MX records to my single fastmail account. A nice additional benefit is the ability to handle wildcard email addresses. When I log in to ebay, it's with ebay.com@<subdomain>. When I log in to the IRS, it's with irs.gov@<subdomain>. When someone sells an email address or starts spamming it, I can cut it off. And I can hope that maybe a few less rows are getting joined in the big database in the sky.
- extra88 5y ago
  > A nice additional benefit is the ability to handle wildcard email addresses … > When someone sells an email address or starts spamming it, I can cut it off. If you have your Fastmail account configured for wildcard, or "catch-all" addressing, does it let you cut off specific aliases? G Suite/Workspace lets you do catch-all addressing but if one address starts getting spammed, there doesn't seem a way to make it bounce, you can only filter it out. One thing Fastmail Standard accounts have over G Suite/Workspace is allowing an order of magnitude more specific aliases. When you use the address-per-site technique you describe you can easily hit the few dozen alias limit per-account on G Suite/Workspace.

jrib 5y ago

I'm going to switch to fastmail. Purelymail looks appealing but it seems less established. I may try it for my non-main e-mail. One thing I am not sure about is the fact that I also relied on using oauth with my custom domain through google. Some providers will let me reset the password via e-mail; but not sure that's going to work everywhere.

newman314 5y ago

I was thinking of using icloud with custom domains as it appears to be the cheapest, $1/mth but reviews seem mixed. Anyone that has used this config, please weigh in. Thanks.

alanpearce 5y ago
Works fine for me so far. From memory (like 7 years ago) gmail’s filtering rules are more powerful, but iCloud has the basics at least
eknkc 5y ago
It works fine. Lacks a lot of configuration functionality and the web interface is sub par but it works. There is no catch all feature though.
- voisin 5y ago
  Any suggestions on maintaining Gmail labels in the migration?

constantinum 5y ago

1. https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/ 2. https://protonmail.com/ https://protonmail.com/ 3. https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en 4. https://mailbox.org/de/ https://mailbox.org/de/ 5. https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/ 6. https://www.migadu.com/ https://www.migadu.com/

npteljes 5y ago
I use and love Posteo but OP wants to keep using their domain. And Posteo doesn't do custom domains.

buro9 5y ago

I've just switched to fastmail for email from gsuite and Gmail. It was effortless and I feel it works better than the Gmail systems did. I also enjoy the ease with which alias and catch all emails from my various domain names work. The calendar though, this is proving the harder lock in from Google. Google calendar app on Android is superb but has no equivalent, especially if you have Google home devices or you use Android in your car, etc. At the moment I've moved my calendars to Google calendar and have yet to find an equivalent that works as well for it. Fastmail is good, but it's the apps for calendar which aren't quite there in my opinion.

Macha 5y ago
There's no need to stop using Google Calendar (Android App) because you stopped using Google Calendar (provider) if that's what you prefer, it'll let you view calendars from any provider installed on your phone. Fastmail themselves recommend DAVx to sync with your Fastmail account for this purpose (https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279881-Set-up-Fastmail-on-Android#calendar https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279881-Se...), though it would be nice if Fastmail's own app integrated with the OS a bit more in terms of providing a calender to the OS, and having widgets for mail folders.
- Reitet00 5y ago
  That's right. Just by coincidence I moved my calendars to Etesync recently and thanks to Android's great calendar provider architecture the frontend calendar app did not change (I'm using Etar). This nice API was designed in good old times when Google actually cared about interoperability.

SwiftyBug 5y ago

After I switch to an alternate email host will my Google account still exist? Will I still be able to login to Google services using my@personaldomain.com?

shimonabi 5y ago

I switched to a http://www.migadu.com http://www.migadu.com trial plan last weekend and transfered my mail to a free Gmail account with https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync. I hope Google makes up it's mind soon about family accounts, otherwise I'm not going back.

Reitet00 5y ago
Just out of curiosity which email client do you use on mobile with Migadu?
- shimonabi 5y ago
  K-9 mail.

ramsundhar20 5y ago

Zoho Mail

kk6mrp 5y ago

I use MXRoute [0] which is still offering a lifetime promo. Looks like it increased to $175 since I bought it. I haven't been disappointed and it is faster than Gmail from my experience. I host Cypht [1] instead of using their webmail which allows me to aggregate other emails and RSS feeds together in one interface. [0] https://mxroute.com/ https://mxroute.com/ [1] https://cypht.org/ https://cypht.org/

kadoban 5y ago
I'm always very wary of those. Once you buy it, they have no financial incentive to care at all what kind of service you get.
- kk6mrp 5y ago
  I was also skeptical before I tried it however I have found it to be a quality reliable service.
raghavtoshniwal 5y ago
Tangential : Remember reading somewhere that 'lifetime' means the product's lifetime, not the user's
- kk6mrp 5y ago
  Yes, it does however: > Lifetime means the lifetime of MXroute. If every other customer cancels service, no one orders any further service, and only lifetime services remain, then it’s obvious MXroute is nearing it’s end. There’s absolutely no reason for us to plan for that scenario or to act as though it’s an inevitable future. In no way is that a reasonable situation, we’ll always be competitive and creative to keep earning your business. But even if that situation occurs 10 years down the road, won’t you have gotten a pretty sweet deal that beats our regular price offers? [0] https://community.mxroute.com/t/isnt-a-lifetime-promotion-a-bit-scammy/891/2 https://community.mxroute.com/t/isnt-a-lifetime-promotion-a-...
timothevs 5y ago
+1 for MXRoute. I switched a few of my domains from Legacy GSuite in the last week, and the transition has been seamless. I am going to check out Cypht - that looks to be the answer to my last minor quibble.

somehnguy 5y ago

I'm currently deciding between Office365 Family or Fastmail. I would prefer Fastmail, they seem modern & less headache inducing than configuring Office365 for my custom domain. But some family members would benefit from having access to the Office suite of products, so that benefit is quite nice.

sequence7 5y ago
In case you didn't know Office365 family only works with GoDaddy domains, they used to support other registrars but have dropped that support which is why I'm looking for an alternative.
- somehnguy 5y ago
  Hmm, I found a sort of workaround involving a temporary transfer to godaddy to get the records and then back to your preferred registrar. Any chance you know more about that?
- devilkin 5y ago
  If you look around on reddit there are ways to use any domain registrar. Just needs some txt records.

caseyf7 5y ago

What’s the best way to transfer or archive your gmail in a way that keeps it searchable?

osamagirl69 5y ago
There is a button to import to fastmail, which worked very well--basically a seamless transition. The only manual part I had to do was copy over my filter rules.
- horstm22 5y ago
  Fastmail also has a filter rule importer for Gmail!

smukherjee19 5y ago

Seems like Fastmail is extremely popular here, based on the other comments. What are its advantages compared to say, Protonmail?

Swenrekcah 5y ago
I use Fastmail but can’t speak for Protonmail. I wanted to use Protonmail actually, because Australia, but they have an incomprehensible 5GB allowance. Fastmail is better with 30GB which still seems low IMO.
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
The main reason why I switched from Fastmail to Proton is that you don't have to rely on their apps, even though they're far better designed and much more powerful. Example: Proton's Android application still does not support conversation/thread view but you can't even use IMAP/POP3 because of the encryption. I also believe that the benefit of Proton's client-side encryption is extremely limited because most of your contacts aren't on Proton so they'll keep a plain version of your emails. So you're only protected from Proton looking at your content (while you can pay them not to) or from the police asking Proton to share your emails. But Proton was recently forced to give on of their users' account because the French police abused the anti-terrorism laws (through Europol) even though the guy was only suspected of illegally occupying a building in Paris during climate protests. So you end up with lots of small disadvantages (running Proton's bridge for emails, or having to rely on their poor mobile apps) for little protection. Edit: also, when I trialed Fastmail, I discovered that the Protonmail mobile app fails at manual forward to my Fastmail email address (on a custom domain). I've reported the issue 5 times (with all the info to reproduce), reinstalled the application and tested on other devices bu they don't even recognize the issue. They do reply but I still can't email myself due to a bug in their Android apps (both stable and beta versions). Quite frustrating.
- smukherjee19 5y ago
  Thanks for the detailed reply! Going by the narrative, did you mean you switched from Protonmail to Fastmail?

osamagirl69 5y ago

Fastmail. Been using them for ever and they have been nothing but great. Really nice to have actual support if you do need it (I did once for a misconfig on my end of my domain records, they got it sorted in a few hours). I used the auto-import tool from my existing google accounts and it took a while but successfully imported everything with basically zero effort.

riffic 5y ago

Cloudflare's doing free mail forwarding now. It's in beta but they're onboarding people pretty fast. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/ outgoing is going to be a bit more tricky. That's an exercise for the reader. edit: I have also failed to seen ImprovMX mentioned here, but they have a compelling offering for bulk domain owners. Run by a community member (cx42net: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22223783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22223783) I know there are some other niche mail services that are out and do the things you can find through other mentioned companies like fastmail, o365, migadu, mxroute, et cetera. One of these days I should put some sort of mail guide together to collect and untangle this ecosystem.

throw_away 5y ago
Could people who do this talk a bit more about how the outgoing side works out? Is there a way to do this where I don't have to jump through hoops just to hit reply to a message & have it come from my custom domain? Ideally, what I'm looking for: * wildcard routing * keep existing archive of mail * easy to use (replies make sense on mobile and web interface) * not have to replace google identity (for YouTube prefs + 3rd party sign-ins) There was this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30104783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30104783 about how a gsuite account could be converted to a free one, which sounds like it could work with this, but I'm still unsure about how sending mail would work out. The next best alternative I see is fastmail, but that saves me just $12/year + I have to do a lengthy export + I'm not sure how my google accounts will work out.
- 617a6572 5y ago
  In the past, I utilized a standard Gmail account (no G Suite/Workspace) and had mail forwarding set up with a domain I had in Google domains. It supports using a wildcard (any email@domain.com). In terms of sending email as the alias, this is also easily doable: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157?hl=en https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157?hl=en
  - 5y ago

funstuff007 5y ago

If you have a high volume email inbox (role-based address), neither G Suit nor fastmail will suffice. Or they will, but you'll live in fear of a super high volume day when you get blocked, or start dropping messages. This critique is for inbound mail for DAQ, not outbound mail (spam). Does anyone know if G Suite, Fastmail or others offer a high volume option? receive 10K or more messages per day?

CodeBytes 5y ago
Fastmail Professional allows 80,000 inbound, 16,000 outbound per day [1]. [1]: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277382-Account-limits https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277382-Ac...

cjk 5y ago

I can’t recommend Fastmail enough. I used to host my own email server after moving off of Google Apps back in the day, and I don’t miss it at all. Fastmail is reliable and affordable, has great customer service, and supports the sieve language for defining filtering rules. Really tough to beat.

Pelam 5y ago

Aws WorkMail is ok.

unmole 5y ago

I switched to iCloud despite the fact that I have zero personal Apple devices.

criddell 5y ago
I've been thinking about iCloud because it's so inexpensive. How difficult was the transfer? Did you follow any online guides?
- unmole 5y ago
  > iCloud because it's so inexpensive. That was part of why I went with it. > How difficult was the transfer? I didn't actually transfer any data. My old GSuite setup forwarded every incoming email to a Gmail account so, I already had a backup. I just updated the DNS records.
peddling-brink 5y ago
iCloud+ offers custom email domains on the $1 per month tier. Just point a few dns records and it “just works”. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-mma473945269/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-m...

christophilus 5y ago

I’ve loved Fastmail. Wildcard emails are really nice. It’s also much faster than Gmail, in my experience (I still have a Gmail account at work.)

gingerlime 5y ago

Slightly OT, but since you mention accidentally deleting it, how do I delete my G Suite? The screen to delete says > You have at least 1 active subscription. You need to cancel your subscriptions before you can delete this account. and when I click to cancel my subscription it says > All administrative controls available only with G Suite legacy (such as sharing policies, audit and reporting, and alerts) will be removed. To continue accessing these administrative controls, you'll need to purchase G Suite legacy again. > To use the Admin console free of charge to delete your organisation’s account, you agree to the Cloud Identity agreement. > You’ll lose access to your G Suite legacy service immediately You can’t undo this action So I'm paranoid of locking myself out with no way to still access the admin console to delete it... and with no support obviously

alphabettsy 5y ago

Zoho or Fastmail. Have been using both for years. Zoho is more of a GSuite competitor, Fastmail is perfect for family or personal.

martin_ 5y ago

Thanks for the headsup- looks like I'll be impacted by this too. My admin page links to a google form which lets you say you're using it for personal use only (I am) -- wondering if they'll grandfather folks in. Otherwise it sounds like fastmail is the favorite for HN! I found the form via their FAQ @ https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nonbiz&zippy=%2Cwhat-if-i-use-g-suite-legacy-free-edition-for-personal-use-and-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-google-workspace-subscription https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nonbiz&zippy=%2Cwh...

TMWNN 5y ago
I qualify based on what the FAQ says (fewer than 10 users, no commercial use), but see nothing relevant when I log into admin.google.com. Hopefully something will appear for me. EDIT: A link to the Google Form is at https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-suite-users-migrate-to-free-google-accounts/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-s...

Brajeshwar 5y ago

Migadu is an alternative with a competitive pricing model - https://www.migadu.com https://www.migadu.com

Reitet00 5y ago
Are you using Migadu on a daily basis? If so how is it?
- jupblb 5y ago
  I use Migadu on a daily basis and the experience is absolutely incredible. The UX is very satisfying: everything is well described, it's a simple website and seems to just work. It serves a bit as a buffer for all my email traffic so I can use any client I like (even redirect to gmail if need be). The pricing looks reasonable to me. Overall I can highly recommend this.
zeagle 5y ago
Another vote for migadu. I've used migadu for my family between two domains on their cheapest plan. I've been very happy with it. Their webclient while functional is a bit barebones so we use phone email + emclient on laptops with nextcloud handling contacts and calendar.

hickimsedenolan 5y ago

I am currently using Cloudflare as an email forwarder, but used forwardemail.net before, and saw both are equally fast and secure. They forward emails to my random Gmail account, which I reply to as that domain.

jaytaylor 5y ago

I thought ElGoog announced yesterday that they’ve decided (for now) to reverse course on the plan to take away legacy G-suite accounts? Relevant links: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-suite-users-migrate-to-free-google-accounts/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-s... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30114343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30114343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30118907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30118907 In any case, good riddance. I’d love to get out of the abusive relationship I have with google and “Legacy G-suite”, so a workable long-term alternative would be great!

riffic 5y ago
I think we're way beyond the point where Google is simply not to be trusted with any of its communications regarding the longevity of legacy products. See the killed by google graveyard guy (https://github.com/codyogden/killedbygoogle https://github.com/codyogden/killedbygoogle) for all examples there.
Macha 5y ago
No, they've promised some as of yet undefined ability to move to consumer google accounts. Because of the limits that gsuite accounts have had for consumer products over time, this is something people have been asking for and google hasn't delivered in quite some time, so until they announce details, I'm expecting many strings attached to the migration process if it's something they've been pressured into doing quickly.
- extra88 5y ago
  As explained in the Techcrunch regurgitation of an Ars Technica article [0], in addition to the migration, they're also inviting small (<10), non-business users to identify themselves, dangling the possibility of a better option for them (which might be a continuation of G Suite Legacy as-is, a slightly cheaper pricing tier, or something else). Nothing is happening to G Suite Legacy until May so there's no need to get off it now. It makes sense to start researching options now but there's plenty of time to wait and see what happens. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-relents-legacy-g-suite-users-will-be-able-to-migrate-to-free-accounts/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-relents-legac...

DizzyDoo 5y ago

I'm in the same boat - I have a free GSuite account and need to either pay Google for it or move elsewhere. What's not clear is that I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. Both the email and the YouTube channel are for my video games business, so I'm okay paying for the privilege of my domain with my email, but I'm unsure that I want to trust Google with that. The whole way they have announced cancelling this GSuite deal, which they originally promised they would never do (it was "for life"), makes me think that all the more. But my YouTube account is pretty important to my business and I don't want to lose that.

ValentineC 5y ago
> What's not clear is that I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. I believe the prevailing proposed solution is to migrate your accounts to the free Google Cloud Identity service [1] before cancelling your Workspace subscription. [1] https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=en https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=e...
extra88 5y ago
> I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel. You will not. "If you don’t upgrade to a Google Workspace subscription, you will not lose access to other Google services, including YouTube, Google Photos, and Google Play, nor paid content, including YouTube and Play Store purchases." [0] Basically, your account is still a valid Google Account, you just lose access to the services that are actually a part of Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Meet). [0] https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217 https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217

vedtopkar 5y ago

Curious as to why no one is recommending just paying for Google Workspace? $6/month for Google vs $5/month for Fastmail seems similar enough to avoid the hassle of transferring email servers.

Operyl 5y ago
For me the annoyance was that I had 4 legacy organizations that I had to spend hours figuring out how to merge (incredibly non trivial to get drive contents from one organization to another, shared drives work but only with files and not folders, so I had to move stuff over a folder at a time). If they’re going to do this crap, I wish they had proper migration tools. They left a lot of us high and dry. A lot of people aren’t against spending money, but if we already have to spend the time to move crap around, we might as well pay an organization we trust.
Freak_NL 5y ago
One reason I am looking to move away is that Google simply has too large of a market stake in the email business. If I'm going to pay, I'd rather pay a smaller company in order to stimulate diversity in the field; it's just better for open standards.
nightgarden 5y ago
I'm paying for Workspace and use it as my primary Google Account and really wouldn't recommend it unless you also have another regular Google account and use Workspace only for work, because the "Google experience" on a Google workspace account is really sub-par. Google assistant functionality is limited, you can't get invited to someone's home, you can't set up a family, actually you can't use Google One at all. The list of inconveniences is huge. I've been planning to move out of Google Workspace for years but it's a hassle to migrate primary inbox.
- ValentineC 5y ago
  +1 to this. Adding on: I also can't use Google Pay on my G Suite Legacy account, we can't be invited to families for Google One/YouTube Premium either, and apparently my free Google Voice number might stop working if I fail to transfer it to a free @gmail.com account before they force me to downgrade.

agambrahma 5y ago

I'd recommend picking one between (1) Fastmail and (2) Hey. There are some pros and cons, but both are good. I went with Fastmail.

outime 5y ago

From all the places I'm surprised Fastmail gets so much praise in HN. I'm sure it's a nice paid service but it's based in Australia which is notorious for being a disaster for those who care for privacy. There are countless posts in Hacker News about this (just search Australia + privacy) and here's one [1] that's specifically addressing Fastmail and its situation over there. I'm not against Fastmail specifically but I'd definitely consider services based in countries which do better privacy-wise. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178

Macha 5y ago
Hierarchy of needs. For email I need: 1. To have control over my account, so I can use my custom domain and move to another provider without the years it takes for my family etc. to update everywhere they have my old address stored. So protonmail, posteo, etc., are out. 2. Able to use open tools to access my account. No IMAPS or SMTPS? Out. 3. To be safe against hackers etc. So Joe's Email Service, run out of his basement, that promises not to give the data to his government in Slovakia is out. 4. Privacy against governments is definitely a nice to have feature, _but_ anyone sending me email is probably using Gmail anyway, so it's not like the US government couldn't get it at the other end anyway. If we ignore for the fact that they share so much data, Australia is arguably preferable to the US having data, since I go to the US frequently and have business there and so if something happens like with the curl author where they decide they don't like someone I've done business with, the US is more of a problem. Fastmail has obvious failings on point 4, but providers need to cover points 1, 2, and 3 before I'm comparing them on point 4.
cryptime 5y ago
I second that. No difference between gmail & fastmail - mail scanning, automated address collection and no at rest encryption. Tutanota is the best of the lot with encryption at rest, ability to send both plain and encrypted email, custom domain support, and a responsive customer support with crypto payment support. Much better than Proton too minus the shenanigans.
- devilkin 5y ago

allset_ 5y ago

I use Tutanota due to its privacy focus. 1€/mo is very affordable.

netfortius 5y ago

https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email- https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email- free email if you move the domain to their service. Pretty inexpensive (1/4 of go daddy).

xlii 5y ago

I've done the research (and already some action) even though I have only 2 non-related users on 2 different GSuites who use solely GMail. For myself I use FastMail and there is nothing I can complain about, however I wasn't really fond of migrating towards it, since that'd require 2 separate organizations, which would pretty much beat the point (pricing would be similar, but it takes some time). Few random thoughts about whole thing: - Fastmail is OK, there's nothing good or bad about it, however if someone is GMail user (with their fancy UI and filtering) they will be disappointed. One can add Sanebox but that's additional cost. - I'd stay away from Protonmail for two reasons - first is they don't really have IMAP (as it's encrypted etc.), so it's either hack your own bridge or use their applications. Second reason is that I've worked with few organization which perceived protonmail-based e-mails as spam and phishing (it's super easy to create anonymous e-mail account there so...) - iCloud+ provides custom domain support, it's kind of interesting how it works, and might save you few bucks, but the migration process is not exactly Apple-like - Migrating away is going to take a lot of effort. When I made decision I noticed that my DNS TTL were set to 604800. I set that domain LONG time ago, so I suppose those were recommended values back then. - Either forget about archives or be prepared for a long time to sync it. Google allows export (and that's pretty much the only way as there is 2500MB daily download quota for IMAP) but getting it uploaded is something else. - iCloud is funny because you can't really admin it - you add and setup domain and when you share it within family it's theirs to setup, one cannot make overreaching management For my 2 users I'm going for iCloud, cause they are already in the ecosystem quite deep, as paying customers and also it integrates nicely with other services.

CraigRood 5y ago
I've got a question if you don't mind. I'm set on moving to iCloud too for my domain as the only thing I really care about in the G Suite is just personal email via custom domain. Should I change the Apple ID of my account off my custom domain ? I can see a scenario where I can't access my iCloud because I need access to iCloud to verify the email.... I could move the domain records, but this won't be a 5 minute job.
- xlii 5y ago

benbristow 5y ago

I've been using Office 365 for about a year now after moving from G Suite - didn't like how on G Suite I couldn't use certain products like Stadia and my Google account was essentially hostage to the monthly bill. I did have to go through the process of transferring my data (Photos) manually to a standard consumer Google account and losing some stuff like my Google Maps Local Guides status, Android purchases (I use an iPhone now anyway but not nice to lose the purchases in-case I switch in the future) and my YouTube account (wasn't much stuff on it anyway) and resubscribing to all my favourite YouTubers. Wasn't too painful - disgraceful how Google allow you to transfer your standard Google Account to a Gsuite one but not the reverse. Been a rather pleasant experience on the Microsoft side. Integration into the Outlook smartphone apps and Windows 10/11 mail client is second to none and the webapp is solid too. The spam filtering is excellent too. Quite nice how if you login to Microsoft services and have the same email address for your standard Microsoft account and O365 you can get the option to select which one when logging in. You can find resellers selling keys for a year of it, I bought mine from Amazon. Will definitely be renewing this year.

gigel82 5y ago
Tried it out, but the problem is no catch-all / aliases, and with the family subscription you're limited to 6 accounts. Also, you won't be able to sign in into Windows / Office with me@domain.com, you'd still need to use the outlook.com / live.com / hotmail.com address, which feels unnecessarily complicated.

rickmode 5y ago

I use Hover for my personal domain, and added a "small mailbox" for my email address. For calendaring, I use iCloud, which works fine since I'm an iPhone user and that thing is _always_ with me. I switched my personal website (which I basically never utilize), from Blogger to GitHub Pages. Should I ever want to post things, the Jekyll integration will be plenty. At the moment the page has 90s style "under construction" notice, which I find mildly amusing and is all I wanted over Hover's own missing website page. I looked at other options -- ProtonMail or FastMail -- but figured my needs were fairly basic. I don't use multiple mailboxes, I very rarely search my email history, iCloud handles my calendar (I had switch this up already), and I don't need a huge amount of space. After 10+ years on G Suite, my personal email was 1.5GB, so I figured any email host would work. I didn't bother importing all of my email to the new Hover email, nor did I want to. Instead I archived my G Suite email and copy / pasted my current Inbox across, which was 20-some messages (I practice a slightly messy version of Inbox Zero). If I ever need to search the old email history, I'll import the old G Suite email archive to Thunderbird or Apple Mail. About having my domain and email hosted by the same provider: I understand the risk, however I have managed to keep my personal website and email going consistently for over two decades, and I'm not terribly worried. Plus I have auto-renew enabled.

skydhash 5y ago
If you have iCloud+, you can add your domain to your account. I use Mail.app so I don't know how exactly to set up them in an email app (you receive email through your iCloud account in Mail.app). There is no real need to change, but it is a nice feature and as good as free.

b20000 5y ago

fastmail is one of the very few good options. it’s not great, but it’s OK.

e-clinton 5y ago

I’d go with fastmail or proton if it were just me, but my extended family is using my domain and I’m not paying $60+ a year per user. I’m currently evaluating Zoho Mail as their prices are pretty reasonable.

invalidname 5y ago

My current direction is to setup an email server on one of my Linux boxes and forward everything to my gmail account. That way my regular gmail account has full domain support like before. Cloudflares forwarding is great for one email but useless for many emails/domains as I have quite a few domains and a few users.

skoskie 5y ago
Funny, I do the opposite. I pass email through Gmail just for the spam filtering and then to my real inbox.

yumraj 5y ago

I've been using Zoho. Seems to work well and is one of the cheaper ones out there.

akaij 5y ago

I just helped a couple friends move to iCloud+ for the custom domain email feature. It was very simple to set up and got it working under 15 mins. Highly recommended, especially if you're already on iCloud+.

ThatPlayer 5y ago
I was looking into iCloud+ myself, but the biggest issue is there doesn't seem to be support for catch-alls?

voussoir 5y ago

I have been using Purelymail since July 2021 and it's worked very well for me so far. You can have as many domains and accounts as you want and the pricing comes down to total usage. For me it's been $0.40 per month.

akvadrako 5y ago

mailbox.org is good if you want to avoid the USA and Australia.

seanwilson 5y ago

Check if your domain comes with free web forwarding and SMTP outgoing mail because you can wire this up to a free gmail account to get email behind a custom domain. I know Gandi offers this for every domain for example but I don't know how common it is (Namecheap offers web forwarding but not mail sending for example). Do other registrars offer this?

tkiolp4 5y ago
Agree. I have a domain with Gandi and use it for my primary email address as well. For silly websites I used protonmail.

ab_testing 5y ago

I think it depends on the price point you are comfortable with . There is Zoho at $2/user, Rackspace at $3/user and then GSuite and Office 365 at $5/user per month if paid annually. There is also Namecheap business email from $.90 to $1.50 per user price point depending on how many users you are looking for.

beaugunderson 5y ago

I really like pobox.net. They handle storing and forwarding email for my domain. I forward from my domain to a regular Gmail account and primarily use Superhuman as my interface to Gmail. If Gmail ever goes away or I want to switch services I can just point pobox (and thus my domain) at another service, or use pobox directly.

ziffusion 5y ago

Having just done this myself I would HIGHLY recommend transferring email using a IMAP based tool. Any POP based tool will not retain any of the folder organization you may have in your Gmail mailbox. Gmail implements folders via labels, and the only way that I know of how to pass these through to the new mailbox (whether it be Gmail or not) is by using IMAP. I used: https://imapsync.lamiral.info/#install https://imapsync.lamiral.info/#install This one is free if you don't need support. There are others. The email hosting service I settled for is: https://mxroute.com https://mxroute.com Use them only for forwarding, so their cheapest package is OK for me.

devilkin 5y ago

I can recommend Fastmail. Switched to them a few years back. Privacy they aren't the greatest - Australia based company. Besides that: * They do mail, and do it well * Calendar/contacts support * they use standards (IMAP/caldav/cardav) * Webclient is OK - faster than Google, and for me it just works better. * They have labels! This is a killer feature, I really did miss it coming from Google. I have a bunch of filters that label my mails accordingly, I just hit archive when I'm done with them so they disappear from view * Android client is 'ok'. To get the contacts/calendar in the Android apps I recommend DavX5. * Catchall * Recently added "Masked Email" - you create a random alias on your mail account to use to sign up for services. If you have 1Password it'll even generated a pw for you. When I first switched I had issues with an iCal feed from O365 where MS didn't honor the spec, and this caused duplicate issues. FM implemented a fix. Forget about this kind of service from Google or MS, unless you are an international multi-million dollar company.

hongkonger 5y ago

Both iCloud and Zoho free tier were good options to park one's custom domain for email. Both services support security features like SPF and DKIM, without which you may experience bounced email due to the spam filter on receiving sides. Eventually I picked Zoho because it supported catch-all email account, and its instruction to set up DNS records were easy to follow too. I used Namecheap for domain transfer, and found its support responsive. For example, I found that I could immediately resubmit transfer request with its refund, after I failed the first transfer attempt due to GoDaddy's "protection" measures. For old emails, Google Takeout let you download a mbox file that you can easily open on Mozilla Thunderbird. Takeout also downloaded all your content in Photos and Drive etc that you can keep offline. Now that I don't have a custom domain associated with my G Suite account, I can sit back and let Google do its things. Overall, on positive note, this was a good excuse to learn about / brush up one's knowledge on domain transfer, DNS records (MX/TXT/CNAME), SPF/DKIM email security, mbox import.

samieljabali 5y ago

I recently moved from Gmail to Fastmail, and noted a detailed process here: https://sami.eljabali.org/how-to-replace-gmail/ https://sami.eljabali.org/how-to-replace-gmail/