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This question comes up a couple times every month. FastMail always comes up as a recommendation, so if you search comments for FastMail, you’ll find every past

This question comes up a couple times every month. FastMail always comes up as a recommendation, so if you search comments for FastMail, you’ll find every past thread (and relatively few false positives): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=FastMail%20&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru... Example from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128198

CharlesW 5y ago
> This question comes up a couple times every month. Thank you! I used HN search before posting but didn't find anything helpful when searching for "google workspace", so I appreciate the links.
vero2 5y ago
Every service has their haters and lovers. While people in G-suite threads swear that moving to fast mail or MS is the best options, in Microsoft threads people complain about clunky MS interface. It is always full circle! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30141192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30141192
- hedgehog 5y ago
  I'm a happy Fastmail customer for e-mail but they don't do everything Workspace does. Microsoft is a more direct alternative with all the Office apps etc and personally I like the web Outlook interface way better than GMail.
smoyer 5y ago
It has definitely come up before but since Google just announced that the legacy free plans will convert to a paid service, there will probably be renewed interest.
fy20 5y ago
How does FastMail handle tags? I tried Zoho but it's pretty terrible compared to how Gmail works. What I'd like is: 1) To be able to assign tags based on rules 2) To be able to view those tags in IMAP clients (Gmail exposes labels as IMAP folders) 3) To be able to Archive mail so they are no longer in the Inbox, but so the tag remains (in Gmail, 'Inbox' is just a tag that is removed when you Archive mail) Zoho fails because: 1) Tags aren't anywhere near a first class citizen. You need to hover over an icon to see what tags are assigned to an email. 2) There's no way to search Archived mail (yes really) and it's not available over IMAP
- nmjenkins 5y ago
  If you switch to labels mode, Fastmail handles them just like Gmail.
- rasulkireev 5y ago
  I love Zoho for what they offer for $12/year. I agree that UI is better on Gmail, which is why I redirect all email to my GMail Dashboard.
- discardedrefuse 5y ago
  FastMail doesn't have tags. What it does have? Let me copy/paste my comment from another thread: They have subdomain addressing, which is kind of like plus addressing, but better (not all places let you sign up with plus addressing). I've got my own domain, for example: mydomain.com. So my fastmail email address is depingus@mydomain.com. But with subdomain addressing, I can sign up for services with unique email addresses that look like: social.hackernews@depingus.mydomain.com I don't have to set up this alias ahead of time. Fastmail will automatically route incoming messages arriving to this email address to my "social" folder. If I start getting junk to that address I can easily blacklist it. It wasn't easy switching out my email address EVERYWHERE. And there are places that won't even let me change it. But in the end, it was so worth it. I don't even miss Google Inbox anymore!
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    You don't even need the subdomain addressing, a one catchall domain is enough (with you own domain). Eg: I want to register on HN - I would just register with hackernews@mydomain or hn.com.accounts@mydomain or whatever on the mailbox address side - it would be delivered to my main catchall mailbox anyway.
kingcharles 5y ago
I really like Fastmail's Android app too. It's probably only a wrapper around a browser, but it works so nice.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FredFS456 5y ago
  My gripe is that it doesn't work offline, so you can't expect to sync emails once and read them later.

CharlesW 5y ago

> This question comes up a couple times every month. Thank you! I used HN search before posting but didn't find anything helpful when searching for "google workspace", so I appreciate the links.

vero2 5y ago

Every service has their haters and lovers. While people in G-suite threads swear that moving to fast mail or MS is the best options, in Microsoft threads people complain about clunky MS interface. It is always full circle! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30141192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30141192

hedgehog 5y ago
I'm a happy Fastmail customer for e-mail but they don't do everything Workspace does. Microsoft is a more direct alternative with all the Office apps etc and personally I like the web Outlook interface way better than GMail.

smoyer 5y ago

It has definitely come up before but since Google just announced that the legacy free plans will convert to a paid service, there will probably be renewed interest.

fy20 5y ago

How does FastMail handle tags? I tried Zoho but it's pretty terrible compared to how Gmail works. What I'd like is: 1) To be able to assign tags based on rules 2) To be able to view those tags in IMAP clients (Gmail exposes labels as IMAP folders) 3) To be able to Archive mail so they are no longer in the Inbox, but so the tag remains (in Gmail, 'Inbox' is just a tag that is removed when you Archive mail) Zoho fails because: 1) Tags aren't anywhere near a first class citizen. You need to hover over an icon to see what tags are assigned to an email. 2) There's no way to search Archived mail (yes really) and it's not available over IMAP

nmjenkins 5y ago
If you switch to labels mode, Fastmail handles them just like Gmail.
rasulkireev 5y ago
I love Zoho for what they offer for $12/year. I agree that UI is better on Gmail, which is why I redirect all email to my GMail Dashboard.
discardedrefuse 5y ago
FastMail doesn't have tags. What it does have? Let me copy/paste my comment from another thread: They have subdomain addressing, which is kind of like plus addressing, but better (not all places let you sign up with plus addressing). I've got my own domain, for example: mydomain.com. So my fastmail email address is depingus@mydomain.com. But with subdomain addressing, I can sign up for services with unique email addresses that look like: social.hackernews@depingus.mydomain.com I don't have to set up this alias ahead of time. Fastmail will automatically route incoming messages arriving to this email address to my "social" folder. If I start getting junk to that address I can easily blacklist it. It wasn't easy switching out my email address EVERYWHERE. And there are places that won't even let me change it. But in the end, it was so worth it. I don't even miss Google Inbox anymore!
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  You don't even need the subdomain addressing, a one catchall domain is enough (with you own domain). Eg: I want to register on HN - I would just register with hackernews@mydomain or hn.com.accounts@mydomain or whatever on the mailbox address side - it would be delivered to my main catchall mailbox anyway.

kingcharles 5y ago

I really like Fastmail's Android app too. It's probably only a wrapper around a browser, but it works so nice.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FredFS456 5y ago
My gripe is that it doesn't work offline, so you can't expect to sync emails once and read them later.