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Google Is Holding All Your Old Free G Suite Accounts Hostage

140 points by johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago

grammers 5y ago
Are you still using Google?
sschueller 5y ago
Any suggestions on a stack if one wants to run their own mail server? Debian with postfix and some sort of round cube still the way to go? I am aware of what it entails regarding IP "cleaning", setting a reverse record, SPF and DKIM. Just looking for tips on the software stack side.
- scumola 5y ago
  any linux distro with postfix would be the best/fastest self-hosted solution
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Mailinabox.
- kardianos 5y ago
  You could try maddy: https://maddy.email/ https://maddy.email/ An all-in-one stack.
  - mholt 5y ago
    I love the idea of maddy. (I swear it's inspired by Caddy but I have no proof.) I do kinda wish it was just made into a Caddy module, though.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Here's your proof[0]: > Is it caddy for email? > No. It was intended to be one but developers quickly acknowledged the fact email cannot be easily abstracted behind some magic. The only other instances of Caddy are that they copied a "caddyfile lexer" [1] and seemingly a typo in a test[2]. 0: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d08c7f0e3927df64f10db915a9d3c1660c0fca4b/docs/faq.md#is-it-caddy-for-email https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d08c7f0e3927df64f10db91... 1: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fefe2a7a622e2abf6bd/framework/config/lexer/README.md https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fe... 2: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fefe2a7a622e2abf6bd/framework/address/validation_test.go#L11 https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fe...
      - mholt 5y ago
        Interesting! Things for the links/info.
- exac 5y ago
  There is a hidden cost to this though. Running your own email server, or even having a lesser-known company manage your email server, can cause your emails to be sent to spam without any action on your part. You aren't notified when your email goes to a spam folder, so you always have to worry that the recipient of your emails didn't receive the email, even if you only ever send legitimate emails. If you stay on top of all the best-practices for running your own mail server, your hidden cost is the mind-share that that takes.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    In theory this shouldn't be a problem if you aren't using a known-trash IP and have SPF and DKIM set up, since the only thing the major inbox providers want is a way to verify and associate spam reputation with a domain instead of an IP. If this really hurts you can just set up Amazon SES use that via SMTP, you'll get 62k free emails a month (always free, not just first 12 months). This even works if you want a mostly-free setup: you have MX forwarding via some provider (Cloudflare, your registrar, etc) going to a personal address, and SES operates as your outbound SPF that works with Outlook/Gmail in terms of allowing you to set your domain email(s) as aliases within their interface.
    - croutonwagon 5y ago
      Thats not entirely true. Microsoft is crazy on what it flags, and their AI straight just does "things". Their support has admitted as much when i had tickets open for months trying to white list basic GNU/Hurd list serves (that I didnt run). Im sure just running Mail in a Box on linode would 100% flag it. I KNOW google would because half the time i socks through one of my linodes (that i have used and owned the IP for years on) i get thrown through all sorts of captchas on services. INCLUDING signing into my own gsuite from it (despite an established history of just doing it). Unfortunately the big players own mail, they do what they want. In fact having a domain registered with one will do better for your mail reputation than most would care to admit. Just look at how MS uses SMTPS on port 25, sure they COULD use 587 or 465, but they dont: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/use-connectors-to-configure-mail-flow/set-up-connectors-to-route-mail https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-pra...
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  OpenBSD with opensmtpd is the most sane approach to SMTP. You probably will need dovecot for IMAP which is not that easy to configure but default configuration mostly fine.
- SteveNuts 5y ago
  iredmail is good
- fuzzy2 5y ago
  I use mailcow-dockerized. The default web frontend, SOGo, is so-so, but I mostly use iOS Mail and Thunderbird to access it.
- nullwarp 5y ago
  I use docker-mailcow for pretty much everything on a 20$/m linode instance and just use Postmark to do the actual delivery. Been sharing this setup with about 20 family/friends for a while now (5 years?)
- mappu 5y ago
  I set this all up last month with docker-mailserver, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, the rDNS ptr, sharing LE cert with dokku, with alps for webmail, and it all seemed to be working fine (round-trip delivery to Gmail addresses, etc) until one day I tried to email an outlook.com address and immediately got told my IP was blocked. The mail server's IP is a pretty normal cloud VPS IP from a major hosting company. It's not on any public blocklists. I submitted unblock requests to MS, and signed up for their SNDS service, but all requests were denied without explanation and I simply made no progress. My conclusion is that this route is impossible - do not waste time trying it.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    > Worked great until one provider, Outlook.com, blocked me. Do not try cause you may run into an issue like me and get upset and quit. Now I use Outlook.com instead.
  - 3np 5y ago
    Microsoft are the worst (and the only ones that ever posed a hassle for us). I recommend raising the issue with support of your cloud VPS. They most likely handle cases like this routinely and have channels to MS that can get this resolved much smoother, IME. It's their IPs, after all.
- 77pt77 5y ago
  You'll be considered SPAM almost everywhere. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter that you are replying to an email and the message-id is referenced. It'll be considered SPAM. DKIM, DMARC and SPF mitigate it a bit, but not really. Yesterday I had a form ask me for my email and it only accepted @gmail.com Every other domain I tried was refused as invalid. Email is dead.
scumola 5y ago
Yet another good, working service that Google shuts down for the almighty dollar
- kevingadd 5y ago
  I don't even mind paying for it but the nature of the transition and the cost for the features is obscene. For example, I have a secondary address for business reasons and in the new g suite that has to be an "account" which costs money every month
  - OzzyB 5y ago
    I maybe mistaken but I believe you can create additional aliases under the same account -- I seem to remember doing that a few months back when I got auto-updated to Google Workspace.
  - aftbit 5y ago
    No it doesn't? You can set up unlimited aliases, afaik. If you want to have separate access however, it does. I'm currently planning to migrate my script-sending email address to mailgun or SES instead of using a separate gmail user.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      I believe i've hit a limit before, but I just was able to add about 50 aliases to myself so it seems the limit has been increased or removed.
    - kevingadd 5y ago
      That's not a separate address/mailbox, that's a forwarding alias
  - shon 5y ago
    As others have said, you can set up aliases / groups and those do not require additional accounts. Also if you’re the only account then you can just configure a catch-all in the routing section so that anything@your domain goes to you. That’s no additional cost even on these basic accounts I believe. I use this so I can also track by using a new address for each service (e.g. twitter@mydomain.com, ebay@mydomain.com, etc)
IMSAI8080 5y ago
I migrated to Zoho back in January for email and opened a regular Google account for YouTube etc. Just waiting for them to kick me off now.
- throwaway290 5y ago
  How did it go for you and how does Zoho compare? Did you migrate from free G suite specifically? Did you have custom domains?
  - bartvk 5y ago
    I tried this in 2018, and had problems with notifications under iOS, and there wasn't support for syncing contacts and calendars. Also, Zoho its offering is pretty huge, so for example grokking the settings screens takes some effort. Perhaps someone can give a more recent update?
    - mushufasa 5y ago
      I used zoho for a few years in our org. We started on the free zoho plan then transitioned to paid. As we hired more, we got a lot of requests for people to switch to gsuite, and we finally did a few months ago. Now we have both side by side. Main reasons people wanted gsuite - gmail UI preference (Zoho webmail ui is feature-complete but clunky and slow) - perceived email deliverability (people thought gsuite would be better for deliverability. We haven't seen much difference in reality though) - preference for google drive + docs over zoho workdrive + docs. This is not just due to familiarity -- the features for google are smoother and more reliable. It seems fine to use zoho but when you are losing saved drafts or having to doubele-check the technology or don't know where thee buttons are for something, productivity losses add up over time - frustratino with some of the other zoho services. Their Zoho One offers a ton of things to solve most product categories, but they're rarely best in class. More of a problem is that often simple things you would expect to work don't work. We struggled a lot with zoho desk for example because there is a years-old bug where they didn't implement the RFC for nonce's correctly, so we couldn't actually use it embedded in our website because of the CSP
artursapek 5y ago
For people only using it as an email backend: there are plenty of cheap, privacy-respecting alternatives such as mailbox.org (the one I've used for 7-8 years now).
- MinorTom 5y ago
  After they changed (raised) their pricing they simply removed the cloud drive with no notice and no way to access existing files.
SamCritch 5y ago
Yeah, this is a pain and I hope there will be some good news soon. My family runs on this - the only advantage over free Gmail is that we can use our own domain name, and we're going to suddenly have to pay $42 per month (okay, $36 if I trim one of the accounts I hardly use). We've got loads of Photos, movie purchases etc which I don't want to lose, plus all the kids Android phones, 2 x Home, 2 x Chromecast. Friends who use regular Gmail accounts get to use things like Family Link etc for parental approval/monitoring as well... which I'm still not going to be able to use. Come on Google, please come up with a family service which allows you to use your own domain name. Pretty please! I'd still pay a few $ per month for it, especially if it's good on parental controls and monitoring.
- 77pt77 5y ago
  How do the parental controls work? What do they entail?
insaneirish 5y ago
> Google is holding all your old free G Suite accounts hostage They are not holding these accounts hostage. You can export mail from Google. You can change your MX records to different servers. I've been bit as much as anyone by Google killing products, but honestly, it's amazing they've kept this product free for so long. And in this case, the product isn't being killed; they've simply decided to start charging for it.
- kadoban 5y ago
  So now our choices are: pay $6 per user per month for essentially what everyone gets for free, or our accounts, which are used for all kinds of free Google services, stop working.
  - EduardoBautista 5y ago
    > 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. https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2Fanswer%2F60217&assistant_event=welcome&assistant_id=!EeLdngiT4qrN8SULewzJ1s8nfrtSpqO4&product_context=60217&product_name=UnuFlow&trigger_context=a https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?article_ur...
    - kadoban 5y ago
      Thanks, that's new to me.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      The paragraph prior reads: "After 60 days in suspension, you will no longer have access to Google Workspace core services, such as Gmail, Calendar, and Meet." I'd really like to know the full list of the "core services" that become unavailable. I've moved my email to Fastmail, but I still use Google Calendar and occasionally Google Meet. What else is included here? Chat? I use that too.
zerocrates 5y ago
So the last I heard about this, Google had relented to some extent and was going to offer some offramp for people who had data, purchases, etc. in an old free Apps for Domain/G Suite/Workspace account. They had a form you could submit to saying you wanted more information about those options. Has anyone heard any more on this front? I don't mind paying someone else just to run email for my domain (or potentially even paying Google) but I'd like to offload my Android app purchases and all that kind of stuff I have on there.
- cersa8 5y ago
  I submitted the form but haven't heard back. I have recreated all important email accounts on a self hosted Mailcow instance with a sync job that syncs all email every hour. When push comes to shove I only have to flip the MX record for the domains.
- croutonwagon 5y ago
  I signed up for the form. Have not heard but they DID say it would be after April 1. My guess is they have a Family Tier. Same limits as free, but with a cost. Personally I'm willing to foot the bill if i have to, but that will probably only be a stopgap to get to something that is cheaper. Unfortunately a lot of the heralded services (ie: ProtonMail) dont have the same services (ie: no contacts sync or notes sync etc). That is VERY handy outside the app. While i could work around it, not sure family would be a willing.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    I'd be willing to pay for it if it's actually good value, because the current G Suite sure is not. You need to pay $6/month, or $72/year to get 30 GB of storage + custom domain. If you're on Gmail and pay nothing, you get 15 GB of storage. If you're on Gmail and pay $20/year (or $1.99/month) towards Google One, you get 100 GB of storage. Basically, the custom domain part of G Suite costs quite a lot considering how little of anything else you get in comparison to cheaper Google One plans. No idea how expensive that can be, since Apple will sell me a 50 GB iCloud+ account that has custom domain emails, iCloud Private Relay and other features for 0.99 €/month.
Ajedi32 5y ago
This is outdated right? The article is from back in January, before Google relented and added a way to migrate back to a regular Gmail account: https://www.androidcentral.com/g-suite-legacy-free-edition-users-will-get-free-migration-option https://www.androidcentral.com/g-suite-legacy-free-edition-u...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dddddaviddddd 5y ago
  This tool hasn't been released yet, right?
  - jayknight 5y ago
    I check this page every week or so: >In the coming months, we'll provide an option for you to move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option. This new option won't include premium features like custom email or multi-account management. You'll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1, 2022 and prior to account suspension. We'll update this article with details in the coming months. https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#data&zippy=%2Cif-i-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-paid-subscription-can-i-transfer-my-data%2Cif-i-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-paid-subscription-can-i-keep-or-transfer-my-data https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#data&zippy=%2Cif-i... I'm kind of counting on that being available before they start charging me.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      Oh, this is quite interesting. The one thing I am worried about is that it's not clear if it will let us migrate to a "Google Account without GMail" (which lets you use a custom domain to create a free Google Account, see https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail?hl=en https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail?hl=en), but will instead require that we migrate to an @gmail.com account. I really don't want that; I want to keep my Google Account identity the same (with my custom domain). I've already moved my email from GMail to Fastmail, so I don't need Google to host my email. Unfortunately this support page doesn't give much in the way of details, and I expect there won't be much time between when they release this tool (and I inevitably am able to confirm it won't do what I want) and when I'll have to start moving my data, which will require writing some specialized tools if I want to migrate as losslessly as possible to a new Google Account.
code51 5y ago
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durnygbur 5y ago
And so my last dependency on Google solves itself shrug.
deleted 5y ago
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Invictus0 5y ago
Why would you ever expect a service like this to be free in perpetuity? It's hardly a bait and switch: you never paid for anything, and still got 15+ years of service!
- Mindless2112 5y ago
  > 18. Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer the Service to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of the Service (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment: (i) does not apply to the Domain Service described in Section 4 above; and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Service in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Service for a fee. [1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110429023658/http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/standard_terms.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110429023658/http://www.google... Of course, Google later removed this clause from the ToS.
  - jsmith45 5y ago
    Which is weird given that the term that allows them to modify the terms explicitly referenced number 18 as an exception. The only valid argument for it being legal to discontinue this on you is that G-Suite is not GApps, and both are discontinued services anyway, with Google Workspace being the current offering. Which is presumably what they would argue if sued over this.
- coffeefirst 5y ago
  I think we finally learned we shouldn't. Looks suspiciously at Google docs, which is free, rapidly approaching monopoly status if it's not there already, and has no revenue stream for personal users to speak of.
spoonjim 5y ago
This is the kind of company that Google has always been - eager to make money off you in dark alleyways and always eager to throw users to the piranhas when it's not worth their time anymore. The end result is for want of a few engineers to maintain Google Reader or a few dollars of revenue left on the table for free G Suite users, Google's users don't trust the company farther they can throw it, which has led to hundreds of billions of dollars of lost enterprise value as products like Google Cloud just don't have the trust to compete with AWS and Azure.
binkHN 5y ago
This was already heavily covered at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29996432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29996432.
Thoreandan 5y ago
This is a blogspam repost of Jan-19 https://www.androidauthority.com/gsuite-legacy-free-edition-3093722/ https://www.androidauthority.com/gsuite-legacy-free-edition-... Other commenters have mentioned that 'Legacy G Suite free users will get a free migration option after all'
tonymet 5y ago
Paying for subscriptions is the way to go. We can't expect companies to give expensive services away for free, and we don't seem to like being merchandized with ads.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  The service itself is not expensive. For example, my ISP offers it for free, so does my registrar. They're effectively selling an overpriced software subscription (to gmail) and threat of lock-in is at least some part of the marketing tactic.
  - tonymet 5y ago
    i know people who manage free GSuite accounts with 3000+ members. that’s $60k / mo in lost sales and at least $500 / mo cost to operate
    - xanaxagoras 5y ago
      Haha, fair enough, hadn't thought of that scenario. That is pretty insane to expect a free service to provide that in perpetuity.
- amanzi 5y ago
  Google has a habit of offering free services that other companies can't compete with, and then after they've killed off the competition they start charging for the services. Classic example is Google Photos - they killed off a bunch of competiors in the early days who couldn't compete with Google's unlimited free storage.
chriscjcj 5y ago
> "Hey Google, if you expect users to pay for the privilege of using services that were marketed for free to small organizations or families, you can at least migrate to a regular free plan. options can be provided. While you’re at it, here’s how to go about fixing the shortcomings of Google Workspace to make it worth the attached monthly fee." Hey Nation World News Desk... Google doesn't care.
kringo 5y ago
From Do No Evil to Do Evil, going forward will avoid any Google product in the name of FREE (you're the product), mine the data for years (and know everything about the user) and later start charging for it! It is HOSTAGE and Evil!
duxup 5y ago
I feel like at some point we have to accept that unless we want to have stuff like this happen and/or sell our personal data all the time…. we as users also need to pay for stuff. We want everything free, and I don’t blame anyone for that desire but when nobody pays the bills it comes due in some way. The result sucks when the math works out…
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- deleted 5y ago
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Aloha 5y ago
I've still not been notified that the free service is going away. Nor does the admin portal account prompt me to upgrade. I'm not sure if my account falls into some sort of never-never-land or if I'm gonna just end up getting charged.
penteston 5y ago
I cant open site nationworldnews.com
brento 5y ago
Here is the related change.org petition I signed. https://www.change.org/p/google-account-migration-from-workspace-to-gmail https://www.change.org/p/google-account-migration-from-works...
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Has a change.org petition ever changed anything? Every time I see someone mention change.org, I think of it as a bunch of Susanne Vegas standing in a windy tunnel shouting through the wall. I'd love to hear of any change.org success stories, but as far as I can tell, it's all KONY2012 every time.
yannikyeo 5y ago
Here’s a sheet comparing alternatives, not mine https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gu8FFyNY1Y9X69kHmJvkI0fLv8GaK-5B6HnQZZzo1Nw/htmlview https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gu8FFyNY1Y9X69kHmJvk...

140 points by johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago

Are you still using Google?

Any suggestions on a stack if one wants to run their own mail server? Debian with postfix and some sort of round cube still the way to go? I am aware of what it entails regarding IP "cleaning", setting a reverse record, SPF and DKIM. Just looking for tips on the software stack side.

scumola 5y ago
any linux distro with postfix would be the best/fastest self-hosted solution
jacquesm 5y ago
Mailinabox.
kardianos 5y ago
You could try maddy: https://maddy.email/ https://maddy.email/ An all-in-one stack.
- mholt 5y ago
  I love the idea of maddy. (I swear it's inspired by Caddy but I have no proof.) I do kinda wish it was just made into a Caddy module, though.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Here's your proof[0]: > Is it caddy for email? > No. It was intended to be one but developers quickly acknowledged the fact email cannot be easily abstracted behind some magic. The only other instances of Caddy are that they copied a "caddyfile lexer" [1] and seemingly a typo in a test[2]. 0: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d08c7f0e3927df64f10db915a9d3c1660c0fca4b/docs/faq.md#is-it-caddy-for-email https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d08c7f0e3927df64f10db91... 1: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fefe2a7a622e2abf6bd/framework/config/lexer/README.md https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fe... 2: https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fefe2a7a622e2abf6bd/framework/address/validation_test.go#L11 https://github.com/foxcpp/maddy/blob/d8cabb932d9e7c3abd056fe...
    - mholt 5y ago
      Interesting! Things for the links/info.
exac 5y ago
There is a hidden cost to this though. Running your own email server, or even having a lesser-known company manage your email server, can cause your emails to be sent to spam without any action on your part. You aren't notified when your email goes to a spam folder, so you always have to worry that the recipient of your emails didn't receive the email, even if you only ever send legitimate emails. If you stay on top of all the best-practices for running your own mail server, your hidden cost is the mind-share that that takes.
- judge2020 5y ago
  In theory this shouldn't be a problem if you aren't using a known-trash IP and have SPF and DKIM set up, since the only thing the major inbox providers want is a way to verify and associate spam reputation with a domain instead of an IP. If this really hurts you can just set up Amazon SES use that via SMTP, you'll get 62k free emails a month (always free, not just first 12 months). This even works if you want a mostly-free setup: you have MX forwarding via some provider (Cloudflare, your registrar, etc) going to a personal address, and SES operates as your outbound SPF that works with Outlook/Gmail in terms of allowing you to set your domain email(s) as aliases within their interface.
  - croutonwagon 5y ago
    Thats not entirely true. Microsoft is crazy on what it flags, and their AI straight just does "things". Their support has admitted as much when i had tickets open for months trying to white list basic GNU/Hurd list serves (that I didnt run). Im sure just running Mail in a Box on linode would 100% flag it. I KNOW google would because half the time i socks through one of my linodes (that i have used and owned the IP for years on) i get thrown through all sorts of captchas on services. INCLUDING signing into my own gsuite from it (despite an established history of just doing it). Unfortunately the big players own mail, they do what they want. In fact having a domain registered with one will do better for your mail reputation than most would care to admit. Just look at how MS uses SMTPS on port 25, sure they COULD use 587 or 465, but they dont: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/use-connectors-to-configure-mail-flow/set-up-connectors-to-route-mail https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-pra...
vbezhenar 5y ago
OpenBSD with opensmtpd is the most sane approach to SMTP. You probably will need dovecot for IMAP which is not that easy to configure but default configuration mostly fine.
SteveNuts 5y ago
iredmail is good
fuzzy2 5y ago
I use mailcow-dockerized. The default web frontend, SOGo, is so-so, but I mostly use iOS Mail and Thunderbird to access it.
nullwarp 5y ago
I use docker-mailcow for pretty much everything on a 20$/m linode instance and just use Postmark to do the actual delivery. Been sharing this setup with about 20 family/friends for a while now (5 years?)
mappu 5y ago
I set this all up last month with docker-mailserver, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, the rDNS ptr, sharing LE cert with dokku, with alps for webmail, and it all seemed to be working fine (round-trip delivery to Gmail addresses, etc) until one day I tried to email an outlook.com address and immediately got told my IP was blocked. The mail server's IP is a pretty normal cloud VPS IP from a major hosting company. It's not on any public blocklists. I submitted unblock requests to MS, and signed up for their SNDS service, but all requests were denied without explanation and I simply made no progress. My conclusion is that this route is impossible - do not waste time trying it.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  > Worked great until one provider, Outlook.com, blocked me. Do not try cause you may run into an issue like me and get upset and quit. Now I use Outlook.com instead.
- 3np 5y ago
  Microsoft are the worst (and the only ones that ever posed a hassle for us). I recommend raising the issue with support of your cloud VPS. They most likely handle cases like this routinely and have channels to MS that can get this resolved much smoother, IME. It's their IPs, after all.
77pt77 5y ago
You'll be considered SPAM almost everywhere. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter that you are replying to an email and the message-id is referenced. It'll be considered SPAM. DKIM, DMARC and SPF mitigate it a bit, but not really. Yesterday I had a form ask me for my email and it only accepted @gmail.com Every other domain I tried was refused as invalid. Email is dead.

scumola 5y ago

Yet another good, working service that Google shuts down for the almighty dollar

kevingadd 5y ago
I don't even mind paying for it but the nature of the transition and the cost for the features is obscene. For example, I have a secondary address for business reasons and in the new g suite that has to be an "account" which costs money every month
- OzzyB 5y ago
  I maybe mistaken but I believe you can create additional aliases under the same account -- I seem to remember doing that a few months back when I got auto-updated to Google Workspace.
- aftbit 5y ago
  No it doesn't? You can set up unlimited aliases, afaik. If you want to have separate access however, it does. I'm currently planning to migrate my script-sending email address to mailgun or SES instead of using a separate gmail user.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    I believe i've hit a limit before, but I just was able to add about 50 aliases to myself so it seems the limit has been increased or removed.
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    That's not a separate address/mailbox, that's a forwarding alias
- shon 5y ago
  As others have said, you can set up aliases / groups and those do not require additional accounts. Also if you’re the only account then you can just configure a catch-all in the routing section so that anything@your domain goes to you. That’s no additional cost even on these basic accounts I believe. I use this so I can also track by using a new address for each service (e.g. twitter@mydomain.com, ebay@mydomain.com, etc)

IMSAI8080 5y ago

I migrated to Zoho back in January for email and opened a regular Google account for YouTube etc. Just waiting for them to kick me off now.

throwaway290 5y ago
How did it go for you and how does Zoho compare? Did you migrate from free G suite specifically? Did you have custom domains?
- bartvk 5y ago
  I tried this in 2018, and had problems with notifications under iOS, and there wasn't support for syncing contacts and calendars. Also, Zoho its offering is pretty huge, so for example grokking the settings screens takes some effort. Perhaps someone can give a more recent update?
  - mushufasa 5y ago
    I used zoho for a few years in our org. We started on the free zoho plan then transitioned to paid. As we hired more, we got a lot of requests for people to switch to gsuite, and we finally did a few months ago. Now we have both side by side. Main reasons people wanted gsuite - gmail UI preference (Zoho webmail ui is feature-complete but clunky and slow) - perceived email deliverability (people thought gsuite would be better for deliverability. We haven't seen much difference in reality though) - preference for google drive + docs over zoho workdrive + docs. This is not just due to familiarity -- the features for google are smoother and more reliable. It seems fine to use zoho but when you are losing saved drafts or having to doubele-check the technology or don't know where thee buttons are for something, productivity losses add up over time - frustratino with some of the other zoho services. Their Zoho One offers a ton of things to solve most product categories, but they're rarely best in class. More of a problem is that often simple things you would expect to work don't work. We struggled a lot with zoho desk for example because there is a years-old bug where they didn't implement the RFC for nonce's correctly, so we couldn't actually use it embedded in our website because of the CSP

artursapek 5y ago

For people only using it as an email backend: there are plenty of cheap, privacy-respecting alternatives such as mailbox.org (the one I've used for 7-8 years now).

MinorTom 5y ago
After they changed (raised) their pricing they simply removed the cloud drive with no notice and no way to access existing files.

SamCritch 5y ago

Yeah, this is a pain and I hope there will be some good news soon. My family runs on this - the only advantage over free Gmail is that we can use our own domain name, and we're going to suddenly have to pay $42 per month (okay, $36 if I trim one of the accounts I hardly use). We've got loads of Photos, movie purchases etc which I don't want to lose, plus all the kids Android phones, 2 x Home, 2 x Chromecast. Friends who use regular Gmail accounts get to use things like Family Link etc for parental approval/monitoring as well... which I'm still not going to be able to use. Come on Google, please come up with a family service which allows you to use your own domain name. Pretty please! I'd still pay a few $ per month for it, especially if it's good on parental controls and monitoring.

77pt77 5y ago
How do the parental controls work? What do they entail?

insaneirish 5y ago

> Google is holding all your old free G Suite accounts hostage They are not holding these accounts hostage. You can export mail from Google. You can change your MX records to different servers. I've been bit as much as anyone by Google killing products, but honestly, it's amazing they've kept this product free for so long. And in this case, the product isn't being killed; they've simply decided to start charging for it.

kadoban 5y ago
So now our choices are: pay $6 per user per month for essentially what everyone gets for free, or our accounts, which are used for all kinds of free Google services, stop working.
- EduardoBautista 5y ago
  > 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. https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2Fanswer%2F60217&assistant_event=welcome&assistant_id=!EeLdngiT4qrN8SULewzJ1s8nfrtSpqO4&product_context=60217&product_name=UnuFlow&trigger_context=a https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?article_ur...
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Thanks, that's new to me.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    The paragraph prior reads: "After 60 days in suspension, you will no longer have access to Google Workspace core services, such as Gmail, Calendar, and Meet." I'd really like to know the full list of the "core services" that become unavailable. I've moved my email to Fastmail, but I still use Google Calendar and occasionally Google Meet. What else is included here? Chat? I use that too.

zerocrates 5y ago

So the last I heard about this, Google had relented to some extent and was going to offer some offramp for people who had data, purchases, etc. in an old free Apps for Domain/G Suite/Workspace account. They had a form you could submit to saying you wanted more information about those options. Has anyone heard any more on this front? I don't mind paying someone else just to run email for my domain (or potentially even paying Google) but I'd like to offload my Android app purchases and all that kind of stuff I have on there.

cersa8 5y ago
I submitted the form but haven't heard back. I have recreated all important email accounts on a self hosted Mailcow instance with a sync job that syncs all email every hour. When push comes to shove I only have to flip the MX record for the domains.
croutonwagon 5y ago
I signed up for the form. Have not heard but they DID say it would be after April 1. My guess is they have a Family Tier. Same limits as free, but with a cost. Personally I'm willing to foot the bill if i have to, but that will probably only be a stopgap to get to something that is cheaper. Unfortunately a lot of the heralded services (ie: ProtonMail) dont have the same services (ie: no contacts sync or notes sync etc). That is VERY handy outside the app. While i could work around it, not sure family would be a willing.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  I'd be willing to pay for it if it's actually good value, because the current G Suite sure is not. You need to pay $6/month, or $72/year to get 30 GB of storage + custom domain. If you're on Gmail and pay nothing, you get 15 GB of storage. If you're on Gmail and pay $20/year (or $1.99/month) towards Google One, you get 100 GB of storage. Basically, the custom domain part of G Suite costs quite a lot considering how little of anything else you get in comparison to cheaper Google One plans. No idea how expensive that can be, since Apple will sell me a 50 GB iCloud+ account that has custom domain emails, iCloud Private Relay and other features for 0.99 €/month.

Ajedi32 5y ago

This is outdated right? The article is from back in January, before Google relented and added a way to migrate back to a regular Gmail account: https://www.androidcentral.com/g-suite-legacy-free-edition-users-will-get-free-migration-option https://www.androidcentral.com/g-suite-legacy-free-edition-u...

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dddddaviddddd 5y ago
This tool hasn't been released yet, right?
- jayknight 5y ago
  I check this page every week or so: >In the coming months, we'll provide an option for you to move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option. This new option won't include premium features like custom email or multi-account management. You'll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1, 2022 and prior to account suspension. We'll update this article with details in the coming months. https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#data&zippy=%2Cif-i-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-paid-subscription-can-i-transfer-my-data%2Cif-i-dont-want-to-upgrade-to-a-paid-subscription-can-i-keep-or-transfer-my-data https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#data&zippy=%2Cif-i... I'm kind of counting on that being available before they start charging me.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Oh, this is quite interesting. The one thing I am worried about is that it's not clear if it will let us migrate to a "Google Account without GMail" (which lets you use a custom domain to create a free Google Account, see https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail?hl=en https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail?hl=en), but will instead require that we migrate to an @gmail.com account. I really don't want that; I want to keep my Google Account identity the same (with my custom domain). I've already moved my email from GMail to Fastmail, so I don't need Google to host my email. Unfortunately this support page doesn't give much in the way of details, and I expect there won't be much time between when they release this tool (and I inevitably am able to confirm it won't do what I want) and when I'll have to start moving my data, which will require writing some specialized tools if I want to migrate as losslessly as possible to a new Google Account.

code51 5y ago

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durnygbur 5y ago

And so my last dependency on Google solves itself shrug.

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Invictus0 5y ago

Why would you ever expect a service like this to be free in perpetuity? It's hardly a bait and switch: you never paid for anything, and still got 15+ years of service!

Mindless2112 5y ago
> 18. Fees. Provided that Google continues to offer the Service to Customer, Google will continue to provide a version of the Service (with substantially the same services as those provided as of the Effective Date) free of charge to Customer; provided that such commitment: (i) does not apply to the Domain Service described in Section 4 above; and (ii) may not apply to new opt-in services added by Google to the Service in the future. For sake of clarity, Google reserves the right to offer a premium version of the Service for a fee. [1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110429023658/http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/standard_terms.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110429023658/http://www.google... Of course, Google later removed this clause from the ToS.
- jsmith45 5y ago
  Which is weird given that the term that allows them to modify the terms explicitly referenced number 18 as an exception. The only valid argument for it being legal to discontinue this on you is that G-Suite is not GApps, and both are discontinued services anyway, with Google Workspace being the current offering. Which is presumably what they would argue if sued over this.
coffeefirst 5y ago
I think we finally learned we shouldn't. Looks suspiciously at Google docs, which is free, rapidly approaching monopoly status if it's not there already, and has no revenue stream for personal users to speak of.

spoonjim 5y ago

This is the kind of company that Google has always been - eager to make money off you in dark alleyways and always eager to throw users to the piranhas when it's not worth their time anymore. The end result is for want of a few engineers to maintain Google Reader or a few dollars of revenue left on the table for free G Suite users, Google's users don't trust the company farther they can throw it, which has led to hundreds of billions of dollars of lost enterprise value as products like Google Cloud just don't have the trust to compete with AWS and Azure.

binkHN 5y ago

This was already heavily covered at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29996432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29996432.

Thoreandan 5y ago

This is a blogspam repost of Jan-19 https://www.androidauthority.com/gsuite-legacy-free-edition-3093722/ https://www.androidauthority.com/gsuite-legacy-free-edition-... Other commenters have mentioned that 'Legacy G Suite free users will get a free migration option after all'

tonymet 5y ago

Paying for subscriptions is the way to go. We can't expect companies to give expensive services away for free, and we don't seem to like being merchandized with ads.

xanaxagoras 5y ago
The service itself is not expensive. For example, my ISP offers it for free, so does my registrar. They're effectively selling an overpriced software subscription (to gmail) and threat of lock-in is at least some part of the marketing tactic.
- tonymet 5y ago
  i know people who manage free GSuite accounts with 3000+ members. that’s $60k / mo in lost sales and at least $500 / mo cost to operate
  - xanaxagoras 5y ago
    Haha, fair enough, hadn't thought of that scenario. That is pretty insane to expect a free service to provide that in perpetuity.
amanzi 5y ago
Google has a habit of offering free services that other companies can't compete with, and then after they've killed off the competition they start charging for the services. Classic example is Google Photos - they killed off a bunch of competiors in the early days who couldn't compete with Google's unlimited free storage.

chriscjcj 5y ago

> "Hey Google, if you expect users to pay for the privilege of using services that were marketed for free to small organizations or families, you can at least migrate to a regular free plan. options can be provided. While you’re at it, here’s how to go about fixing the shortcomings of Google Workspace to make it worth the attached monthly fee." Hey Nation World News Desk... Google doesn't care.

kringo 5y ago

From Do No Evil to Do Evil, going forward will avoid any Google product in the name of FREE (you're the product), mine the data for years (and know everything about the user) and later start charging for it! It is HOSTAGE and Evil!

duxup 5y ago

I feel like at some point we have to accept that unless we want to have stuff like this happen and/or sell our personal data all the time…. we as users also need to pay for stuff. We want everything free, and I don’t blame anyone for that desire but when nobody pays the bills it comes due in some way. The result sucks when the math works out…

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Aloha 5y ago

I've still not been notified that the free service is going away. Nor does the admin portal account prompt me to upgrade. I'm not sure if my account falls into some sort of never-never-land or if I'm gonna just end up getting charged.

penteston 5y ago

I cant open site nationworldnews.com

brento 5y ago

Here is the related change.org petition I signed. https://www.change.org/p/google-account-migration-from-workspace-to-gmail https://www.change.org/p/google-account-migration-from-works...

reaperducer 5y ago
Has a change.org petition ever changed anything? Every time I see someone mention change.org, I think of it as a bunch of Susanne Vegas standing in a windy tunnel shouting through the wall. I'd love to hear of any change.org success stories, but as far as I can tell, it's all KONY2012 every time.

yannikyeo 5y ago

Here’s a sheet comparing alternatives, not mine https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gu8FFyNY1Y9X69kHmJvkI0fLv8GaK-5B6HnQZZzo1Nw/htmlview https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gu8FFyNY1Y9X69kHmJvk...