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I have been seriously interested in migrating away from gmail for a long time, but it creates a lot of anxiety. 1. How to effectively migrate. Run dual email f

I have been seriously interested in migrating away from gmail for a long time, but it creates a lot of anxiety. 1. How to effectively migrate. Run dual email for a while? 2. How to effectively back up email all of my content so it is searchable. I've kind of used Google/GMAIL as a dumb filestore in that, I know random messages are there from 15 years ago that I can just use the google search for to bring up. These are things I need to spend time on in order to take it seriously. I'd like to take it seriously.

marpstar 4y ago
When I left Gmail for FastMail, I imported my contacts and calendar from Gmail, started fresh with the email. Nothing is forcing you to delete your Gmail, you can always go back and reference it. You can export your mailbox from Gmail and import it into a local mail client, I just didn't bother. For each new service, I'd sign up with my new custom domain email instead of my Gmail. I'd continually check the Gmail for emails that I cared about and would update my email for those services/mailing lists as they came in. Over the period of a couple years. I maybe move one email over a month these days, so we're just about done. With a custom domain, I'll never have to do this again. The best time to start is a few years ago. The second best time is now.
sitzkrieg 4y ago
been on fastmail a long time but heres what i did: 1.i switched emails over as i logged in so it wasnt as daunting. i did move over biggies like banking and daily stuff immediately 2. later i setup gmail to forward all mail to <gmail at my domain> so i dont miss the stray actual email to old address thats it. 12 domains and zero problems later! i should mention, fastmails spam filter on the default settings is doing drastically better than gmail did for a publicly posted email
commandersaki 4y ago
The other replies are pretty good. 1. To migrate I'd use their email import utility. I've never used it but I've heard good things. On the Fastmail side set up sender identities so you can compose (and reply) to emails using your @gmail.com address [if you're using gmail addresses]. On gmail side you can continue having a dual email setup by having gmail setup forwarding such that it forwards the email and keeps a copy in gmail. I have 4 gmail accounts setup this way, so I know that I can always fallback to gmail if there's an issue on Fastmail (haven't had one for over a decade with this setup though). 2. Fastmail indexes emails so they're searchable via their web UI. It's pretty good, I've not really had any issues. In my opinion, the best way to use Fastmail is to bring your own domain. One really cool thing about Fastmail Web UI is that it integrates well with catch-all email addresses, so you can have <catch-all-alias>@mydomain.com and when you get emails to that address, when you click Reply it automatically sets your sending identity to <catch-all-alias>@mydomain.com. This ensures your correspondence is consistent with the email aliases you use.

marpstar 4y ago

When I left Gmail for FastMail, I imported my contacts and calendar from Gmail, started fresh with the email. Nothing is forcing you to delete your Gmail, you can always go back and reference it. You can export your mailbox from Gmail and import it into a local mail client, I just didn't bother. For each new service, I'd sign up with my new custom domain email instead of my Gmail. I'd continually check the Gmail for emails that I cared about and would update my email for those services/mailing lists as they came in. Over the period of a couple years. I maybe move one email over a month these days, so we're just about done. With a custom domain, I'll never have to do this again. The best time to start is a few years ago. The second best time is now.

sitzkrieg 4y ago

been on fastmail a long time but heres what i did: 1.i switched emails over as i logged in so it wasnt as daunting. i did move over biggies like banking and daily stuff immediately 2. later i setup gmail to forward all mail to <gmail at my domain> so i dont miss the stray actual email to old address thats it. 12 domains and zero problems later! i should mention, fastmails spam filter on the default settings is doing drastically better than gmail did for a publicly posted email

commandersaki 4y ago

The other replies are pretty good. 1. To migrate I'd use their email import utility. I've never used it but I've heard good things. On the Fastmail side set up sender identities so you can compose (and reply) to emails using your @gmail.com address [if you're using gmail addresses]. On gmail side you can continue having a dual email setup by having gmail setup forwarding such that it forwards the email and keeps a copy in gmail. I have 4 gmail accounts setup this way, so I know that I can always fallback to gmail if there's an issue on Fastmail (haven't had one for over a decade with this setup though). 2. Fastmail indexes emails so they're searchable via their web UI. It's pretty good, I've not really had any issues. In my opinion, the best way to use Fastmail is to bring your own domain. One really cool thing about Fastmail Web UI is that it integrates well with catch-all email addresses, so you can have <catch-all-alias>@mydomain.com and when you get emails to that address, when you click Reply it automatically sets your sending identity to <catch-all-alias>@mydomain.com. This ensures your correspondence is consistent with the email aliases you use.