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I used Tuta for both private and business use for a couple of years. Switched away because of terrible search experience and lack of SMTP and IMAP access. Tut

I used Tuta for both private and business use for a couple of years. Switched away because of terrible search experience and lack of SMTP and IMAP access. Tuta became understandably a walled garden that my other tools couldn't easily work with. This wasted alot of my time. Nowadays using $normalemailprovider with Thunderbird.

marvel_boy 3y ago
Can confirm, it is a terrible experience and waste of time.
vincentkriek 3y ago
What is $normalemailprovider? I have been looking for an alternative that is more standard, but it seems like only Fastmail is big in this space. The rest are small shops that don't convey a lot of confidence.
- Beijinger 3y ago
  Fastmail is supposed to be good. But you can just buy your own domain with Email hosting. It is free with gandi.net. Or use https://www.infomaniak.com/ https://www.infomaniak.com/ Infomaniak also sells email hosting for around 20 Euro per year, they are based in Switzerland. If you have your own domain, just type the domain name as you would buy the domain and if the interface says domain taken, select email hosting (the three dots).
  - Sukram21 3y ago
    Gandi mailboxes are not free anymore (discussed e.g. here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777).
    - Beijinger 3y ago
      C&P from the other thread: "So, further to recent changes at Gandi, I've just got some more info from support which I've included below. I've purchased domains from Gandi, pre-paying for multiple years of service such that some domains I have don't need renewing until 2027. When I purchased that service the offer was inclusive of 2 mailboxes for the duration of the contract, and now they're planning to remove those inclusive mailboxes and start charging me extra for them from next month. To me, this sounds like a planned and fully intentional breach of contract." Sorry, I was not aware that they changed. Currently I don't hold a domain with them. They were always a decent provider. This behavior seems very unfortunate.
  - bob_fastmail 3y ago
    Just note that fastmail‘s search is basically useless if you expect Gmail-like search (unless I am missing some sort of trick to get it working). The rest of Fastmail is excellent though.
    - Beijinger 3y ago
      I use thunderbird IMAP and honestly, the search is not great either. If I have trouble finding something, recoll normally does the job. It indexes thunderbird too. And should you have a ZIP attachement in thunderbird, it will index the content too. :-). I think you could even set up up with cuneiform that a PDF inside the ZIP attachment goes through OCR should it not be plain text. https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/pages/index-recoll.html https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/pages/index-recoll.htm...
    - nmjenkins 3y ago
      (I work for Fastmail). Our search is comparable and in some ways more powerful than Gmail's search. If you're having problems, please create a support ticket (or just email support@fastmail.com) and we'd love to look into that for you. Thanks!
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
      Tell me more. I use Gmail at work and Fastmail at home, and I usually access all my emails via search. I much prefer Fastmail overall.
    - kermatt 3y ago
      Why would someone expect a Gmail-like search when using not-Gmail?
    - nusl 3y ago
      Can’t say I’ve had many issues with Fastmail search at all. Google is known for search so they would naturally prevail for some searches, but Fastmail does just fine.
  - Freak_NL 3y ago
    You can also get your own domain, and have FastMail host your e-mail with that. It has the benefit of not tying your e-mail address to any single e-mail hoster: you own the domain for it. FastMail has excellent documentation to get this set up. Migrating there from GMail (were I already used my own domain) was a breeze.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      I'll second this. Moved from Gmail as well.
  - tharne 3y ago
    I recently started using fastmail and am generally please with it. The only downside is that it's based in Australia, a country who's hatred of privacy would make even the NSA blush.
    - newscracker 3y ago
      An FYI: Fastmail’s mail servers are located in the U.S.
      - type0 3y ago
        Australian jurisdiction that can forcefully dictate any kind of spying and US where data stream tapping is the easiest, so it's double bad then
- imiric 3y ago
  Not sure what qualifies as "normal", but I've been happy with mailfence.com for a few years now. I rarely see them mentioned in privacy lists, which I appreciate, as I don't want them to get too much attention. :) They're based in Belgium, and have a solid stance on privacy and security. They provide IMAP/SMTP access, calendar/CalDAV, contacts/CardDAV, custom domain names, filters, spam blocking, etc. It's a pretty well-rounded and maintained service. The web UI is not the most modern, but it's usable.
  - coderedart 3y ago
    Yeah, no way mailfence is that privacy friendly. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/how-cops-caught-the-too-clever-by-half-collegiate-threatening-mukesh-ambani-101699298598816.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/how-cops-c... The police were able to get a lot of info from mailfence to catch a stupid student who thought using a vpn and mailfence would enable him to send threats easily to the richest man in india. The police got info on how many accounts were from this country, how many of them were active, monitor the mail account for new mails etc..
    - imiric 3y ago
      No reputable email service will allow you to use it to commit crimes. If the activity is against their ToS, and they get a legal warrant to provide information to the authorities, then this goes beyond any reasonable expectation of privacy. Mailfence is pretty open about this[1]. Their privacy policy[2] also seems reasonable. Their only obligation is complying with Belgian law, and I'll take that any day over a service within the Five Eyes jurisdiction. [1]: https://blog.mailfence.com/transparency-report-and-warrant-canary/ https://blog.mailfence.com/transparency-report-and-warrant-c... [2]: https://mailfence.com/en/privacy.jsp https://mailfence.com/en/privacy.jsp
      - coderedart 3y ago
        Ah, good to know. Although, Crime means nothing when police can easily just register a fake case and ask to monitor your email id. India has fallen a lot in human rights ranking in this decade.
- svilen_dobrev 3y ago
  i am with migadu for ~6+ years . all Fine. sometimes some actions (mostly moving mails between folders - like deleting) are slow. But not a show stopper.
- nusl 3y ago
  Big or not, Fastmail is a great service and one I’ve used for many years now.
- newscracker 3y ago
  I usually suggest people to take a look at these: mailbox.org, runbox.com, mailfence.com, posteo.de (this last one doesn’t support custom domains). They’re all cheap enough, provide IMAP and POP, and are located in different countries in Europe.
  - jeo123 3y ago
    [dead]
kuratkull 3y ago
Same here, the search was horrible and eventually caused me to move away. Using mailbox.org is a much more pleasant experience. Other options: https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-email https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-email
- Tutanota 3y ago
  Thanks for your feedback. We're planning to re-do the search implementation completely as it needs a major overhaul to quickly search larger mailboxes. We're constantly improving the service, for instance we've just added unlimited email addresses with your own domain (https://tuta.com/blog/summer-releases-2023 https://tuta.com/blog/summer-releases-2023) so always happy to hear feedback and how we can meet your needs!
  - nusl 3y ago
    You are conveniently ignoring the comment mentioning your bad E2E implementation and commenting on other comments. Why?
    - _nalply 3y ago
      Anyone could have registered an account with the name "Tutanota". It does not make sense to converse.
      - mtmail 3y ago
        The account is 8 years old and did a 'Show HN' of the service.
        _nalply 3y ago
        Right. I didn't research the account too well, my bad. However the account also has little karma and this triggered my suspicions (shrugs). Trust in accounts like Tutanota seems to be rather informal. Perhaps it works anyway.
  - 3y ago
FpUser 3y ago
>"Nowadays using $normalemailprovider with Thunderbird." Been using this since 2005 I think
hiepph 3y ago
For me, the "Inbox rules" hasn't been working as I expected—some emails doen't end up in the folder that I want. The experience of editing rules feels awkward. And I cannot "bridge" Thunderbird to Tutanota to apply my filters. Recent price change was the last straw to make me another end-to-end encrypted alternative. Recently I switched to Proton Mail with advanced Sieve filter [1] and feel much happier. [1]: https://proton.me/support/sieve-advanced-custom-filters https://proton.me/support/sieve-advanced-custom-filters
O1111OOO 3y ago
> Tuta became understandably a walled garden that my other tools couldn't easily work with. This is the part that resonates with me very strongly right now. I have always been concerned about privacy, security... re: the applications I use. Recently, I started to question this in regard to some applications. I needed a WiFi-friendly way to SMS & call for about a year and opted for Signal. The year's over, no longer need Signal. Now I find that I can't delete Signal without losing the (very boring) chat files forever. Signal does not support exporting, saving chat logs. I looked into 3rd-parties: 1. Great solution by YourFavouriteElite (2 years old) - sadly it failed https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/irbxii/how_can_i_export_and_save_signal_chats/ https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/irbxii/how_can_i_ex... 2. Two Windows solutions here (failed to run in WINE, will need Windows to test): https://www.ticktechtold.com/export-signal-pdf-csv-html/ https://www.ticktechtold.com/export-signal-pdf-csv-html/ 3. Also... I'm finding that I'm having problems communicating with Apple users over regular SMS. I will often not receive their SMS messages unless I turn on WiFi (I'm on Android). This could be several hours after they sent it. I have not bothered to investigate further but it feels like more walled garden stuff, competing protocols, etc.. There just doesn't seem to be a nice 'in-between' between security/privacy and closing yourself off from your data. 'nuf said. I think I'm ranting now mostly because I didn't make the right choice early on for my needs. I just didn't think it through.

marvel_boy 3y ago

Can confirm, it is a terrible experience and waste of time.

vincentkriek 3y ago

What is $normalemailprovider? I have been looking for an alternative that is more standard, but it seems like only Fastmail is big in this space. The rest are small shops that don't convey a lot of confidence.

Beijinger 3y ago
Fastmail is supposed to be good. But you can just buy your own domain with Email hosting. It is free with gandi.net. Or use https://www.infomaniak.com/ https://www.infomaniak.com/ Infomaniak also sells email hosting for around 20 Euro per year, they are based in Switzerland. If you have your own domain, just type the domain name as you would buy the domain and if the interface says domain taken, select email hosting (the three dots).
- Sukram21 3y ago
  Gandi mailboxes are not free anymore (discussed e.g. here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777).
  - Beijinger 3y ago
    C&P from the other thread: "So, further to recent changes at Gandi, I've just got some more info from support which I've included below. I've purchased domains from Gandi, pre-paying for multiple years of service such that some domains I have don't need renewing until 2027. When I purchased that service the offer was inclusive of 2 mailboxes for the duration of the contract, and now they're planning to remove those inclusive mailboxes and start charging me extra for them from next month. To me, this sounds like a planned and fully intentional breach of contract." Sorry, I was not aware that they changed. Currently I don't hold a domain with them. They were always a decent provider. This behavior seems very unfortunate.
- bob_fastmail 3y ago
  Just note that fastmail‘s search is basically useless if you expect Gmail-like search (unless I am missing some sort of trick to get it working). The rest of Fastmail is excellent though.
  - Beijinger 3y ago
    I use thunderbird IMAP and honestly, the search is not great either. If I have trouble finding something, recoll normally does the job. It indexes thunderbird too. And should you have a ZIP attachement in thunderbird, it will index the content too. :-). I think you could even set up up with cuneiform that a PDF inside the ZIP attachment goes through OCR should it not be plain text. https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/pages/index-recoll.html https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/pages/index-recoll.htm...
  - nmjenkins 3y ago
    (I work for Fastmail). Our search is comparable and in some ways more powerful than Gmail's search. If you're having problems, please create a support ticket (or just email support@fastmail.com) and we'd love to look into that for you. Thanks!
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
    Tell me more. I use Gmail at work and Fastmail at home, and I usually access all my emails via search. I much prefer Fastmail overall.
  - kermatt 3y ago
    Why would someone expect a Gmail-like search when using not-Gmail?
  - nusl 3y ago
    Can’t say I’ve had many issues with Fastmail search at all. Google is known for search so they would naturally prevail for some searches, but Fastmail does just fine.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  You can also get your own domain, and have FastMail host your e-mail with that. It has the benefit of not tying your e-mail address to any single e-mail hoster: you own the domain for it. FastMail has excellent documentation to get this set up. Migrating there from GMail (were I already used my own domain) was a breeze.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    I'll second this. Moved from Gmail as well.
- tharne 3y ago
  I recently started using fastmail and am generally please with it. The only downside is that it's based in Australia, a country who's hatred of privacy would make even the NSA blush.
  - newscracker 3y ago
    An FYI: Fastmail’s mail servers are located in the U.S.
    - type0 3y ago
      Australian jurisdiction that can forcefully dictate any kind of spying and US where data stream tapping is the easiest, so it's double bad then
imiric 3y ago
Not sure what qualifies as "normal", but I've been happy with mailfence.com for a few years now. I rarely see them mentioned in privacy lists, which I appreciate, as I don't want them to get too much attention. :) They're based in Belgium, and have a solid stance on privacy and security. They provide IMAP/SMTP access, calendar/CalDAV, contacts/CardDAV, custom domain names, filters, spam blocking, etc. It's a pretty well-rounded and maintained service. The web UI is not the most modern, but it's usable.
- coderedart 3y ago
  Yeah, no way mailfence is that privacy friendly. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/how-cops-caught-the-too-clever-by-half-collegiate-threatening-mukesh-ambani-101699298598816.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/how-cops-c... The police were able to get a lot of info from mailfence to catch a stupid student who thought using a vpn and mailfence would enable him to send threats easily to the richest man in india. The police got info on how many accounts were from this country, how many of them were active, monitor the mail account for new mails etc..
  - imiric 3y ago
    No reputable email service will allow you to use it to commit crimes. If the activity is against their ToS, and they get a legal warrant to provide information to the authorities, then this goes beyond any reasonable expectation of privacy. Mailfence is pretty open about this[1]. Their privacy policy[2] also seems reasonable. Their only obligation is complying with Belgian law, and I'll take that any day over a service within the Five Eyes jurisdiction. [1]: https://blog.mailfence.com/transparency-report-and-warrant-canary/ https://blog.mailfence.com/transparency-report-and-warrant-c... [2]: https://mailfence.com/en/privacy.jsp https://mailfence.com/en/privacy.jsp
    - coderedart 3y ago
      Ah, good to know. Although, Crime means nothing when police can easily just register a fake case and ask to monitor your email id. India has fallen a lot in human rights ranking in this decade.
svilen_dobrev 3y ago
i am with migadu for ~6+ years . all Fine. sometimes some actions (mostly moving mails between folders - like deleting) are slow. But not a show stopper.
nusl 3y ago
Big or not, Fastmail is a great service and one I’ve used for many years now.
newscracker 3y ago
I usually suggest people to take a look at these: mailbox.org, runbox.com, mailfence.com, posteo.de (this last one doesn’t support custom domains). They’re all cheap enough, provide IMAP and POP, and are located in different countries in Europe.
- jeo123 3y ago
  [dead]

kuratkull 3y ago

Same here, the search was horrible and eventually caused me to move away. Using mailbox.org is a much more pleasant experience. Other options: https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-email https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-email

Tutanota 3y ago
Thanks for your feedback. We're planning to re-do the search implementation completely as it needs a major overhaul to quickly search larger mailboxes. We're constantly improving the service, for instance we've just added unlimited email addresses with your own domain (https://tuta.com/blog/summer-releases-2023 https://tuta.com/blog/summer-releases-2023) so always happy to hear feedback and how we can meet your needs!
- nusl 3y ago
  You are conveniently ignoring the comment mentioning your bad E2E implementation and commenting on other comments. Why?
  - _nalply 3y ago
    Anyone could have registered an account with the name "Tutanota". It does not make sense to converse.
    - mtmail 3y ago
      The account is 8 years old and did a 'Show HN' of the service.
      - _nalply 3y ago
        Right. I didn't research the account too well, my bad. However the account also has little karma and this triggered my suspicions (shrugs). Trust in accounts like Tutanota seems to be rather informal. Perhaps it works anyway.
- 3y ago

FpUser 3y ago

>"Nowadays using $normalemailprovider with Thunderbird." Been using this since 2005 I think

hiepph 3y ago

For me, the "Inbox rules" hasn't been working as I expected—some emails doen't end up in the folder that I want. The experience of editing rules feels awkward. And I cannot "bridge" Thunderbird to Tutanota to apply my filters. Recent price change was the last straw to make me another end-to-end encrypted alternative. Recently I switched to Proton Mail with advanced Sieve filter [1] and feel much happier. [1]: https://proton.me/support/sieve-advanced-custom-filters https://proton.me/support/sieve-advanced-custom-filters

O1111OOO 3y ago

> Tuta became understandably a walled garden that my other tools couldn't easily work with. This is the part that resonates with me very strongly right now. I have always been concerned about privacy, security... re: the applications I use. Recently, I started to question this in regard to some applications. I needed a WiFi-friendly way to SMS & call for about a year and opted for Signal. The year's over, no longer need Signal. Now I find that I can't delete Signal without losing the (very boring) chat files forever. Signal does not support exporting, saving chat logs. I looked into 3rd-parties: 1. Great solution by YourFavouriteElite (2 years old) - sadly it failed https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/irbxii/how_can_i_export_and_save_signal_chats/ https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/irbxii/how_can_i_ex... 2. Two Windows solutions here (failed to run in WINE, will need Windows to test): https://www.ticktechtold.com/export-signal-pdf-csv-html/ https://www.ticktechtold.com/export-signal-pdf-csv-html/ 3. Also... I'm finding that I'm having problems communicating with Apple users over regular SMS. I will often not receive their SMS messages unless I turn on WiFi (I'm on Android). This could be several hours after they sent it. I have not bothered to investigate further but it feels like more walled garden stuff, competing protocols, etc.. There just doesn't seem to be a nice 'in-between' between security/privacy and closing yourself off from your data. 'nuf said. I think I'm ranting now mostly because I didn't make the right choice early on for my needs. I just didn't think it through.