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Looking for your alternative? Let me give you some (non financially motivated) praise for Fastmail. It has everything Gmail has - even app passwords, hide my
by cadamsdotcom 5mo ago
Looking for your alternative?
Let me give you some (non financially motivated) praise for Fastmail.
It has everything Gmail has - even app passwords, hide my email, and ios integration. The only criticism is the calendar doesn’t autocomplete addresses so that’s a bit more typing than I would like. But everything you do in Fastmail is instant. They live up to the name!
Once you try it and go back, you’ll be shocked - Gmail makes you stare at its logo for multiple seconds while it shrugs and eventually loads.. then takes over the top of your inbox with “try our new AI features!” which never remembers that you dismissed it 50 times in a row. Everything in gmail is SO slow, while Fastmail doesn’t even bother with animations. No animations will confuse you until you settle in and realise that yes, things can be nice.
Fastmail data migration brought across my 22 years of emails over the course of about 30 hours with zero help from me. Search on Fastmail finds everything - even back to when you could only get Gmail with a friend code. There’s nothing left on the other side, it’s all here with me.
Going back to my brand new startup inbox (G Suite) gives me the same feelings I get wandering a castle ruin.
- sshine 5mo ago+1 When I migrated from Gmail to Fastmail years ago, I thought Fastmail felt... less featureful. When I rarely visit my abandoned Gmail, I can't believe I put up with the clunkiness. Lean software stands the test of time. Fastmail hasn't had a noteworthy UI change ever. Minor annoyances: - Clicking an iPhone notification opens the app, but never brings me to the actual email - It is difficult to unfold the full extended header section on iPhone - ...I can't think of more... It saves my drafts, it's not annoying, it has a mobile app. I might switch away for a solution that is more affordable when hosting emails for many family members and organisations. But for a handful, I really can't recommend it enough.
- FireBeyond 5mo agoI use it with Spark on macOS and iOS (Spark Classic) and it just works. Archiving works fine, marking as spam actually moves and 'activates' Fastmail's training. There's email masks, aliases, the UI is always fast and responsive in the web view when I go there.
- 0xhald 5mo agoHave you had any issues with Spark or are there any downsides using it? I haven’t used Spark since I started using Fastmail and have been thinking about it
- FireBeyond 5mo agoNone that I've found. I think just make sure when you configure the account in Spark that the folders are set correctly (i.e. archive and spam folders are mapped to their folders in Fastmail) so you get the correct functionality from them.
- streptomycin 5mo agoThe only thing I miss from Gmail is a "send and archive" button to save me a click when replying to emails.
- vachina 5mo agoWhy are people accessing emails from the webUI. Email is SMTP and IMAP, use any number of clients to access your email.
- rb666 5mo agoBecause Fastmail has a fantastic Web UI, have been using it for years.
- bayindirh 5mo agoNothing is more fantastic(er) than a native application handling multiple e-mail accounts without effort or lag. Thunderbird and macOS mail are great for that. Supporting everything from GMail to personal mail servers, and everything in between.
- fuzztester 5mo agoWhat is Thunderbird written in. #lazyweb #nollm ;)
- locknitpicker 5mo ago> Why are people accessing emails from the webUI. Email is SMTP and IMAP, use any number of clients to access your email. Because the UX of most email clients is extremely bad when compared with the webui of these email providers.
- notpushkin 5mo agoTry Mailspring. I’m a huge fan: https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring
- dotancohen 5mo agoThat's an electron app. What does it offer that Thunderbird doesn't?
- ryantgtg 5mo ago> - Clicking an iPhone notification opens the app, but never brings me to the actual email I've been using fastmail on iOS for years and have never experienced this issue. Clicking from a notification opens up the email. Maybe there's a setting you can adjust?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- PennRobotics 5mo agoFastmail had a UI change a year ago, where they went all "rounded corner" and created unique rows for every message that weren't so easily sorted with Stylus CSS. I emailed them about the changes, and a few weeks later the messages were listed in a way that I could easily apply my own stylesheet again. They also acknowledged on their subreddit the UI change was not incredibly popular (even the CEO was "not enjoying" it) and they took some feedback and provided a few better UX customizations in the options. At one point, Fastmail had an error parsing Unicode in misconfigured iCal files (Google Calendar showed events correctly) but after a short back-and-forth, they fixed it within a week. Now, Google Calendar has had a problem with my organization's iCal files for the past four weeks. Submitting a bug report via the help community is very opaque and unhelpful (a la "Have you tried turning if off and on again?"). Fastmail loads the iCal correctly. I have no clue if Google is aware or when they'll ever fix it. One huge productivity advantage to FM over Gmail? Sort by sender name. (This makes it so easy to bulk apply changes) Setting up own domain has been straightforward. (It's a bit of work ensuring DNS records have DMARC/DKIM/SPF, but it's all in the FM checklist/documentation.) Setting up Python scripts to auto email me using app passwords has been straightforward. Creating aliases and throwaways is straightforward. I have not regretted paying for email; specifically, Fastmail.
- stavros 5mo agoIt's great when the source of revenue for a company is the user, rather than other companies that the user is being sold to. Too bad this is so rare these days.
- Slow_Hand 5mo agoDoes it automatically filter my email into tabs for primary, promotions, social, and updates? Cause that is the single most useful feature offered by Gmail that I have yet to find elsewhere. I'm not talking about manually tagging, setting up, and filtering all incoming email before my inbox can self-organize. I mean automatically. Only show me the true primary items in my inbox from the jump. Everything else can wait. In the absence of this feature my inbox becomes a torrent of incoming mail that is far harder to manage and prioritize. I keep my inbox at "zero" and I can completely understand why other people give up and let their inbox be overrun. This feature is essential for me.
- loloquwowndueo 5mo agoMash that unsubscribe button my dude.
- Slow_Hand 5mo agoI unsubscribe aggressively. I keep my inbox well maintained, but that's still not the feature I'm talking about. My work sends me several shipping notifications a day, but they are not priorities. They are emails to be reviewed later in the day. I don't want push notifications for them. I don't want them in my primary inbox. Gmail (without me telling it to) puts them in the "updates" tab. Same for the promotional emails that come in. They go in "promotions". If I get a 2FA email or an update on a social website they are sorted in the "social" tab without my having to set anything up. This is extraordinarily helpful for managing my email, and it is absent in every client I have tried.
- ghaff 5mo agoExactly. I do unsubscribe--perhaps not as aggressively as I should--but there's a ton of stuff I may want to be aware of that I don't want polluting my primary mailbox. Sometimes I even shift them to my primary tab but, in general, I'm happy with keeping my primary to stuff that I generally do mostly care about and have a few other categories I care about to varying degrees.
- 5mo ago
- EchoReflection 5mo agoFastmail is great. I also use (and really like) Fairemail https://email.faircode.eu/ https://email.faircode.eu/
- GoblinSlayer 5mo ago> Small (<30 MB) The joy of modern apps...
- rc_mob 5mo agoI been using proton but the UI is just a little bit of a let down. missing things that just were natural on gmail and i never had to think about dunno ok maybe I'll try fastmail
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoAgreed. Proton is not up to my personal standard. That’s ok - they have a wonderful VPN service that I use every day.
- tren 5mo agoI agree, it's one of my best value subscriptions. It's especially good if you host a lot of domains, you can link 100 custom domains to a single Fastmail account.
- jbaber 5mo agoFastmail is fast enough and has rich enough keyboard shortcuts that I stopped using mutt for it. It's very good.
- tuananh 5mo agomy only problem with fastmail is their spam filtering is so bad. they mistake legit emails quite often
- thaumasiotes 5mo agoThat's not exactly a reason to stick with gmail. Gmail will mark anything as spam.
- nexus7556 5mo agoI agree. Their spam filtering is absolute trash. I get 3-4 spam messages a day in my inbox. I file support tickets for it and they always tell me there is nothing they can do.
- sph 5mo agoSee my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380983
- distances 5mo agoI disagree. Their spam filtering has been top notch for me. Sometimes spam does get through, but marking that as spam has made sure the next ones of the same are flagged correctly. Lately LLM generated spam has fooled it more often, though. Let's see if that becomes a problem.
- tuananh 5mo agomy problem is more like legit emails are marked as spam. which make me nervous if i miss anything in the Spam folder.
- sph 5mo agoIt's not. I wrote about this a couple times. Here's how it works: the personal spam filter kicks in after having trained on ~100-200 spam emails. You need to mark them as spam (you might want to use a filter initially if they all have a common pattern) and delete them regularly from the spam folder. Spam training kicks in only when you a spam message is deleted (to avoid training on false positives) I went through the same phase when I first moved to Fastmail, and this is what customer support explained after some back-and-forth. I don't have spam in my Inbox any more (despite receiving ~20 spam emails per day)
- wookmaster 5mo agoPlus one for Fastmail I’ve been using with a custom domain for years now and it’s great. I don’t use Google for anything at this point, though I’m sure they’re still tracking me somehow.
- alex1138 5mo agoActually occasionally fastmail initially loading seems to hold up for a while for me for some reason
- 40four 5mo agoThe author literally mentioned they are in the process of migrating to Fastmail, but it sounds like you’re bringing it up as a new recommendation? Then you restated the reason they are moving away (overbearing AI features in your face) as if it wasn’t the crux of their argument? Then you touted how good Fastmail migration features are after the author stated they actually like the fact they are starting with a clean slate, and are undecided if they even want to migrate? Something smells fishy here my friend
- bluehex 5mo agoDidn't you consider that the comment you're replying to was for the benefit of other readers not necessarily the OP? I found it useful and yes I did read both.
- jesterson 5mo agoWhile GMail is horrible, FastMail is not great either. Their spam filtering is a joke - it was quite a decent on until they ruined it few years ago with some changes. I have no alternatives to suggest besides doing your own email. It's way better than anything commercial, works the way you want it, and most importantly nowadays, it's not used to train a commercial AI.
- satyamkapoor 5mo agoDon’t try Fastmail’s family plan. It’s undercooked. Rest is all greatz
- wodenokoto 5mo agoI was quite surprised how much better search and spam filters are on fastmail. Both things I did not believe a small company could do better than Google, but I think they did. I also find the interface better. I was also expecting Google to have resources for optimizing details, that a small company wouldn't get around to. Fastmail also lets you e-mail a real person for help and they usually take it very seriously - e.g, they go look at logs before following up.
- nexus7556 5mo agoAre you kidding me about the spam? I have 3-4 spam emails land in my inbox every day on Fastmail. It's horrendous.
- rimliu 5mo agoI have more than that on gmail and none in Fastmail. My gmail account is way more over the place than my FMs though.
- GoblinSlayer 5mo agoDoesn't Fastmail provide aliases?
- Freak_NL 5mo agoInfinite email masks. Doesn't help much once your real email address is out there though.
- GoblinSlayer 5mo agoCreate a rule that moves messages with real email address to spam where they are deleted as soon as needed, then create tmp2026 alias to serve as your new default email address.
- damethos 5mo agoI am not a Fastmail user but I completely doubt this. I have been using Gmail for 20 years and I have never seen a spam mail land in my inbox which has always impressed me. Everything else I have used from time to time does miss a few, which I guess it might be acceptable if you want to move to another host.
- monegator 5mo agoIf only it was based in europe. Every few weeks i look into detaching from gmail and wonder if proton is the way to go
- alecco 5mo agoProton's being a bit slow and weird is totally worth it just for the privacy features. And it's slowly improving with time.
- skrtskrt 5mo agoAgreed, I left Fastmail for Proton and am very happy with it. It improves/changes in fits and starts sometimes, but support is always great and overall I am happy with the usability, direction, pricing, etc. I do wish ProtonMail handled labels/folders as one unified model like GMail does, it's so much simpler and more ergonomic. But I imagine hoping for a data model change like that is probably a pipe dream.
- wiether 5mo agoI can suggest having a look at Infomaniak: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/service-mail https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/service-mail And with the kSuite, you have everything: file storage, chat, emails... I have no involvement with the company, except as a happy customer for many years
- sebastiennight 5mo agoWell you can try Proton for free and see for yourself. I've noticed that people either care about email being efficient and private, or they care about the comfortable bells and whistles of their existing inbox (and Gmail has many), but you can't really tell which one you are until you test something new for yourself.
- bfkwlfkjf 5mo agoI'm happy with tutanota. It's extremely minimal though. I think it's just mail, contacts and calendar.
- 5mo ago
- warumdarum 5mo agoIts eating AI pilled companies lunch o clock
- natnatenathan 5mo agoI just have to add on about how great Fastmail is. They are completely focused on having a stable product, that is relatively simple and cheap. They are not ambitious as a company at all, in the best possible way. They haven't tried to build an office suite. They don't upsell me on any new features. They just deliver a solid, basic product that has been consistently good for more than a decade now. I wish more software and services were like this, I'm tired of everyone hiring an MBA and following the exact same "maximization" business model.
- bunnie 5mo agoJust another +1 for fastmail, long time user, really pleased with the service. They do one thing and they do it well, and they charge a fair price for the value delivered.
- vishnugupta 5mo ago+1 to Fastmail. Been their happy customer for 5+ years.
- teekert 5mo agoI've been very happy with Protonmail, you can even use your old Gmail address from within Protonmail [0]. Although arguable doing that is counter productive, you want receive gmails but reply with you new address -> Yes this is the time to buy a domain and own an address for the rest of your life, so you can move again with little pain in the future ;) [0] https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail
- microtonal 5mo agoI temporarily moved from Fastmail to Proton Mail, but found several downsides: * Loading mails (especially when going quickly through them) has quite some latency. Possibly due to decrypting. * Search is pretty bad compared to Fastmail. * The keyboard shortcuts seem to never work correctly. So I went back to Fastmail for mail (we still use Proton Drive, which has its own set of warts).
- teekert 5mo agoAgreed, there are quirks, and there is also an AI writer, though it never disturbed me and hope it never will. But generally the UI is clean and they align with my values. There is a bridge software that bridges Proton and imap so you can use any client. Never used it though, I find the apps pretty good. The latest generation is focussing on off-line use which will hopefully drive down down some of the latency, especially that of the calendar app is pretty bad atm. My father somehow loves the search, but I myself am also unimpressed tbh. I do like the tagging system. + I'll add the obligatory complaint about the lack of Linux Protondrive client.
- microtonal 5mo agoYes, I really hope that they'll fill the Linux client gap soon.
- elnerd 5mo agoI changed from Gmail to proton many years ago. The only pain point I have is the search. Understandable, the emails are encrypted and search has to be done on the client. That works when using the web hi as you have the option to index all emails. I do not find this option in the iOS app :(
- ternaryoperator 5mo agoOne additional benefit of Fastmail is fast, helpful tech support. The few times i’ve needed them, they’ve answered quickly and given me what i needed in the first response.
- behringer 5mo agoGoogle doesn't have app passwords anymore so plus one for fastmail.
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoIt still does, but the page is hidden and nothing in the UI links to it. If you still need it, you can find the url by looking at blog guides to setting up calendar integrations.
- dotancohen 5mo ago> Looking for your alternative? Let me give you some (non financially motivated) praise for Fastmail. In TFA the author specifically mentions triaging Fastmail. He is happy with it.
- raxxorraxor 5mo agoI have no idea why people don't just use a standard imap mail client, Thunderbird being the most obvious choice here.
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoBreaks my heart to see you stuck in your unenlightenment. If only there was some way to learn the answer to questions.
- raxxorraxor 5mo agoI would really like to learn the secret secrets to be able to stomach that enlightenment and I am enthused to learn about non-shitty cloud webmail integrations that don't make you want to shoot yourself within minutes.
- lloeki 5mo agoAs a Fastmail user, every time I have to use Gmail for work I'm aggravated by the absolute stupid UX of it which seems to have been thoroughly ruined around the Material Design era; it also seems to be unable to handle basic operations such as mass mark read or delete, or search. Fastmail handles the same things with aplomb and has much better screen real estate usage, for one. The only thing I kind of want with Fastmail is if it had some EU-based datacenter.
- jorisw 5mo agoI went with Fastmail just because it's not hosted in the US (they're in Australia)
- defrost 5mo agoAll the comfort of the hemisphere least likely to suffer nuclear fallout coupled with the familiar warm embracing hug of the five eyes security panopticon.
- jorisw 5mo agoYes
- tiimbz 5mo agoFastmail is an Australian company, but their servers are located in the US [0] [0] https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000280221-How-Fastmail-provides-a-secure-service#physicalsecurity https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000280221-Ho...
- Citizen_Lame 5mo agoThey are hosted in the US, legal entity is in Australia, so nothing was gained.
- thisislife2 5mo agoUnfortunately, I remember reading that Australia now has weak privacy laws: > The Telecommunications Assistance and Access Bill (TAAB or AssAccess) require technology companies like FastMail, Google, Apple, Cisco to provide Australian law enforcement and security agencies with access to all communications without any judicial oversight, transparency, or reason. The only restrictions offered to protect people’s privacy is the vague terms “reasonable and proportionate.” Source: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/goodbye-fastmail.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/goodbye-fastmail.html
- iknowstuff 5mo agoFastmail seems good but there’s some comfort from tutanota/protonmail promising to store my emails e2e encrypted (though they obviously can read them on send/receive). Have you tried them? What was your opinion?
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- account42 5mo agoWhatever provider you switch to, do use the opportunity to get your own domain so that you won't be locked in in the future.
- f4stjack 5mo agoJust a small note about fastmail: Do not launch a trial with your planned username. Because I have opened up a trial account, it expired and when I decided to reactivate it (with payment in mind) I find myself unable to sign in. I cannot reset my password as it says "Sorry, we canʼt find an account with that username." and it does not let me log in. Then again I also moved from gmail to mailbox.org and am a happy camper since. I don't know if we are a majority but I find myself cutting all ties with google services (youtube premium, drive, gemini etc.) as they try to force unwanted features and workflows in my daily life.
- ssivark 5mo agoI was curious about whether one could layer email-ids as an interface on top of ATProto, and get all the decentralization benefits of the latter while being easy to move on from the former. A bit of searching threw up Comail [1]. Curious to hear perspectives on Comail / the general idea. [1] https://comail.at https://comail.at
- leokennis 5mo ago+1 for Fastmail. I migrated from Gmail a few years ago. Setting up your own domain is peanuts. Migrating all your mail from Gmail is literally just clicking some buttons in the UI and then it all happens in the background. The interface is fast, robust, and can be configured to have pleasant early '00s levels of contrast.
- amarant 5mo agoHow good are their spam filters? That's what keeps me coming back to Gmail every time I try something different.
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoYou’re in for a treat. They’re good!
- GJim 5mo ago> “try our new AI features!” which never remembers that you dismissed it 50 times in a row. Ah, the standard Silicon Valley permission request format: "Would you like us to invade your privacy: 'Yes' Or 'Ask me again later'". It's like being propositioned by a nutcase who won't take no for an answer.... the ethics and legality of which are obvious for all to see.
- nopurpose 5mo agoHow is offline support in their mobile app? I am looking for a protonmail alternative, because it didn't open emails when I really needed while being offline.
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoIt’s good! Works for me when I need it, but you should still save crucial stuff somewhere locally. Also, I recommend to disable ios Files’ setting to auto-delete at will “because it’s in the cloud!”
- c16 5mo agoA big +1 for fastmail, but their official ios app is 0/10 the last time I used it. Not a big problem if you use mail.app or their website on desktop. Something I've done and which has been a big quality of life improvement is to set up a folder with 30 day retention, then an email rule to move any emails with `+` or apple relay there. Those are legitimate emails I want to read such as online order status, but I don't need them in my every day email.
- josephg 5mo agoTheir ios app works ok for me. But I really wish it was fully native, and not just a webview wrapper of their webmail client. They have truly excellent IMAP support though (and JMAP too). So yeah, mail.app works great. They also support apple's custom XAPPLEPUSH IMAP extension, which means fastmail supports mobile push over IMAP. I think they're the only ones who support it other than apple.
- abc123abc123 5mo agoI use infomaniak. Works great, no complaints. The support is based on human beings as well. I like that, and they are polite and helpful too!
- egorfine 5mo agoMoved to Fastmail from Gmail like 15 years ago and I couldn't be happier.
- thibaut_barrere 5mo agoI started migrating to FastMail years ago, but never got to switch in full yet, because in my case with a public email address, the level of unhandled spam is too high. Did you meet that issue?
- cadamsdotcom 5mo agoNope. The spam filtering works fantastically for me. They might’ve improved it - I migrated only a few months ago. So it could be worth another try.
- thibaut_barrere 4mo agoThanks!
- threecoins 5mo agoFastmail is great, their android app is also great except one single thing. They for some obsure reason insist on opening attachments like pdfs inside the app instead of in the default app. But the problem is that they don't support opening password protected pdfs. And they shows an error that they dont support password protected files without providing an option to open in default app. I have to manually click on the file, read the stupid error, click the download button(this is available only in the error page), then use the notification bar to open the damn file on my phone. Everything else is fine. This one sketchy insistance to open every file themselves within the app even if they dont know how to do that is something that annoys me.
- redbell 5mo agoSpeaking about Gmail->FastMail migration, you might be interested in this ten-years old thread: Moving 12 years of email from GMail to FastMail ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12247401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12247401)
- internet_points 5mo agoAnother happy Fastmail user here. They have great IMAP support (with app password) so I have a full local copy on my laptop that I can search instantly with notmuch or read/write from Emacs, but lately I've also started using their web UI a lot because it's just so fast and simple and well-thought-out. When they ship new features, it's stuff that makes you think "oh, that's actually a good idea – and they even made a very logical keyboard shortcut for it". And they've been very responsive to the few support requests I've made.
- eth0up 5mo agoSerious question (for me): How would you rate fastmail strictly in terms of perseverence over time, ie will it still be here a decade from now? Confidence in that alone would move me there.
- nmjenkins 5mo agoFastmail’s been around since 1999. (That’s 5 years older than Gmail…). It’s profitable and employee owned, not VC funded. The senior staff have all been working on it for over 15 years. Anything can happen of course, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a tech company with more apparent longevity. (Source: I am one of those senior staff)
- thenakulchawla 5mo agoFastmail is indeed great. It’s been a pleasure to use. You can add multiple domains to your account without making it a feel like an enterprise. All the features relating to the aliases is available on the ios app. One doesn’t need to jump between the web and the app to do basic things.
- Twirrim 5mo agoI'm not sure if it's still there, but for a long time Gmail offered a lightweight, simple HTML version of their site. Essentially the original UI for it. It was astounding just how quick it was, which really shows you how little of a damn they seem to give about their users. That's especially weird, given that they dogfood their own products.
- prepend 5mo agoThanks for your note. I’ve wanted to get off gmail for years and your description answered many nagging questions I had been too lazy to look up. I switched my domain over to fastmail and have been using it for the past hour and seems promising. The interaction with the company is nice too and they seem very much “do one thing well” and doesn’t make me feel scummy like every time I interact with google’s products. Interestingly I didn’t realize how slow gmail was until switching. Not just the web ui. I use the ios mail app and gmail didn’t support push, only fetch. And the app is 17.8MB (compared to gmail’s 716.7MB). Crazy that it’s 40x smaller.
- ieee2 5mo agoI would rather invest 10 x 60 Eur = 600 Eur every 10 years into new laptop or bigger RAM rather then trying to switch to non-free email and lose whole Google ecosystem. Not having much spam is number one priority for me. 50ms delay in refresh rate is OK. In fact I have never noticed and it have never came to my mind that Gmail is slow. Yes, it needs RAM but I was never annoyed by any "slowness".
- prepend 4mo agoLosing google ecosystem is a bonus for me and is the main reason I want to leave. Google has been slowly sucking more and more each year and I have to spend mental energy figuring out how they are trying to screw me over or bill me for something. It’s worth $50/year to not have that mental stress.
- stavros 5mo agoFastmail is the best and you cannot change my mind ever. I love it.
- prismlfx 5mo agothanks for the suggestion.. gmail has really been a dog lately so this sounds worth looking at