4 ms·
If you're tired of the gmail interface (like I was), I'd highly recommend http://fastmail.fm http://fastmail.fm. I made the switch (moved 55k+ messages with ht
by masnick 13y ago
If you're tired of the gmail interface (like I was), I'd highly recommend http://fastmail.fm http://fastmail.fm.
I made the switch (moved 55k+ messages with http://protips.maxmasnick.com/export-gmail-to-fastmail-or-any-email-provider-supporting-imap http://protips.maxmasnick.com/export-gmail-to-fastmail-or-an...) and haven't looked back.
FastMail offers a similar infinite scroll feature. I was able to select and move several thousand messages through the web interface when I was first configuring it.
FastMail's highlights for me are:
- Really good, customizable "personalities" (alternate email addresses with their own SMPT servers, auto-BCC settings, etc.)
- Sieve support -- SO much more powerful than rules in Gmail, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_(mail_filtering_language) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_(mail_filtering_language)
- Customer support that actually responds and is super helpful in my experience
- Ability to use your own domain name(s) without all the overhead of signing up for Google Apps.
- Jabber support (not in-browser, but they do have a server that works with Adium/iChat/Pidgin)
- Very fast, modern web interface. Definitely faster than Gmail for me. Good keyboard shortcuts too (very similar to Gmail's but with a few differences).
- An archive folder that works well with the archive functionality in Mail.app and other clients.
The only thing that isn't great is search. It works ok for everything but searching within messages (i.e. from/to/subject searches are fine). I believe FastMail does have support for a lot more search operators than Gmail and can search headers as well. But I'm not an expert on the power user search features for either.
This is because I actually use the search in Mail.app on my Mac, which is actually better than Gmail's search capabilities for every search I've tried (same good results, but way faster). Obviously works great with FastMail too, and I figure it's good to have a local copy of email.
I also miss a few things from the (old) gmail interface, but I definitely like FastMail's interface better on the whole than the new compose in Gmail. Things I miss in FastMail are the mainly the ability to pop composing a message into a new window with one click and sync with the address book on my phone. Neither are deal breakers.
I actually use MailMate (http://freron.com http://freron.com) for the majority of my email access now. It's still a little rough around the edges but being able to compose emails in Markdown and see the entire hierarchy of a thread (not flattened into one level) is worth a bit of UX pain.
- gsharma 13y agoIt bothers me that neither fastmail or freron have full screenshots of their interface. What reason can they have to not put a tour/screenshots section on the site?
- glomph 13y agoThey do offer a free trial although that isn't made obvious. Here is a screenshot I took on sign up: http://i.imgur.com/f7bhNVE.png http://i.imgur.com/f7bhNVE.png
- InAnEmergency 13y agoI had no idea that FastMail wasn't free any more until just now when I thought "why can't you just sign up and see it". I've been using it since 2002, although it hasn't been my primary email for a long time. Crazy.
- monkeypizza 13y agoI signed up for their free trial, and when it expired they sent me DAILY all caps messages (with no opt-out, no autologin link, from a noreply address) screaming at me about needing to update my credit card details. I like their service & want more people to leave gmail, so I signed up to make a suppor request (which I had to verify in true listserv fashion) and wrote a ticket trying to explain how lots of people who signed up would be expecting a web 2.0 style try & buy trial, not a real subscription service that would send them bills! And those people would be turned off by their aggro emails, but didn't seem to get through to the guy on the other end. So I think fastmail is still pretty oldschool internally (which is a good thing on the security & privacy aspects!) and would be well-served making more modern demos and explanations so they can directly suck people into a non-NSA gmail competitor that has a sweet UI with keyboard shortcuts, good searching etc.
- rogerbinns 13y agoYou can also use IMAP clients. For example I never use the gmail web interface and use Thunderbird instead. I have personal email accounts plus 3 different gmail work accounts so this works far better.