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Email Alternatives to Gmail


I'm in the process of getting rid of as much Google-related stuff as I can. Yesterday I already started with moving everything I had stored in Drive (backups and other stuff) to my Nextcloud and the like. Now I want to change my main email, the one I'm going to use for, my accounts here in the fediverse and so on. So I'm looking for alternatives.

At the moment, apart from Gmail, I also have an Outlook (from when it was hotmail), a Proton account (though in view of their CEO's recent statements I may not keep it) and a new one on Disroot.

Which of the aforementioned services works best for a normie not well versed in cybersecurity like me?

Do you know of any alternatives I'm not aware of (I've heard of Tuta, but nothing else)?

in reply to NONE

Honestly, I was going to say Tuta, but seeing how proton changed, I would now add the option of self hosting.

I am unsure how difficult or easy it is, but it's becoming a very viable option now.

in reply to Fake4000

Fair warning: it's likely that your ISP will block attempts at self-hosting a mail server at home.
in reply to Fake4000

All the reasons. It's a well known problem that it's super hard to host email.
in reply to Fake4000

They don't want their network blocks reputation lowered because some idiot is sending spam mail or has an open relay. Apparently some will allow it on request.

Personally my mail server is on a Hetzner VPS.

This entry was edited (20 hours ago)
in reply to NONE

I'm also considering alternatives to Proton myself. I've seen the privacy-oriented communities give a bunch of options. Search "Privacy" and you'll see them listed. Tuta probably isn't bad as a paid account but the free app left a lot to be desired the last time I checked (no message search or sorting like Proton).
in reply to NONE

I've thought about doing this myself but my GMail account is so ingrained in everything I don't think I'd be able to untangle the mess.

Are there any big issues you see coming up with doing this, long standing accounts not letting you change email, etc?

Do you plan on keeping the old account around for a period to catch any services you might have forgotten about?

Be interesting to see a follow-up once you're done to see what kind of pain it causes.

in reply to wiccan2

The process will not be abrupt but gradual. I will stay with an email service that seems to be the most functional for me and I will change one by one first the accounts and services I use the most and then the ones I use the least. When my old email is unlinked to most things in my life, I'll leave it abandoned for about half a year or so, to adapt, and then I'll delete it definitively (if it's possible without anything exploding or Google sending a Drone to kill me lol).
in reply to wiccan2

When I switched away from gmail, I found it to overall be pretty straightforward. Whenever I would log into a service, I update the email. Any service I didn't log into clearly doesn't matter enough to me. My gmail is now a spam account for old shit I don't care about.
in reply to NONE

Tuta is fine, but very basic.

The stuff with Proton... It depends on what you need. Just an alternative to degoogle your life, it'll work for now, but they may slide into a more pro Broligarchy stance in years to come. For some people, they're still a little too invasive for what they want.

Email is inherently insecure, so its best to lock down a few and just fluidly transition around as you need.

in reply to NONE

I use iCloud as I’m in deep with the Apple ecosystem but opened Tuta and have been happy with it so far!
in reply to NONE

I use Fastmail with ten custom domains.

I was going to switch to proton but im glad I never out in the effort.

in reply to NONE

Can anyone comment on the viability and difficulty of self hosting email?
in reply to photonic_sorcerer

It's not something you'll get perfect straight out of the box, but receive only is fairly straightforward. The difficulties come when you want to send something that won't get immediately rejected or thrown into the spam box.

Asklemmy reshared this.

in reply to Mark

If your server goes down you'll miss incoming emails, and IMO residential ISP and power service isn't reliable enough for your main email address. If mail can't get delivered people get the impression you gave them a fake email address, which can be more than embarrassing.
in reply to photonic_sorcerer

It's the only service I don't self-hosted, although I do backup my email on my home server. Email protocols don't tolerate downtime, if your server is temporarily unreachable you won't get messages and people will probably assume the email address/domain isn't even valid.
in reply to NONE

I've been using mailbox.org for a while, and I'm happy with it. It costs 1€ per month at it's lowest. They have also been developing an open source video conferencing thing (included in the 1€), which from my experience is much better than jitsi.
in reply to 56!

I’m planning on moving to mailbox.org eventually. I was going to keep using an outlook.com until my 365 ran out but they are currently shoving copilot buttons all over the UI. I’ve been wanting to use my own domain anyway.
in reply to NONE

I am using Tuta and am very happy with it. I like the feature where you can send encrypted Mails to anyone and they're unlocked via a password (i dont know if others have it). Important for me at least is, that they're based in germany.
in reply to Here_for_the_dudes

I’ve been tempted by Tuta, it seems nice but I’m torn over IMAP access
in reply to jetsetdorito

Yeah it sucks but at least they have a good Linux AppImage (sadly no BSD). Their Android client is also fine and is on F-Droid.
in reply to NONE

I'm in the process of switching all my stuff to Migadu, you need your own domain though
in reply to JetpackJackson

migadu seems very cool, especially with that pricing, but i'm kinda concerned about the mail limits.

Edit: Seems like they're soft limits, looks like i might be moving to migadu

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Blisterexe

Btw if you're a student, shoot them an email and you can get a nice discount!
in reply to JetpackJackson

i am, Thank you so much for telling me!
This entry was edited (21 hours ago)
in reply to can

Idk, just thought it was worth mentioning cause it's not like Proton or Tuta where they have yourname@proton.me or whatever
in reply to JetpackJackson

Oh I was just making a light-hearted joke about the demographic here, it's definitely still good info to include.
in reply to can

I know you don’t need the validation, but I have 6-7 domains that don’t have email on them at the moment.
in reply to can

Care to hand down one? I only have free domains, like stuff that ends with cr.hf or whatever
in reply to I Cast Fist

Domains are pretty inexpensive. I've used Namecheap but shop around.
in reply to NONE

I just moved away from Proton to Posteo for mail and calendar and Addy.io for email aliases.
in reply to NONE

librem.one/
in reply to Jay🚩

No lol

Isn't this the same Purism company that scammed people using the "pre-order" shenaigan with the Librem 5 "Privacy Smartphone"?

Louis Rossman's video:

Edit: Yeah this is the same Purism scam company, scroll down to the bottom, click the website, it redirects to the webpage where you buy the Librem 5. Lol this company is a scam company.

This entry was edited (17 hours ago)
in reply to NONE

I'm really happy with Posteo. It costs like 1€/month.
in reply to NONE

Happy Fastmail user here. Has a lot of extra features.