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Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

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Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#221

Post by ticviking »

KMnO4 wrote: post #87
sho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big plus one to Fastmail (no economic link, just happy customer). I use the apple apps to access. I've never actually had any problem but I have confidence if I ever do, it will be solved quickly and painlessly by a human who cares because I'm a paying customer. I don't know why we ever thought free email was a good idea. Of course Google doesn't care about a free email user. They're just another useless eater out…

> Of course Google doesn't care about a free email user I pay $180/year for Google Workspace and Google still doesn’t care about me.

Realizing that was when I moved on.

I'm looking for a good alternative to the office suite, Microsoft has better customer service but not by much and it's not always easy to use cross platform(I wind up using Win, Mac, and Linux weekly and play with FreeBSD occasionally

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#222

Post by aendruk »

frereubu wrote: post #69
user3939382 wrote: post #17

I made the jump to Fastmail and I'm very happy with it. Web interface is at least as good as Gmail's. Thunderbird keeps a local copy of my emails, I control the email domain. I can create backups. The second you get back in you gotta get off this platform.

The only thing that I find isn't as good about Fastmail is the spam filtering. I see more spam in my inbox and my spam folder than I did in Gmail, but despite that the trade-offs (particularly less of my data going through and sitting in Google's systems) still feel worth it.

Ironically Gmail is one is the largest sources of spam hitting me at Fastmail.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#223

Post by rwalle »

yumraj wrote: post #202
danillonunes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the major problem is having your email attached to a big tech general account. If your son decides to download a pirated game to your iphone, out whatever other unrelated minor offense, and Apple determine it's worth nuking your entire account, your email is gone. Granted, Google is worse at this matters, and when you own the domain at least you can point it to somewhere else, but it's still a hassle.

Even if that happens, it’s not a problem. Why? You go to your register and point your domain to another email provider, and you’re back in business.

Not a problem?

All your previous emails are lost, aren't they? Even you have local backup of them somehow, they are not equivalent to emails saved to your server?

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#224

Post by rwalle »

BMorearty wrote: post #192
user3939382 wrote: post #17

I made the jump to Fastmail and I'm very happy with it. Web interface is at least as good as Gmail's. Thunderbird keeps a local copy of my emails, I control the email domain. I can create backups. The second you get back in you gotta get off this platform.

I love Gmail’s automated inbox categories. Looks like Fastmail doesn’t have that? (I know I can set up manual filters. I prefer it to be done for me automatically.)

This probably does not help, but...

I used to love that automated categories and had 4 categories. One day I suddenly felt that that was too many and reduced it to two, "Primary" and "Updates" (similar to mail.live.com's "focused" and "other") and found it actually easier to manage my emails. Of course that is still two not one, but just want to say that you might also realize that you don't need so many categories.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#225

Post by xuki »

rwalle wrote: post #223
yumraj wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that happens, it’s not a problem. Why? You go to your register and point your domain to another email provider, and you’re back in business.

Not a problem? All your previous emails are lost, aren't they? Even you have local backup of them somehow, they are not equivalent to emails saved to your server?

If you have a local back up and the provider supports IMAP, you can just sync it back to the new provider.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#226

Post by 9991 »

lrei wrote: post #22
9991 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best email app wouldn't ban you for an emoticon in Youtube chat or sending a medical photo to your doctor.

These ToS, CSAM, moderation, etc are very orthogonal to the app itself. Why conflate them? Most non-hackernews people are completely unaware of them, so it won't be a factor in their choice of platform. Are we even sure other apps aren't doing similar things? Or have equally dangerous practices around password changes?

Because the user experience is that it doesn't work.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#227

Post by 9991 »

cromka wrote: post #55
9991 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best email app wouldn't ban you for an emoticon in Youtube chat or sending a medical photo to your doctor.

This is just crass. There's plenty of very good software with shitty T&C, this isn't anything new.

I dare you to find those examples in the Terms and Conditions.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#228

Post by Beltalowda »

harshalizee wrote: post #208
Beltalowda wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite a few institutions won't let you use an email that comes from protonmail or a custom domain. So, many times I'm forced back into using a Gmail address to prevent a whole host off other issues As in, they check "if domain != 'gmail.com' { fuckyou(); }"? Or as in "they MTAs are not very good and just don't deliver email"?

Literally that. If your email domain doesn't come from a set of whitelisted domains (gmail, yahoo, msn, etc.) they just don't let you create an account. I have accounts in the US, EU and Asia due to family, etc. and this kind of restriction is fairly common in EU/Asia

> this kind of restriction is fairly common in EU/Asia

Interesting; I can't say I recall ever encountering such a restriction anywhere, including banks, and I have or had bank accounts in a number of European (and other) countries. I've encountered other problems, but not this. Not that I'm doubting your experience of course; just interesting I never had problems with it.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#229

Post by edmundsauto »

rwalle wrote: post #223
yumraj wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that happens, it’s not a problem. Why? You go to your register and point your domain to another email provider, and you’re back in business.

Not a problem? All your previous emails are lost, aren't they? Even you have local backup of them somehow, they are not equivalent to emails saved to your server?

Losing backups is problematic, but IMO the bigger issue is losing access. I care 10x more about emails that I haven't received yet, compared to my history. I am still not wanting to lose that history... but it is just not as big a deal.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#230

Post by edmundsauto »

hanklazard wrote: post #73
krono wrote: post #31

Whilst it might not be of help to OP, I suggest everyone else to do a data export for all your important services every once in a while and save it with your other backups. https://takeout.google.com https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/download-data

For sure. I believe I have this set to create an export and notify me the backup every quarter or so. Not the perfect solution, but until I do the right thing and switch over to fastmail, this at least ensures I can only lose a few months ( gulp ) worth of email.

The part that keeps me up at night - the last few months are likely the majority of emails I care about. So I might recover 99% of past emails, but only get 25% of the value -- recency matters.
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