An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail • Hacker News Board

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#31

Post by john01dav » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

martin1975 wrote: post #18

I got the same capabilities from mxroute.com, another worthwhile alternative - hosted in the USA. Plus they offer a no subscription, 10GB one time fee (I think $150 at the time I got it) account...unlimited domains/subdomains, etc -everything managed thru directadmin. Replaced my Google Workspace email w/this and never looked back. I still use Google for authentication and Google Drive.

The sustainability of this is dubious to me because you're taking a one time fee for service forever, and eventually someone (possibly a future owner) is going to want to get more money out of you over this. Also, there are recurring costs to host this that continue forever, even with no further income from you.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#32

Post by Vinnl » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

beart wrote: post #5

Changing email providers sounds daunting, but it was relatively painless when I actually committed to it. I did a search over my password manager for my old email and just went through the list logging in and switching to the new email. Probably took a few hours at most. For anything I missed, I set gmail to forward everything to my new host. Cleaned up the few things I missed, and am only left with spam. I still lea…

> Changing email providers sounds daunting, but it ... Probably took a few hours at most.

That does indeed sound as daunting as I feared, unfortunately.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#33

Post by spencerflem » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

bix6 wrote: post #17

Anyone have thoughts on proton vs fastmail?

I tried both and found Fastmail vastly easier to use.

The encryption part wasn’t that valuable for me and ofc Proton doesn’t encrypt the metadata and unless they’re proton too it’s not E2E so I’m happy sticking with Signal for that sorta stuff and leaving email for talking to businesses.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#34

Post by mdavidn » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

beart wrote: post #5

Changing email providers sounds daunting, but it was relatively painless when I actually committed to it. I did a search over my password manager for my old email and just went through the list logging in and switching to the new email. Probably took a few hours at most. For anything I missed, I set gmail to forward everything to my new host. Cleaned up the few things I missed, and am only left with spam. I still lea…

As an alternative to forwarding, you can also configure Fastmail to fetch mail from (and send via) Gmail like a mail client.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#35

Post by i1856511 » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

HeadOfProbing wrote: post #8

Anyone here know why the animations in the Fastmail iOS app don't run in 60FPS?

I know that this is at least somewhat on their radar. Scrolling used to not be 60 FPS either, now it is.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#36

Post by bix6 » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

thisislife2 wrote: post #30

bix6 wrote: post #17

Anyone have thoughts on proton vs fastmail?

Nowhere near the same - there's no JMAP or true IMAP on Proton.

Interesting thank you! I don’t know much about JMAP but sounds trick.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#37

Post by bix6 » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

spencerflem wrote: post #33

bix6 wrote: post #17

Anyone have thoughts on proton vs fastmail?

I tried both and found Fastmail vastly easier to use. The encryption part wasn’t that valuable for me and ofc Proton doesn’t encrypt the metadata and unless they’re proton too it’s not E2E so I’m happy sticking with Signal for that sorta stuff and leaving email for talking to businesses.

UI/UX is definitely paramount for me, appreciate the note!

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#38

Post by denkmoon » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #32

beart wrote: post #5

Changing email providers sounds daunting, but it was relatively painless when I actually committed to it. I did a search over my password manager for my old email and just went through the list logging in and switching to the new email. Probably took a few hours at most. For anything I missed, I set gmail to forward everything to my new host. Cleaned up the few things I missed, and am only left with spam. I still lea…

> Changing email providers sounds daunting, but it ... Probably took a few hours at most. That does indeed sound as daunting as I feared, unfortunately.

A few hours pf effort to liberate your email from Google. Well worth imo.

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#39

Post by WarmWash » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

anonthrownaway wrote: post #16

I recently switched over 6 gmail accounts (both personal and business) from gmail to fastmail. I have been suddenly bombarded with a mountain of spam that the goog must have been catching. It doesn't seem like my constant flagging is doing anything. I ended up building a convoluted mess of filters that will probably cause me to misflag something important one day. :-/ Also, I really miss the auto categorization into…

Google just has an order of magnitude or three more data to work with.

It's exceedingly difficult to compete against "free".

Re: An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail

#40

Post by frereubu » Mon, Aug 17, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

I'm a happy user of Fastmail, but I would prefer a properly EU-hosted service. (Fastmail now have data storage in the EU, but much of their infrastructure is in the US and data still passes through there - something that they're open about, but I'd prefer not to happen). The last time I looked at mailbox.org the offer wasn't nearly as good as Fastmail in terms of storage, catch-all email addresses etc, but I took another look recently and it seems to be better. Does anyone here have first-hand experience of mailbox.org?