Moving from Hey to Fastmail • Hacker News Board

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#31

Post by imwillofficial » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

zzyzxd wrote: post #3

IMHO, services like Hey is for people who don't know how, or don't want to bother, to set proper inbox rules (it has many other features for sure but organizing emails is one of the biggest selling point as far as I see). But for me, I just want a reliable, dumb, boring email service without any "smart" features. I will decide what to do with every type of incoming emails myself. Fastmail gives me exactly that.

I could see this being a view for some. I’d say most users on hacker news know how to set up complex rules for email. A guess, but a safe one.

The magic of Hey is the user interface. The “opinionated” nature of their design choices.

To me, their workflows mostly made sense. For me it really really smooths out my email workflow into a logical set of steps.

Other people may not like that flow, and Hey wouldn’t be for them.

So I’d counter and say Hey is for 2 groups. 1. Those who don’t know how to set up complex rules 2. Those who don’t want to, and Hey’s flow works with their own.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#32

Post by imwillofficial » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

zzyzxd wrote: post #26

minton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, Hey isn't just about filtering emails, although it does that well out of the box. It's the collaboration features and the small things like the Files page and Reply Later that I would miss if I went back to a traditional service like FastMail/Gmail/Proton/etc.

Isn't "Reply Later" just another folder/tag/label? And I personally just mark an email as unread if I need to take another look at it later for any reason.

Oh sure, most of Hey is totally reproducible. The combination of beautiful interface, logical workflow, and thoughtful touches are what set it apart. For some people that matters, others, not as much.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#33

Post by jshen » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

imwillofficial wrote: post #30

alberth wrote: post #27

I don’t get Hey. I feel like it does too much magic with my inbox. Much like social media, I don’t want some algorithm to selectively decide what messages I see and what I don’t. I want to be able to see All messages, in a chronological order. Having concert tickets not arrive in my inbox that I need because some magic is happening due to the sender being a first time sender to me is just frustrating.

I get what you’re feeling, but the magic is you. You decide where things route. After that it’s magic. Unlike social media and opaque algos, you decide what goes to the feed, to the paper trail, who gets screened in and out, etc… I’ve found it super useful, my email was a nightmare before.

Not sure why you’re getting down voted because you’re right. There is no magic to Hey, you explicitly tell it which “folder” a sender’s email should go to. It’s not perfect because some senders use the same address for different types of emails (receipts versus offers), but there’s no magic about where an email from them will go.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#34

Post by pitched » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

Hey is an awesome email client on a terrible email server and Fastmail is an awesome server with a terrible client. I only wish there was a standard protocol we could use to mix and match!

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#35

Post by sebmellen » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

pitched wrote: post #34

Hey is an awesome email client on a terrible email server and Fastmail is an awesome server with a terrible client. I only wish there was a standard protocol we could use to mix and match!

I agree. It would be amazing if we had something that allowed that. Maybe we could call it the “Internet Message Access Protocol” or IMAP...

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#36

Post by jshen » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

crsv wrote: post #4

I love how a bunch of the "headline features" of Hey are effectively replicated with taking the time to make a few rules in another platform. I tried Hey at the peak of it's pre-release hype, but just like Basecamp, it's just a really mediocre experience in a sea of options.

I had the same thought, but made the opposite conclusion. I setup gmail and outlook to work like hey and tried them for a week each. While it technically worked, their UIs are not optimized for that type of work flow so it was a lot more clicks to achieve the same ends.

After my experiment I paid for Hey, and have been really happy with it.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#37

Post by Ashanmaril » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

AdamN wrote: post #28

Ashanmaril wrote: post #24

Just this week I started looking into Gmail alternatives (as well as de-Googling myself as much as possible) and while I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet, Fastmail is looking like the top contender at the moment. Hey was on the table for a bit, but no matter how much I read about their alternative workflow, I just don't understand how it would be an improvement over my typical method of archiving emails as…

Yeah, gmail hit the nail on the head. No folders (originally), liberal use of archive, and you can still delete for true garbage. Spam controls work really well too. I would like to de-google (already use ddg mostly), but tbh Google ain't that bad in the sense that although they have alot about me they don't seem to sell it as nakedly as FB.

I mainly just want out of Gmail because all of my internet accounts are tied to that address and it's known that your account could just be terminated by a bot for no reason and the only way to get it back is to make a stink on social media until a Google employee with connections sees it and takes the time to bang on some doors during their lunch break.

I'll probably switch to Fastmail and get an address set up with my personal domain so I'm not tied to any service. But yeah, as a service I don't really have any issues with Gmail.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#38

Post by bobsomers » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

agambrahma wrote: post #18

Was looking for a Gmail alternative, several months ago, and had to pick between these two. I went with Fastmail and am very happy. Tons of aliases that are easy to use, the UX is actually _much better_ than Gmail.

Same here. I switched to Fastmail from Gmail a few years ago and it’s absolutely fantastic. The app is great, no AI magic, things just all work exactly as they should.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#39

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

agambrahma wrote: post #18

Was looking for a Gmail alternative, several months ago, and had to pick between these two. I went with Fastmail and am very happy. Tons of aliases that are easy to use, the UX is actually _much better_ than Gmail.

About the only thing I dislike about Fastmail is there's no equivalent to gmail's "unread-first" view. IE show unread messages first, in reverse-chronological order, then all read messages, in reverse-chronological order.

Re: Moving from Hey to Fastmail

#40

Post by weavejester » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

pitched wrote: post #34

Hey is an awesome email client on a terrible email server and Fastmail is an awesome server with a terrible client. I only wish there was a standard protocol we could use to mix and match!

I know it's pretty subjective, but I'd personally rate Fastmail's UI as one of the best I've used. The only real issue I have with it is that uncached searches could be faster.