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Fastmail Labels Beta

beta.fastmail.com

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#61
post #30

When I transitioned from Gmail to FastMail, I had to get used to using folders again instead of labels. While it was painful, I am glad I am no longer using labels, and I have no intention to start using them again. I vastly prefer being able to rely on the basic email client functionality in any given mail app, and using goofy nonstandard parts like snooze and labels makes that difficult. I appreciate that with JMAP…

Is there any reason for why IMAP keywords cannot be used for labels by e.g. having some prefix for the keyword which indicates that it should be interpreted as a label? Client support is of course needed but to me it seems like the IMAP protocol already supports labels. Maybe IMAP lacks the ability to enumerate all labels?

Gmail already has a bad hack for this: It reports labels as folders and that duplicate copies of emails are in them.

So the issue is that any other solution would work improperly for Gmail. Client support is a huge part of the problem: If it's outside the standard, clients aren't going to handle it the same way.

JMAP, of course, fixes this.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#62
post #29

If you have a spouse and/or kids, and you want them to use FastMail for the same reason you do, consider putting pressure on FastMail to offer a (reasonable) family plan. I’ve been a happy customer for a decade but they’ve raised their prices (which would affect new accounts) and do not offer a family plan so this year be my last year with them. Edit: typo

Is anyone from FastMail reading this by any chance?..

Another +1 here, currently considering FM for myself, spouse and/or kids, and while for a single person it's bearable, for 4 it becomes overly expensive so we'd have to look for alternatives.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#63
post #29

If you have a spouse and/or kids, and you want them to use FastMail for the same reason you do, consider putting pressure on FastMail to offer a (reasonable) family plan. I’ve been a happy customer for a decade but they’ve raised their prices (which would affect new accounts) and do not offer a family plan so this year be my last year with them. Edit: typo

This is a big reason why I list cheaper alternatives to Fastmail whenever the topic of emails comes here. If your needs are more than one mailbox (not aliases), then Fastmail soon becomes prohibitively expensive. A few years ago, when asked about cheaper pricing plans, Fastmail replied that it has no plans (no pun intended) to go cheaper or offer cheaper plans.

There are other alternatives that are cheaper and focus on privacy, reliability, etc. They may not be as famous as the Fastmail brand. Posteo (no custom domain support), Mailbox.org, Runbox, Migadu, Mailfence and Mxroute are just some of the providers out there that give Fastmail a run for the money. Vote with your wallet.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#64

Might as well put it here since Fastmail doesn’t come up often. Does anyone find Fastmail’s spam detection to be pretty mediocre? I usually get a few obviously spam emails a week in my inbox. The volume is low so I don’t mind it but that’s really the one thing I miss from Gmail.

The problem I frequently encounter is with emails incorrectly classified as spam. Once a month I go to spam folder and find few emails that were not spam. Even though I click "not spam" on each, I don't feel algorithm is getting any better with time.

Once the personalized filter is activated (requires marking 200 as spam and 200 as not-spam), this problem should go away entirely. It did for me anyways.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#65

It wasn't super obvious to me, but you have to use beta.fastmail.com for this to work. Confused me for a moment as you can complete the first step of enabling this (changing to New Rules) using the stable client. --- Oh, no, it's even more confusing than that. You enable the labels beta function on the beta website, but then it applies even on the main website.

you are right, does this mean that labels will work on the main site?

Yep, seems to have the same functionality.

I've submitted beta feedback indicating my concerns.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#66
post #29

If you have a spouse and/or kids, and you want them to use FastMail for the same reason you do, consider putting pressure on FastMail to offer a (reasonable) family plan. I’ve been a happy customer for a decade but they’ve raised their prices (which would affect new accounts) and do not offer a family plan so this year be my last year with them. Edit: typo

I pay $150/yr for three people. Give me $250 for 10 people. The extra seven people won't be using as many compute/storage resources guaranteed.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#67

Might as well put it here since Fastmail doesn’t come up often. Does anyone find Fastmail’s spam detection to be pretty mediocre? I usually get a few obviously spam emails a week in my inbox. The volume is low so I don’t mind it but that’s really the one thing I miss from Gmail.

I regularly receive spam in gmail (russian and gmail originated spam) in main inbox. And promotions box is usually just spam. Also lately started getting spam google calendar events and they just wont go away even after reporting them as spam multiple times. I don't why is that even a feature, why can someone completely random add recurring-daily events to your calendar.

You can disable this somewhere, it scraps your emails (also spam) and adds up any ical events to your calendar which generates the event notifications...

Can be fullly disabled somehow in gmail settings.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#68

Might as well put it here since Fastmail doesn’t come up often. Does anyone find Fastmail’s spam detection to be pretty mediocre? I usually get a few obviously spam emails a week in my inbox. The volume is low so I don’t mind it but that’s really the one thing I miss from Gmail.

My “Personal Spam Filter” is trained and spam has not been an issue for me.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#69
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason for why IMAP keywords cannot be used for labels by e.g. having some prefix for the keyword which indicates that it should be interpreted as a label? Client support is of course needed but to me it seems like the IMAP protocol already supports labels. Maybe IMAP lacks the ability to enumerate all labels?

Gmail already has a bad hack for this: It reports labels as folders and that duplicate copies of emails are in them. So the issue is that any other solution would work improperly for Gmail. Client support is a huge part of the problem: If it's outside the standard, clients aren't going to handle it the same way. JMAP, of course, fixes this.

IMAP keywords are in the standard.

Re: Fastmail Labels Beta

#70
post #52

While I sympathize with a company providing a good service and being paid accordingly, $5 a month still seems too high for email.

$5 / month is still pretty close to $0 / month for many people. I transitioned from Gmail -> Fastmail a year ago, and I'm very happy with all aspects (reliability, features etc). Would be fine with paying > $5 month if that's what it took.

It's quite disappointing how skewed our perspective on software pricing is. I grew up in an era when compilers cost $1000; now people complain about $3 for an iPhone game.

Given that a burger cost $5, I'm more than fine with sacrificing a burger each month for private email.

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