Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left • Hacker News Board

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#861

Post by LearnYouALisp » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

pickleRick243 wrote: post #666

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author did say he tried some settings but not everything was available to disable. I dove deeper into it here [0]. You can disable Gemini AI and others and there is also a "nuclear option" where you disable all smart features. [0]: https://favs.eu.org/disable-gmail-ai/

Yes, I disabled all smart features. I'm surprised anyone here (or the type who bothers customizing their inbox layout) finds the Primary/Social/Promotions split useful. The original blog post mentioned "automatic thread categorization", which I thought just meant grouping emails in a conversation together (which doesn't really require any "smart" logic).

And can we yet add additional categories?

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#862

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

branon wrote: post #311

I'll never, ever forgive Google for killing the "Basic HTML View" client mode for Gmail.

[deleted]

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#863

Post by 10729287 » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

hamdouni wrote: post #803

pmontra wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMTP is to send mail and that's how I send it from my laptop and from my phone. POP3 is to read from a mailbox.

Or imap !

Thanks. I meant IMAP

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#864

Post by prepend » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 2:00 AM UTC

ieee2 wrote: post #788

prepend wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your note. I’ve wanted to get off gmail for years and your description answered many nagging questions I had been too lazy to look up. I switched my domain over to fastmail and have been using it for the past hour and seems promising. The interaction with the company is nice too and they seem very much “do one thing well” and doesn’t make me feel scummy like every time I interact with google’s products. In…

I would rather invest 10 x 60 Eur = 600 Eur every 10 years into new laptop or bigger RAM rather then trying to switch to non-free email and lose whole Google ecosystem. Not having much spam is number one priority for me. 50ms delay in refresh rate is OK. In fact I have never noticed and it have never came to my mind that Gmail is slow. Yes, it needs RAM but I was never annoyed by any "slowness".

Losing google ecosystem is a bonus for me and is the main reason I want to leave.

Google has been slowly sucking more and more each year and I have to spend mental energy figuring out how they are trying to screw me over or bill me for something.

It’s worth $50/year to not have that mental stress.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#865

Post by neuropacabra » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

dbgrman wrote: post #301

neuropacabra wrote: post #290

True, search took a shot too. I am on DDG - not perfect, but at least I can I don't know...search the internet and not talk to LLMs about it? I am not anti AI, I am using AI a lot - I also search things occasionally in ChatGPT, but when I go to search the internet I want to go to search to the internet. Gmail I don't use for very long time, having my own domain and using email elsewhere...only YouTube is something I…

which email client do you use?

Apple Mail, I am a simple man :-)