What's a good alternative to Gmail?
What's a good alternative to Gmail?
Trying to de-google and looking for an alternative to Gmail.
Don't mind if it's a paid service if it's robust.
Proton Mail and Tutanota are great free options.
Tutanota has limited features and i dont like the UI. But it is okay.
Try to go for protonmail
I just opened my protonmail account for the first time in years and it's really nice! Lots of great UI stuff now!
Tutanota is a bit more privacy focused, really useful for burners, because by default it will burn the account if you don't use it for 6 months.
As far the UI, I kinda like it. Little more old school, doesn't have the toy look so many apps have nowadays. But to each their own.
Protonmails approach to requiring hCaptcha for everything, even their mobile apps, really turns me off. I can't complete them. And I need another email to get in using their weird and creepy accessibility cookie thing. Nah thanks. If I need a second email to access my email I might as well just use that second email.
Last I checked, the encryption in Proton Mail means you have to use their app, no third party apps allowed. Is that still true?
Yes, that's still true. If you want to be able to use a third-party mail app, I would look at Fastmail or Mailbox.org. They don't have free plans though.
Yup, and it’s kind if a pain since their mobile apps aren’t great. I’ve been using them for many years, and lately have been considering jumping ship.
Email encryption isn’t something I actually care about. If I wanted to send someone a super private message, I probably wouldn’t use email anyways since it’s just clunky, and it’s unlikely the other person is using proton mail too (which means the message wouldn’t be encrypted anyways). All I really want is to not have my email provider be scanning my messages to profit from my data.
But the effort to switch to something else is making me stay…
I am always suspicious of free. How do they make money? Have to pay for things in life, and I've learned that you are either the customer, or the product. If your the customer, pay up. If your the product, your data is being dished out to somebody OR ad-a-palooza. If the free option is just ads, I can live. If every time I log on I feel like I am getting a vitual colonoscopy, pass.
Proton is freemium. You can use the basic package but you only get 500 MB drive storage. Expanding that is cheap, which is how they draw you in.
They also offer package deals, like their VPN stuff.
The Proton free tier is pretty limited compared to Gmail, in particular for me, you're only allowed 1 label. The basic paid tier opens up a lot more. They definitely want you to upgrade to the paid tier.
How do they make money?
Buy selling a subscription that comes with more perks. For example, more storage for your email, custom email domain, etc.
Pre-paying for 2 years upfront is the most cost effective.
Your doubts are warranted, but with Protonmail and Tutanota there is no reason be suspicious. They are basically feemium products and their goal is to respect user's rights
I’ll be honest, when it comes to online purchases you may find that a protonmail email will require extra processing/fraud checking due to the amount of fraudsters that use it. Combine that with a vpn and it will just be a pain here and there with online purchases like additional ID verification/delayed orders etc…
Proton Mail just has 5 gigs for the free version. Doesn't seem like it's enough for me to switch to it long term.
They also expand your storage every year, so it's not like it's stuck there forever. For reference, I've been on Proton for about 3 years now (paid plan) and I have a data storage cap of 540GB and I've never had to buy more. Also, I all my emails so far only consume 340MB - so even on the free plan I'd still have years to go before I reached even 5GB.
(Also, I'll admit I don't email much.)
Try proton mail. I love it
Yeah, Proton are working on delivering a privacy-focused replacement for the whole google suite. Mail, drive, calendar so far, plus VPN. OP could do a lot worse. :)
Yeah I'll go Proton. Was going to go with Fastmail but then read that they're an Australian company, a Five Eyes country.
It's quite expensive whereas you get the same product even better for 12€ a year with posteo.de
Proton imo is definitely the winner here, since Gmail itself also relies on integration with a bunch of cloud apps
I'm using ProtonMail and paying for it.
It's decent. The best AFAIK in terms of privacy. Supports labels etc.
The migration process takes so long, I'm split between both still and slowly moving over.
I just forward my Gmail and use it as a legacy service while using proton as my new primary. Allows me to very aggressively spam filter in proton.
Same. I use my gmail accounts for junk mail and have been moving everything actually relevant to proton through SimpleLogin aliases.
I use Proton Mail. I recommend that whatever service you decide on, get your own domain name so you can keep your email address if you move to a different provider.
Do you have any recommendations on how to buy a domain?
Not OP, but I used Namecheap. Porkbun is also recommended I think. Setting it up is not dead-brain simple, but Proton does a very good job on explaining it step by step I believe.
IIRC Cloudflare is the only registrar that doesn't mark up from wholesale prices, or something like that. Basically makes them cheaper than most other registrars. I think the point is that they can then sell you their other (related) services more easily — the services that actually make them money.
I use Porkbun for my domain. you can get a .xyz domain for only $2 for 1 year, though after 1 year its like $8 per year.
Google domains are cheap and easy to maintain....... oh wait.
I'm using namesilo and it was pretty straight forward to set up. I just got it a couple days ago and no issues so far!
I'm using Proton Mail and I like it a lot!
Idk I'm still using my Hotmail that I got in 1995 so...
I'm still using an AOL email address that I got in the 80's, so...
Damn you just reminded me that I haven’t fed my Neopet in years. They don’t die, do they??
I thought I was cool because I recorded the ring from my flip phone and used it on every subsequent phone until I somehow lost the recording around the late aughts, but that beats me by miles.
Oh yeah?? Well I tattoo my messages onto my servant's scalps and send them out when their hair has grown, so...
My hotmail account is my oldest still in use online account.
Proton
Proton Mail. https://pm.me/
Proton is my fav non Google email.
Been using Proton mail a couple months now. Very happy with it.
- Tutanota
- Protonmail
- Mailbox.org
- Posteo.de
- Runbox
- Fastmail
I would recommend either Mailbox or Posteo simply because they cost 1€/m. For email I find that anything more than like $2 is a waste of money, but that is my opinion.
Both Tutanota and Protonmail offer freemium versions of their services.
I moved to Fastmail last year and it's been entirely unremarkable which is exactly what I want. Mail in and out works, it's reliable, I have my custom domains.
It really depends on the level of privacy you're going for and what features you want. For me I needed custom domain support with catchalls. The only other requirement I had was to not be Google. I debated between Fastmail and Proton for a while (Fastmail for features/price, Proton for the "better" privacy.) Ultimately I ended up on Fastmail because I would have had to pay for a higher than necessary account at Proton for what I wanted.
I've been on Fastmail for 10 years. It's a great service.
Also since most other people aren’t using encrypted email, you kinda don’t really benefit from the Proton encryption afaik. I personally don’t understand the point.
Yep. It was a fun ooh look what I can do that I have exactly zero people to communicate with using those features.
In the same vein, not using Google is similarly silly. Most of my personal contacts use Gmail or o365 so they still get a copy of my email anyway. But at least this way my money isn't going to them and nobody's scanning my inbox to advertise to me (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
Ive not used proton, but Tutanota sends a link to the receiver if they don’t use Tutanota themselves. They have to click the link and enter a predetermined password to read the content
I have been using Fastmail for a few years. No complaints. No issues. Entirely unremarkable.
Been with Fastmail for a year. Love their integration with 1password. Nobody gets my real email address. Even my 6th grader knows how to obfuscate email now. Too easy.
They have a similar integration with Bitwarden that I've used a bit. I ended up stopping though because I rely on a catch-all and just give out companyname@ or something generic like work@ or family@. Sure it's easy to guess but I haven't had any spam issues in the ~15 years I've been operating this way.
Nobody actually gets my Fastmail login address though. I picked a random string on one of their domains that's literally only used to sign in. A fun little added obscurity feature.
After checking out most of these services I think I'll go with Fastmail, has what I need, plenty of storage, can use third party apps without any hassle.
I used fastmail with a custom domain but random stuff from specific senders would disappear into the ether and never go through to my mailbox. Everything else worked fine though, but it was enough to switch me back to gmail for a while at least. LDAP is a requirement for me and most of the other popular providers now don’t have it.
Yeah I suppose I could be missing email and not know (because it never got delivered) but I get everything I expect to receive and I haven't had anyone reach out asking why I haven't responded to an email I never received. It's good enough for me for now though.
LDAP support isn't something that's ever crossed my mind for mail, definitely a legit reason to stick with the Googs.
Skiff or Protonmail.
Skiff gives you 10 GBs of storage and also comes with a drive and a Notion-like Pages app. They even let you add custom domain for free. The only disadvantages are the non-native Android or iOS apps that just feel off and the limits on folders and filters.
ProtonMail only gives 1GB of storage and stuff like custom domains, aliases, etc are all paid features. The Android app is decent but missing some basic features that you only notice when you actually use it (select and delete when searching for example). Definitely the most robust mail service there is though. With Proton Unlimited, you also get stuff like per-site aliases using SimpleLogin, Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Calendar and Proton Pass. But if I'm being honest, only the Mail and VPN are truly complete products.
Proton drive also seems pretty compete to me, now that they have a desktop app that's working really well (at least for windows, don't know about other OS's)
I agree, it's pretty functional. Only issue I've had with it is it's pretty slow, and if you need to upload a lot of files quickly your out of luck.
My boss had me take a couple hundred pictures with my cell, and I didn't want to waste my time trying to send via sms, so I uploaded then to my drive and shared them. It took 2 hours just to upload them.
No sync functionality on Android and no webdav or such, so no support for apps like FolderSync. Also, no client for Linux and macOS.
Agree on Skiff. It's like the app keeps reloading like if you used an ereader to check your mail
With Proton Unlimited, you also get stuff like per-site aliases using SimpleLogin, Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Calendar and Proton Pass. But if I'm being honest, only the Mail and VPN are truly complete products.
SimpleLogin is fantastic with a custom domain. Game changer for signing up to websites, especially if you use Bitwarden because they integrate seamlessly. I have paid Proton so the premium version is included for free. Not sure how the free version compares.
SimpleLogin is integrated directly into Proton Pass and Proton Pass has the ability to save them as "Aliases". So that's been really neat. I've been finding myself using Proton Pass over Bitwarden lately due to how the Proton Pass app syncs the vault better on Android and how the Aliases feature works better with the in-page autofill that Proton Pass has.
I also degoogled to proton. Now one bill for VPN, drive and my own domain email address.
I’ve been on Fastmail for several years and like it a lot! It lets you use you own domain name as well. Their app is not particularly great, but you can hook things up with the default iOS/Android/whatever mail app just fine.
I agree, I'm a happy customer for several years as well. It's not the cheapest service, but it's no-nonsense and reliable.
I pointed my own domain to Fastmail and can use wildcard email addresses (like [email protected]) that all end in my inbox. Also my contacts are synced on the phone with Fastmail using CardDAV support, using the DAVX5 app on Android. It's really nice to have this much flexibility.
Fastmail is awesome
Protonmail
It has all the bells and whistles, is privacy protecting, and is free to use
I've heard of Proton, but I never knew you could get the whole suite and that they had the option to subscribe for 24 months, that's pretty neat.
I do like Proton, and I needed something like it for a forwarding problem with Gmail.
But it actually lacks one bell/whistle that Gmail offers. Both services work to receive mail for forwarding addresses, but, on Gmail, you can also send from your forwarded addresses. Proton will only send from a domain you own. So if you get mail forwarded from [email protected] or [email protected], you won't be able to reply or send from those addresses on Proton. Judging by how long people have been asking for that ability, I doubt Proton intends to ever provide that.
on Gmail, you can also send from your forwarded addresses
I imagine that only works if you also host the address you forward to with Google? Otherwise I can't see how Google can send email on behalf of a domain whose DNS servers it doesn't control. If that were possible spam would be a lot worse than it is.
Paid Fastmail User here since around half a year. Did extensive research on what provider to use and trialed fastmail for four weeks before buying. I went for a 3 year period. Fastmail has a fantastic set of features.
There are providers that are focused more on privacy (e.g. PGP. encryption, not being based in Australia) but that was not my top priority.
I have created a lengthy guide as part of my transition: I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
Can you send me that to me too please? Do I have to give you my email?
I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
Fastmail
What's the spam control like with Fastmail? I tend to get quite a bit and Gmail's been the only half-decent one so far about stopping it from ever reaching the inbox but I'm considering moving from Google Workspace.
FastMail user for 7+ years. Their spam filtering is good. I hardly get any and my email address is 20+ years old and have been used in public plenty.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Thanks for the information both of you. I realised my Google Workspace subscription lapses in a week so I've signed up for a trial of Fastmail and really liking it so far. 😀
As my app posted the reply as a top comment, here it is again:
One important thing to take note of is: "Once your personal database has seen more than 200 spam and 200 non-spam emails, we automatically start using it to filter your incoming mail." This means, before you have received 200 spam emails (or marked them as such), the filter is going to perform significantly worse.
Personally, initially it was pretty bad compared to Gmail. However, it significantly improved over time. One thing that helps are masked emails (fantastic) - an email you can create, or is even created automatically for you, and then enter at dubious websites. If you get spam, you can simply block the whole email or fine tune it.
I've been using Zoho mail for a few years now with my own domain linked to it and it works flawlessly for less than 12€/y. (less than 24€/y if you also add the domain cost)
Hell, I'm using the free tier. Zoho has the most relaxed offerings for free tier of any email provider I've looked into.
Their Admin UI sucks though. It's almost impossible to find anything, and once you do find a link to what you need you're forwarded to some other new tool they've created in the last year. Giant pain in the ass.
Yeah I usually mention that whenever I mention Zoho, guess I forgot it this time :)
I'm very happy with them, but every time I need to add a sending email alias I'm looking through 3+ places to find the right one where I can do that.
I have used zoho as well. Have great office tools also.
+1, Zoho here. Super cheap, and I feel a lot more confident that they aren't selling my data out the window, because I'm actually paying for the service.
Started with Proton then ended up at Zoho.
I interacted with one of RMS's public emails last week (not sure if I talked to RMS directly or not) and it came from protonmail. That's about as good an endorsement as one can hope for, so that's where I plan to migrate to.
Gotta go for ProtonMail. Have been running it for a year and I kinda like how it's doing.
An additional feature is SimpleLogin's "Hide My E-mail" Aliases, which are "burner" e-mail addresses to use with pre-determined SimpleLogin domains (you can add your own domains as well to go around Proton's custom domain limit). Those are included in the full suite and Family subscriptions. (10 a month when subscribing for a year)
There's also a cheaper variant for 3.50 a month but it lacks the SimpleLogin feature. You can get SimpleLogin seperately for 30 a year, however.
I tried tutanota but I found it too cumbersome. I prefer Proton
Fastmail is great and has very fast user interface and lots of nice features, such as email address aliases you can create with a button click or integrate it with Bitwarden etc.
It costs money though, just so you know if you want "free" (nothing is really free).
Another bump for Proton. My wife and I share an account with a few different addresses each going to their own folder. (One for me, one for her, one for shopping, one for spam, etc) Their VPN is great too and includes ad/tracker blocking.
If you're moving your email address consider using a mail alias. If you move again in the future it will make the process a whole lot easier as you won't need to go to all your sites to update your email address. You only need to update the one email address with the alias provider.
I use simplemail with my own domain
I just set up my own domain for e-mail and I use aliases for signups. Why would I use an alias for my main email if I have my domain? Just trying to figure out if I should be thinking about setting that up
Yea i did this with proton and a custom domain. Alias freedom!
This is what I'm most concerned about with moving away from Gmail. I have literally everything associated with my Google email address and, since almost every website uses email as credentials, it means I'll have to create new accounts for everything. If I move to a new email, I'm worried if they go belly-up or just flat out close my account then I'll lose access to everything.
I'll have to look into using an alias, that would clear up a lot of my concerns.
I currently still use Gmail, but I am looking to move away. I recently signed up for simplelogin.io and purchased a cheap domain name to use with it. I then went around changing my Gmail email address to a different email alias for each and every site I use. It's a lot of work and I found some sites you can't change the email address, they refuse to allow email aliases or you have to contact support to get them to change it. All a pain. For the majority though most are now on my own domain's email address and all point to my Gmail inbox. At least now when I do switch I have done the hard work and only need to update the email address in simplelogin. Since I use my own domain, I shouldn't lose access to the email account should I need to move it away from simplelogin.
That's not called an alias, it's called owning your own domain name so you can take it with you to any email service.
Email aliases mean something different (giving a website an address like [email protected] instead of [email protected]).
+1 for Proton. I started with just Mail Plus but got the whole package later. It works well!
I’ve been really appreciating Fastmail. It’s paid, but I was finally able to leave Gmail behind
Same here, I love how pretty and useful Fastmail is.
proton or tutanota, i prefer proton cause of [email protected] mail
Proton and Tutanota are the most privacy-focused ones, offering zero-access encryption. The flipside is that they are a bit more expensive and less easy to use with third party email clients.
There are a number of alternatives like mailbox.org, Posteo and Fastmail which are cheaper, and less private than the above two but arguably still better for privacy than Gmail (in that their whole business model isn't built off capturing and monetising your data).
Personally I use mailbox.org and have no complaints. I use it with third party clients like Thunderbird for desktop and FairEmail for Android so can't speak to how good their web UI is.
I also strongly recommend getting your own domain name to use with your email. It means if you ever want to switch providers in future you won't need to change your email address.
Not for everyone, but self-hosting isn't so bad.
I've found it to not be worth the hassle. I think it really isn't worth it for a very select few people who are super dedicated to self hosting it.
Depends on where you're from, but I had good experiences with mailbox.org
I would recommend them too. No problems in more than 5 years.
Other people have mentioned Tutanota; as a user myself I can point out a few pros and cons:
Pro:
- Extremely privacy focused - everything is encrypted and even they don't have access to your email content.
- Pretty cheap for a pro subscription (although they recently changed prices and I'm not sure exactly what the new ones are like).
- Pro subscription you can use custom domains and set up a few aliases.
- Generally works fine.
Con:
- Can only use their custom mail clients (in addition to the webmail interface), because they use their own encryption algorithm.
- Tutanota is so extremely hardcore about security that it seems like a detriment to their user experience. I used to follow the Tutanota community on Reddit and there were so many posts from people who tried to sign up or access their email and were blocked, and they had to go through quite a process to get unblocked. I myself went through a period where I kept being unable to access my account on my phone and it turned out to be that they were blocking me because of "too many IPS connecting to my account from the same IP". I have 2 devices connecting - my PC and my phone, so apparently 2 devices is too dangerous for them. That happened 2 or 3 times for a few days to a week each time, but I haven't experienced it for a while now, though.
- The user interface is not for everyone. I don't mind it myself, but I've seen a good number of people complain that it's too sparse and/or ugly.
- Search is annoying - because everything is encrypted, emails can't be searched on the server side so the clients have to do the searching locally which requires building an index. If you happen to clear your storage you have to reindex everything again. It's also pretty slow and annoying to index further back than a few months.
- You don't get much storage (like, only 1gb or something) and you have to pay to get more.
Overall, if privacy and control over your own email is important to you then Tutanota is a great choice. Just be aware that usability can be kind of a hassle.
Mailbox.org is what I've used for a long time, before protonmail even existed. The mailbox.org servers are powered 100% by solar energy too!
Their fine print didn't fill me with total confidence, but still seems much better for privacy than most email services.
What did you see in the fine print? I just picked it because it was recommended, I never read any of that
100% solar energy? They shutdown the servers at night?
The site says 100% green but hosted in Germany. I'd be curious to know how this is possible
I would assume batteries. They generate excess solar energy during the day and store it in the batteries for night, but that's just my thought process. No idea on what they actually do.
Its cheap and a single xsolution for replacing mail, calendar, contact sync, cloud drive, task list, etc.
Yeah, pretty happy user here overall. I like the email web interface with its different tabs for "General", "Shopping", "Networks", etc., spam filter is reliable, ... It works.
The only thing that annoys me a little is that they got me with their 1€/month offer with custom domain support and now for the new tiers custom domains are only supported in the 3€/month "standard" tier.
That 5GB cloud storage is a bit stingy though on their standard plan.
When I was doing the same research a few years back Fastmail was recommended to me and I’ve been very happy with it. It was fairly easy to set up with an email address from my own domain too.
Proton mail
In no particular order: Fastmail, Proton,
Outlook,iCloud,Yahoo, Gandi (free if you buy a domain), I've heard Hey is ok, but haven't used it.Gandi is getting rid of free email with domains. Was using them for a few years. Seems they got a acquired. Dumb move since it made me transfer all my domains as a result.
That's good to know, I don't think I've had any communication about this 😕
Gandi's pricing is in line with what most other quality email hosting services charge. And it is a very good email service. I was also sad when they announced there were dropping the free email tier but after shopping around for an alternative service I'm forced to admit it's what the market charges for the kind of features they offer.
It's true though that the pricing doesn't work for everybody. For example if you have multiple domains but very low overall email volume it's not going to make sense to pay $60/year/mailbox. In that case a service like Migadu is probably better suite because they let multiple domains/mailboxes share the same storage/email limits for a much lower cost.
I also wish Gandi offered a lower cost tier but it's their decision what kind of email users they want to target.
I've tried Hey, it's nice, but you're stuck with their workflow.
I decided to reproduce their workflow inside of Fastmail. Worked well and now I adapted it for my needs. Something I couldn't have done with Hey.
Even today, I'm exploring Proton and I'm finding that some basic features offered by Fastmail are not available in Proton. The idea of encrypted emails is nice, but I'm not sacrificing some features that I use.
Tutanota or Protonmail
Check out posteo. It costs €1/month (you can pay more for extra aliases). Seems like a cool company, and you can use it with your own email apps (Thunderbird, K9, etc).
I use ProtonMail
They dont really support normal mail clients so no, no alternative.
I would look on privacyguides.org
posteo.de, mailbox.org and others are also good
And dont forget about cock.li !
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PurelyMail. Its technically in beta, but I've been using it without issue since the beginning of this year (2023).
Also using PurelyMail, tt's the cheapest non-free email service I can find.
It passes email delivery tests, setup SPF, DKIM and DMARC easily without issue.
The downside is that it's basically one man handling whole this service, but I assume this service has been fully automated because the margin of profit is so low.
One-man shows can be more innovative than big company services, but at the same time the bus factor is too high
I just started using purelymail with my own domain this week and its been good so far! Very happy to de-google a bit
Yep I signed up this year and been using it with no issues. Such a good service for the low price. If it was not automated then I don't think it could be that low priced.
Proton mail!
I just use IMAP through my domain hosted on Dreamhost (had it for about 13 years now??) and then use K9 and Thunderbird to read it.
Don't need to deal with all the hosting my own mail server spam and ISP nightmare :)
I'm on DH too but I find their webmail solution very outdated, especially compared against Gmail. Especially searching for old mails is bad.
I've been using migadu for almost a year now for mail, tasks, calendars. Works great for me.
Nice, I was looking for one like this, that has plans based on usage and doesn't charge for every mailbox.
proton mail is pretty decent.
not the most private solution but it's still betterHow much more private than end to end encryption do you want? Unless you mean something else by private.
cross domain e2e is quirky. also mail strange itself cannot be e2e encrypted (obviously) so while email body is probably encrypted with password or srh derived from your password (not even sure about that would require client side js in the web client), the metadata is probably still stored unencrypted.
I am happy with Proton.
I use fastmail so I can easily use a desktop client and create aliases with bitwarden and it's a great service the only downside is it's not as private as proton mail, but I don't consider email private or secure
I wanted my own domain and a good integration with android but I didn't want to give my data to microsoft so I went with https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/emails/hosted-exchange/
Had no issues so far for the last 2-3 years.
It's cheaper than protonmail and you're not locked to a specific application since Exchange is well supported.
Very happy with runbox.com. Hosted in Sweden, reasonable price, and - unlike proton - you can use your own frigging mail client
Also is there an alternative to Google Docs?
Cryptpad is pretty nice!
Haven't used it much, but looks promising:
proton mail (if you wanna exclusively use it pay for it), tutanota and any eco focused one. if you wanna keep using some Gmail accounts use k-9
Been looking at mailbox.org
This actually looks pretty good.
I'm using Posteo and have absolutely no problem with it. The base price is 1€/month and for my purposes I haven't needed to buy any extra stuff (like extra space or aliases). It also allows access via mail clients by IMAP and POP, which is something I've seen many popular gmail alternatives not providing, despite being IMO a pretty important feature.
You mentioned storage space is important for you. The default size is 2.0 GB, but you can acquire more by paying +0,25€/month for every extra gigabyte up to a maximum total of 20 GB.
It should be noted however that it is a German company and therefore has to comply with German laws.
The one thing I'm not really convinced by is their approach to spam. The web interface doesn't provide any way to define rules to filter out spam except for filter exceptions, but the service already filters out spam for you and it will never reach your inbox. I would normally think that's a bad idea, but I've never received any spam nor have I noticed any mail going missing (except for my lemmy.ml registration mail which I remember I had problems with but I don't remember if it was Posteo's fault and if yes if it was their spam filter in which case it could be allowed to reach your inbox by adding it as an exception).
But you cannot have your own domain on posteo as far as i know.
Underrated comment. Posteo is awesome, cheap, and has all the tools you need for mail and calendar things. Proton may give you more, but that's a different query.
Did you know IMAP and POP are antiquated protocols, password are passed in clear over internet.
That's why people wrap those protocols with SSL. Think https vs http.
Protonmail and Tutanota seem like your best bets, big providers like to sort others in the spam folder tho!
It's pretty easy to setup your own domain if you don't mind it being someone else's server. I first used one called ZoHo, you just need a domain and a txt record to validate control as I recall and they'll do the rest for free. That was a number of years ago though so it may have changed since.
I'm using Migadu and it's been great so far. Not many bells and whistles but it's just email. Also allows you to control your own email address and not be locked into a different platform
Protonmail but i prefer Tutanota made in Germany 100 % Privacy :D
Proton is too slow with updates usw
You can always pay for your own mailserver. I personally like it that people can reach me a [email protected]. Maybe it is something for you?
Do you actually host your own mail? Because everyone tells me not to do that, it's too much of a hassle and that there are mail services where I can use my own domain.
I used to host my own mail server. Getting it up and running with iredmail wasn't too difficult, but maintaining all of the different components and setting up spam filters and autodiscover and stuff like that is an absolute nightmare.
I just use proton mail. I can point my dns to them, and they do everything else for me.
Only downside is that they don't expose pop3 or imap, so you have to either use their app, or set up their bridge and host that locally.
I've had something like that for a decade and a half now.
In fact the basic e-mail service came free with just getting a domain name (though I pay extra to get IMAP rather that just POP3 access for my mail client plus pretty much infinite storage).
Works in any e-mail client and also has a web client.
Notice that I don't even need to have a hosting account (so it's not hosting for a website), much less a full VPS (which I would have to manage myself): all I'm paying for is the domain name and a little extra for more storage and full e-mail protocol support beyond the basic tier.
I think there have been maybe 2 or 3 outtages in the entire decade and half I've had it.
Whilst I could do my own thing and manage it, this solution is pretty much the level of complexity of using Google Mail (I have more important things to spend my time on than manage a mailserver) with infinitelly more privacy and running 100% on open protocols (so I can move it to a different provider if I want).
For me it would be an alternative to Google drive and it's office web apps.
For drive, Proton drive has been working well for me so far, and it actually integrates better with the windows file explorer
It's not perfect by a long shot, but Nextcloud works okay. I actually host it on my home server under docker and use ddns to reach it remotely. Besides my opnsense vpn, it's the only thing I have open to the internet.
Skiff
The closest in features would be Infomaniak.
migadu.com, it's a Swiss company with servers in France (great privacy laws). You can host multiple domains and unlimited mailboxes on the same account, which starts at $20/year. They limit on numbers of emails sent/received (200/20/day on the smallest account) and on total account space (5 GB smallest), not on features. You can host multiple domains, multiple mailboxes, multiple aliases, individual login per mailbox, TLS connections, IMAP/SMTP/POP/webmail and all the features you can think of.
mailinabox gives you email, calendar, tasks, and nextcloud apps if you're willing to setup your own VPS and suffer through some setup, about $10-20/month
Do all or any of these options offer filtering?
I use Soho, supports custom domain, plenty of good features, it's like £12 a year and EU based / privacy focused.
Get your own domain and sign up with Opalstack.
Proton mail for serious stuff and cock.li mail for fun stuff.
Those domains don't seem very inclusive. Why is there a
dicksinhisan.usdomain but nodicksinheran.usdomain?
I'm using a combination of Postfix and Cyrus IMAPd.
Granted, probably not what OP was asking for, but privacy wise, this is almost certainly more water tight than any of the other options.
Please would you elaborate or point me in the direction of further information? This looks interesting.
Honestly, that was a bit of a wise crack. What I am doing with those two things (plus a number of other that are required these days, notably for DKIM) is running my own mail server.
Fair warning: Doing that costs money, time and effort, and messing it up can lead to... interesting results. (You usually don't want "interesting" for something as fundamental as your email.)
If you are still interested, join us in [email protected]. (Still figuring out how to properly link to a community on lemmy. In the meantime, look for it under "Communitys".)
The postfix mail server can be found here: https://www.postfix.org/
The Cyrus IMAP server can be found here: https://www.cyrusimap.org/Additionally, I also use roundcube so I can have a web interface for email.
Same, Postfix but still using Dovecot for the IMAP server. Works just fine still though.
skiff.com is encrypted services with docs and drive too
Been using tutanota for a while. Never had a single problem with it
I use my own domain on iCloud for Domains.
I have been using Hey for two years now and I like it a lot. Less about privacy and more about, “I don’t want all this junk mail and advertising”
I signed up for MailRoute lifetime* account when Google threatened to pull the grandfathered free workspace account.
It’s fine, I email using Spark everywhere anyway. Spam filter could be better. Other than that, everything is back to normal.
Zoho is a good alternative.
Just uploading a pic of your balloon knot to the internet.
One important thing to take note of is: "Once your personal database has seen more than 200 spam and 200 non-spam emails, we automatically start using it to filter your incoming mail." This means, before you have received 200 spam emails (or marked them as such), the filter is going to perform significantly worse.
Personally, initially it was pretty bad compared to Gmail. However, it significantly improved over time. One thing that helps are masked emails (fantastic) - an email you can create, or is even created automatically for you, and then enter at dubious websites. If you get spam, you can simply block the whole email or fine tune it.
Anything? Carrier pigeon?
Why would you degoogle by exchanging Google with another Google wanna be?
There's only one solution, self hosted email or you might as well use gmail
Run your own email server.
Outlook
Why is this being downvoted so much? There's literally no other big time email provider right now that doesn't require you to insert your phone number or extra email address in the first week, and it supports almost everything gmail does.