🔗tl;dr

  1. Sign up for Fastmail.
  2. Import from Gmail using Fastmail's import tool.
  3. Configure Gmail to forward to your new Fastmail address.
  4. Consider whether to set up a custom domain, e.g. [email protected].
  5. Give out your new Fastmail address instead.

🔗Background

I remember being in my college apartment when I finally got an invite to sign up for Gmail. My UCLA email had an inbox size limit of only 10 MB. That seems impossibly small compared to today, and it did feel pretty cramped at the time. Not only was Google offering 1 GB of space in a Gmail account, it offered the promise of no longer needing to use POP to download all my messages to one and only one device.

That was over 20 years ago, and Google is not the company it once was.

I remember having a conversation with my uncle who was concerned that Google would use the contents of my email to advertise to me. I dismissed these concerns because a machine would be reading my email and not a human. How was that any different from the machine just handling my email in order to deliver it? It turns out it is different, and my naive belief that Google couldn't materially harm me if a human wasn't reading/leaking my email was incorrect.

🔗Why Fastmail?

Fastmail has a reputation for providing a good service in exchange for your money, and that's it. No ads, no surveillance, no selling your personal data. Their website has all this information and more. Here's a short promotional video explanation if that's your thing. If I'm being honest, it's at least half Marco from ATP's fault.

As they say in the above video, your email is super important. It still holds a meaningful part of your personal correspondence, even if that share is being replaced by texting. It has confirmations for nearly everything you buy online. It's the key to logging into or resetting passwords on nearly any online account you have. You need to trust your email provider, and self-hosting email is at best a fool's errand. Do your homework, and choose wisely.

🔗Switching to Fastmail

I switched three years ago in January 2023, so the details are a little fuzzy, but it boils down to this:

  1. Sign up for Fastmail.
  2. Import from Gmail using Fastmail's import tool.
  3. Configure Gmail to forward to your new Fastmail address.
  4. Consider whether to set up a custom domain, e.g. [email protected].
  5. Give out your new Fastmail address instead.

I do use a custom domain – donovans.cc – for my email so that I can always change my email provider in the future without needing to change my email address. Reducing the switching cost is important to keep from getting locked in with any service. That added some complexity and about $15/year in cost (domain registration, not paid to Fastmail). Still, it's pretty doable with some web searching or AI assistance.

As noted above, I still have my gmail account, but the only thing it does is forward all messages to my new Fastmail account. I never send anything with it. For the moment, the associated Google account does act as the home for a bunch of files in Google Drive and Google Docs. Someday, I hope to move away from those too.

My wife and I share Fastmail's Duo plan for $96/year. Not nothing, but pretty reasonable for something so important.

🔗Review?

I'm not going to write anything comprehensive here. It's like Gmail about a decade ago. It's email. It works. It supports custom domains. I set up an alias that goes to both my wife's and my addresses. It has the vim-style keyboard navigation that I want EVERYWHERE (youtube link, sigh). Its search is decent. It has snoozing of emails. You know, the basics.

They also have Contacts. And also Calendar, which I've recently switched to from iCloud. And, importantly, it's not run by a massive surveillance operation masquerading as a product company.

If you like, you can sign up for 10% off a year using my referral link. I'll get $10 if you do, FYI.

🔗Alternatives

I've heard good things about Proton Mail, but I've had no direct experience with it. It's good that their clients are open source, though the backends are not (then again neither is Fastmail). They offer more than mail, including Proton Docs which could be a good alternative to Google Docs (sorting this out is still in my future).

The first service I tried switching to from Gmail was actually Hey by Basecamp. I used them for about a year before deciding the service was not for me. It had an interesting take on email that's different from what Gmail and Fastmail do. However, I simply can't recommend anything from Basecamp anymore due to their CTO and co-owner being a terrible person.