I understand not everyone is able or willing to pay for email, but I wanted to share my 33 euros per year setup which works beautifully and was pretty easy to configure using services based and hosted in Europe. Highly recommend it to others.
I registered a domain to use for email and it all forwards to my Posteo address. Each of my accounts has its own address (e.g., [email protected] if I used Spotify) created on-the-fly through Addy.io. When I have to provide an address then I make it up on the spot and I can configure it further later if I want. For example, I recently got car insurance quotes and gave all the insurance companies [email protected] for my address.
Using a separate email address for each account/purpose enhances privacy and security. I also know if someone sold my data and I can easily disable any address and never get spam to it again. Nobody ever sees the Posteo address where all my mail is forwarded, so if someone wanted to gain access to my “main” account they wouldn’t even know where to begin.
If I ever want to ditch Posteo then I can do it in seconds through Addy.io. If Addy.io stops working then I own the domain where all my emails are going, so I would just change a few settings to continue receiving emails.
Mailo.com from France!
Happy with my switch to Tutamail
Adding a few other alternatives not listed on the website: Tuta, Mailbox.org, Mailfence. There’s also StartMail if you don’t mind a paid option.
Anyone know if someone has ever put together a checklist or routine to perform when migrating from one email service to another?
I’d love to get off of Gmail, but trying to wrestle with 20 years of account signups, purchases, subscriptions, etc. is a Herculean effort I’m struggling to put into practice.
Move and use both for a bit and let it be gradual.
Set a forwarding address to gmail and use your new going forward.
Most providers will provide migration tools, including the ability to periodically scrape your old mailbox for new messages. I migrated from Gmail to Proton a while back and it was shockingly easy even with custom domains.
The flip side is, migrating off proton is an absolute shitty experience.
Same here. The other worry is how many of these smaller companies will be around in ten years? Will we be able to move again if they go under?
I would really, really like a self-hosted solution where I can search my Gmail archive at the same time as my current email account. So I just have to search one place for “emails.”
It’s not a particularly nice way of doing things, but worst case: if you can add both your old and new accounts in, say, Thunderbird, you can literally drag your emails from your old mailbox and drop them into your new one.
A better option might be to see if whatever software/host you’re looking at supports gathering email using IMAP - that way it can migrate all your existing emails autonomously and periodically scrape your old mailbox for new ones.
No one mentioned Posteo yet. Web interface for mail, calendar, etc has 00s vibes, but as it uses standard protocols you can use any client/app. Costs 1€/month, and more if you like to have more storage or features.
Personally, if for some reason I can’t pay for that period, I need them to have a “free” tier just to keep my account. If I need to pay a higher monthly fee, I’ll do so. I just don’t want to change my email address because for example my credit card was renewed and I forgot to update it.
Now do YouTube 🙏
We have peertube. AFAIK mostly done by French framasoft and it’s federated
It even has option to mirror yt account but I guess doing so without consent might be a netiquette problem
I like this topic, and articles like this one. They’re fine for single-person migration from Google etc to alternatives.
The problem hits when it is not one user, but a whole family with a custom domain name on those services, and they want to move to another provider including their family domain name.
I haven’t figured out how to do that, barring a big-bang all-at-once everyone-at-once switch during some holiday or something. And I am terrified of breaking it completely.
Most providers have a way of performing a staged onboarding. So Proton, for example, lets you:
- Add a custom domain name
- Add mailboxes with the custom domain
- Periodically gather emails from GMail, etc, to your new mailboxes
- Create DNS records to allow email to be sent from your custom domain.
…and you can do those in any order at any time without changing the MX records, so your users can switch across to Proton when it suits them. Once everyone is over you can throw the switch on the MX records and kill the GMail service with essentially zero downtime.
I’ve got a bit of experience with migrating to Proton and Microsoft Exchange but I imagine the vast majority of providers - and certainly those that target enterprise - will support similar workflows.
Thank you! That makes it sound a lot less painful. First I’ve seen of a way forward.
Personally not sure what provider to go to yet, but seeing that Proton has a plan, it proves that there’s a good solution, so others might have similar. Feeling more optimistic now.
Wtf’s a infomaniak???
Where Tuta?
Tuta.com is out of Germany. I’ve had it about 8 years ( 2 Paid ) and never had any problems.
I find it interesting that these posts always lead to Tuta. It’s from Germany. I’m from Germany and I have literally never seen anyone with an email address from there. Some here use gmx.de, some use web.de, some use something from telekom when they want to use a German provider… Tuta seems to be more known outside of the EU than in the EU.
Isolated on their own vendor lock-in without IMAP maybe?
Just came here to write the same thing.
My experience with Proton was not great. I signed up, with the intention of switching. Had some IRL stuff come up, so while I was using it, I hadn’t migrated everything and it was a good thing I didn’t. I had a password issue. I couldn’t sign in. I admit, I should have setup the recovery email, but I’m a dumbass.
So, I opened a ticket, and in the end, they couldn’t help me. Even though I had the recovery phrase (which didn’t work), and I had the email verification they sent me with the date, time and header info showing it came from them to me, and the mail ID. Even though I had that, they wouldn’t consider it proof that I setup the account and wouldn’t recover it for me.
And because they won’t reuse email addresses, I lost my email address.
To me, the only part that was my fault was not setting up a recovery email. I still have my username and password in my password manager. But not being able to recover it, when it just stopped working, and I couldn’t get my account back, is on them.
Nope… I’d still say it’s on you. They really go for zero knowledge encrypted email. You are the only owner of any and all ways of recovering your account. And under no circumstances they should have any way to access your files or emails. This obviously increases privacy… But also the risk of losing everything.
Tuta also blocks reusing addresses. It also screwed me because i used one for a quick test, and i didn’t properly keep the credentials. Now i can’t use that address ever again. I guess it makes sense to avoid impersonation.
I’d say if this is not your threat model, you might want to check less restrictive options, maybe mailbox.org.
And don’t get me wrong, I have a long list of pet peeves with Proton. But i think that part works as designed.
When they say they can recover it, but will not recover it, it is indeed on them.
Especially since, I have the password. It didn’t work and my recovery phrase didn’t either. That’s a technical issue. Something happened to my account.
And they told me that the email they sent me about the account validating it was mine, was not proof enough that the account was mine. Still on them.
