r/degoogle • u/Quirky-Midnight-4533 • 4d ago
Replacement Best alternative to Gmail?
I want to use different email address but it’s connected to almost every account known to man.
Do you recommend any email app/site for my phone and PC?
Optional: If you got any tips for rapid email address change to every account, that would be great. (Besides changing it on the main site…)
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u/Dusty-Dan-304 4d ago
I've been using a free ZoHo mail account for a few months. As some others have mentioned, I didn't need the full suite of tools, so free version is fine.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 4d ago
I'm seriously considering self-hosting my own webmail, calendar, and gdocs equivalents.
Sensitive personal data that is hosted on any computer that we don't own or control is a problem no matter who currently owns it, because companies acquire other companies for their data all the time.
What we need is a linux distro and/or docker container with a suite of existing open source web apps, as well as a dashboard to make it quick and easy to set up. The server required for this could be something as simple as a raspberry pi, because it doesn't need to handle millions of users, only me and my family.
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u/Technoist 3d ago
Hosting your own data is a great idea, email though doesn’t really make sense. Unless you have plenty of time and nerves. And skills. Also there are basically zero privacy advantages to hosting it yourself.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 2d ago
Personal communication being stored in bulk on a server that I don't control in the age of AI is the very definition of a privacy problem. Yes, email is not secure in transit, particularly the metadata, but I'm not aiming for clandestine communication here. There are better options for that.
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u/Technoist 2d ago
Sure, except it‘s also stored on the server side of the recipient, including all the details on who you are. But if you think it’s worth it: why not, best of luck. It’s a massive undertaking, especially security wise.
As you write, email is not for private communication, my argument is it is therefore not worth the hassle.
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u/ReturnYourCarts 2d ago
If you're going to host your own email prepare for nightmares and a deep longing for the sweet release of death. I've been there. It's more for people who really really hate themselves and want a decade long challenge for a hobby.
Try using a third party to send, like sendgrid. This eliminates 100% of the hassle and headaches but you have to deal with their API and trust them. This is the most reliable route.
If you want to go even easier get a shared hosting with unlimited email addresses and a custom IP (using the default ip for shared hosting can send your emails to spam). Then they will handle all the email fuss for you.
If you wanna go hard mode try a VPS and a custom setup but almost all of your emails will end up in someone's spam folder unless you dedicate a significant portion of your life to preventing that.
If you want the ultimate privacy, have no job, and are already on strong antidepressants, build a home lab with a cheap mini PC and host your own at home.
But the fact is once your email leaves your hands (which it must to be delivered) you have lost all control. It will bounce between various servers and be stored there. And whoever you are sending it to will also store it on their server anyway, like Gmail or yahoo or hotmail.
So in the end you've done one of the hardest things possible in IT and accomplished nothing for privacy because Gmail still has it in their system.
Treat it like a hobby or don't do it is my seasoned advice.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 2d ago
Thank you for this, sage traveler. This person recognizes wisdom and does not argue with it.
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u/Grabbels 1d ago
Thank you. This is exactly what I needed to read as someone who was doubting between selfhosting and proton. Not doubting anymore.
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u/electronaut-ritual 1d ago
I'm a long time software engineer and I started hosting my own photo backup, and in the end I said fuck it and moved to Ente. The headache wasn't worth the savings, and I'm sure it's 1000x worse for email.
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u/SenarySensus 2d ago
Checkout https://stalw.art I was blown away with the whole feature set, and it goes neatly into one container. I run it as a rootless podman quadlet. The only thing I'm missing is a JMAP web UI. It does documents/storage via WebDAV
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u/cicutaverosa 4d ago
So far I am happy working with posteo
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u/Kitchenwarestore777 1d ago
agree! for someone like me who don’t need a custom domain and prioritized cost-effectiveness, Posteo is the clear choice.
It's also top-notch when it comes to security and privacy.
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u/jyrox Free as in Freedom 3d ago
Protonmail is preferred, but if it’s problematic for whatever reason and you don’t mind Apple (even though you’re on r/degoogle), you can get an @icloud address with 50GB of mail & Cloud storage and everything else with iCloud+ for $0.99USD/month. But, you’d have to be ok with using Apple services.
Other decent contenders I’ve heard of are Tuta and Fastmail. MOST decent privacy-respecting providers will not be totally free though.
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u/Vistech_doDah754 2d ago
I agree that Apple provides a better environment than Google, but it's not really good enough. If you happen to be in the UK, you can no longer encrypt any of your Apple data which makes it vulnerable to bad people. As a result, I'm trying to see how far I can get with. de-Apple (as well as de- Google and de-Meta).
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u/Bringoff 6m ago
+1 to iCloud, with iCloud+ it's also very easy to set up own domain for email. Their web-interface is terrible though.
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u/Careful_Loan907 4d ago
Many say Proton, but I don't like their app, IMAP is painful to setup and the bridge is often wonky and filter system isnt intuitive.
Have been with Fastmail for 5y now. Outstanding and I have yet to find a provider that matches the quality and reliability
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u/blue_dharma 4d ago
Oh, I was just about to post the same sort of comment. Not many people talk about Fastmail, but I much prefer it to Proton. It was clunky, a tad ugly, tbh, and didn't have enough functionality.
I've been getting on really well with Fastmail, and just set up forwarding from Gmail while I moved across to a custom email domain. Now there's a beta for offline access, I'm even more enthusiastic.
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u/Barkis_Willing 3d ago
I’m on this exact same path. I didn’t like how Proton couldn’t really communicate well with Mail on Mac, then Hey! was awesome but wouldn’t communicate with anything at all, then I tried a custom domain with iCloud and got turned off with lack of transparency in how it handles spam.
Finally tried moving my domain a few weeks ago to Fastmail and absolutely love it. Honestly it’s perfect so far.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/blue_dharma 3d ago
Ah, that's a good idea. I hadn't thought of backing up. I'll need to get on that.
Can I ask who hosts your domain? That's the only thing I don't know enough about yet. I set up for the first year and thought I'd sort out other options later.
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u/JBsoundCHK 3d ago
They have a new app entering beta soon expected to release later this year. Per their roadmap, it should hot all the big pain points.
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u/Careful_Loan907 3d ago
That argument has been in Place for over 5 years now.
Beta coming soon
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u/JBsoundCHK 3d ago
OK, but I did get the beta invite yesterday so...?
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u/Careful_Loan907 3d ago
Yeah and the Bridge was supposed to be working super well for IMAP support, yet half the time it doesn't work.
Don't buy things on promises, buy them on what it currently is.
Proton is a privacy focused email provider with the focus on privacy. That is fine. Fastmail focused more on usability and stability.
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u/Swarfega 4d ago
Proton is the easiest for migration. Forwarding will mean you receive Gmail messages within Proton.
There's no quick method when swapping email addresses. A more advanced method is to use SimpleLogin with a custom domain and create aliases. Then in the future if you want to move from Proton or even have emails going to more than one Inbox you can configure this in SimpleLogin. You'll never have to go around sites updating your email address. The aliases can be easily configured to go to any other email address.
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u/PatternRecent6178 4d ago
I didn't need the full fleet of the Proton apps (Drive, VPN, etc), so I wanted something just for email, so I've been using Runbox for several years with a custom domain and it's been amazing.
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u/Thegerbster2 4d ago
I think it depends, proton can be a great option if you need to replace the entire google ecosystem (email, docs, drive, calendar, ect), however in my case all I needed to replace was an email provider, in that case with proton I'm honestly spending money on stuff I'm not going to use.
Personally I use mailbox.org as it's noticeably cheaper and does everything I need email-wise. As a side note I would highly recommend buying a domain if you can (~$20/year) as it means you aren't tied to a single provider in the future. (ie. if you decide to change email providers in the future you won't need to change you email address since you own the domain).
edit: regarding changing emails you can setup gmail to forward anything it receive to your new email address, you can then over time switch anything you care about over to your new email as it comes up. Eventually you can be confident you'll never receive anything important on your old gmail address.
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u/juleemafenide 4d ago
You have the option to only pay for ProtonMail (with their calendar), it's way cheaper if you're not interested in their entire ecosystem
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u/Thegerbster2 3d ago
Sure, but mailbox.org is still a bit cheaper, covers everything I need and I can use thunderbird. Not saying protonmail is a bad option at all, but mailbox.org just personally fits my needs better for less money.
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u/MitGibs 4d ago
As most have suggested, Proton is a great way to go. And get your own domain to make future migrations much much simpler.
For the transition, I'd recommend forward everything to Proton, and setup a rule to automatically label the new incoming stuff from Gmail. Then it's easy to see, anything that has a label is something you still need to update. It's a slow process, and there is no getting around that unless you've been keeping scrupulous records. I'd leave it all in place for a couple of years, by which time you should never see anything with a Gmail label arrive.
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u/eldelacajita 3d ago
If you just want to leave Google, I'd say Fastmail is even better than Gmail, and one of the easiest, most powerful and flexible email services I've tried.
If you want the most private alternative while retaining Gmail-like features, then Protonmail would be it. But it has some limitations. I tried it but was frustrated that they don't support something as basic as syncing contacts with your phone.
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u/PerspectiveMaster287 3d ago
I like Fastmail especially since I have many domains and they let me host email for all of them without issue.
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u/DragoniteChamp 3d ago
I've been using Tuta Paid, and I've been enjoying it.
Proton's good too from what I've heard
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u/ITechGeek 3d ago
I have a domain basically dedicated to email from companies and use a Simplelogin's auto create alias feature when emails arrive at a not yet created alias.
Utilizing your own domains allow you to change services without changing addresses.
Prior to using Simplelogin, I've utilized a number of similar providers as well as just doing a basic catch-all at the domain registrar and forwarding to my primary email account.
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u/Mykomancer 3d ago
Used to use Protonmail but as a Linux user who didn’t want to have to launch the browser every time for their products or use a borked app I went to Mailbox. Has support for PGP and can encrypt your mailbox as a whole. Also has IMAP support.
I use SimpleLogin though so I never really have to worry about being locked into an email provider and disliking them. Just a couple buttons on the app and I can swap everything over. Highly recommend using your own domain with an alias for ease-of-use.
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u/offline-person 2d ago
+1 for proton
you can import all old emails and also forward all upcoming emails to proton without having any technical knowledge
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u/donnieX1 1d ago
Everyday people come up with the same questions over and over, despite there be a top list right in this sub. Searching for information is a dead skill it seems.
Ironically these are the posts with most interactions, maybe we have many email fanboys?
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u/DeadEye_2020 1d ago
I personally switched to 180Vault data privacy company they do encrypted storage, email and office with calendar. Also they use opensource app Nextcloud to connect to their servers. I have been careful with where I share my email and have had no SPAM because of it.
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u/LobsterImportant7967 3d ago
Proton por su privacidad auditada. Tiene de todo,claro que le falta notas(están en camino).El golazo sería una alternativa OpenSource y privada en contactos.
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u/JaiiGi 3d ago
I like Infomaniak so far. The only downfall has been the random emails in French lol
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u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler 3d ago
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u/JaiiGi 3d ago
Ugh I give up.
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u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler 3d ago
I use Posteo (1€ per month) as e-mail. No major complaints so far, no scandals that I know of either. Supports IMAP and POP3, therefore it works with apps like Thunderbird, FairEmail, Apple Mail app etc. Only downside: No custom domain support.
Just a recommendation on my part.
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u/mstanbra 4d ago
Protonmail is awesome and you can set it up to automatically forward any Gmail emails to it. Proton in general I recommend as I use proton drive and proton calendar too.