
Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail? - egonschiele
With the recent thread on privacy in Chrome, I&#x27;m thinking of switching off Gmail. What email service is best for privacy? Or if you self-host, what email client do you like best?
======
lvillani
FastMail. It's one of the few third party hosts to support push email on iOS
with the native Mail app (it's a custom protocol based on APNS), since Mail
doesn't implement IMAP IDLE [1].

They are also the main sponsors behind the JMAP protocol [2] and some open
source projects such as the Cyrus IMAP server.

[1]: [https://fastmail.blog/2016/12/21/what-we-talk-about-when-
we-...](https://fastmail.blog/2016/12/21/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-
about-push/#iosmail) [2]: [https://jmap.io](https://jmap.io)

~~~
simfoo
One thing to keep in mind about Fastmail is that all their servers are hosted
in the US and they have no plan about changing this (I asked). Post-Snowden
this means you can be quite sure that all mails will end up being analysed by
the US authorities

~~~
bad_user
I'm an European, but I don't mind.

First of all when making such a choice, you have to identify who the _enemy_
is.

If you're talking about global enemies, like the NSA, then IMO without end-to-
end encryption you're screwed. And if you're targeted directly, you're screwed
regardless, given they have the capability to use whatever vulnerabilities
they can find in your router, your phone, your OS, your browser, etc. If it's
connected to the Internet, especially if you're being targeted, you're
screwed.

Also many European countries have signed on joint cooperation agreements with
US intelligence agencies. If for example you're using servers in the UK, it's
in no way safer, see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

So back to _who is the enemy_?

For me it's not the NSA or our local intelligence agencies. If I'm being
wronged, I've got legal ways to fight back and I don't really care about the
NSA.

What I care about is being _profiled_ by unscrupulous companies that may end
up selling that data to other actors that may harm my well being. For example
insurance companies could deny insurance if they discovered you smoked
cigarettes 10 years ago. Or banks changing your credit score based on who your
friends are. Or supermarket chains discovering that your daughter is pregnant
before everybody else does. This shit is already happening!

I think the general discourse doesn't go in the direction that it should go.
Organizations like EFF have been historically anti-government, but very pro
corporate and private companies. Which is why I don't trust them fully.

Identify that enemy. If you're an European for example, that enemy is probably
not the NSA.

I do prefer non-US alternatives btw, whenever I get that choice. I do so out
of a desire to encourage competition and to reward EU companies that do well,
as a "voting with your wallet" thing.

But choosing to reject non-US companies for the reason that some of their
servers are located in the US, that's frankly childish. Servers located in the
US are cost effective. Either provide better alternatives, or otherwise these
services will not be able to compete on the global market from a price or
latency perspective.

~~~
ryukafalz
>Organizations like EFF have been historically anti-government, but very pro
corporate and private companies.

I don't think I'd call EFF either anti-government or pro-corporate. Rather,
they have a set of positions around surveillance, the public domain, etc. and
side with or against governments or private companies based on those
positions.

I donate to them, and in my experience they've been pretty consistent on their
positions, but if you've noticed otherwise I'd be curious to know how.

~~~
bad_user
I don't want to attack EFF, I think they are on the right side, but it's just
a general feeling I've got.

For example when the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal broke loose,
that was the perfect opportunity for them to go out against private
surveillance, guns blazing. Their reaction was late and with an article like "
_here 's how to protect against Facebook tracking_", advising people to opt
out in their Settings and to install Privacy Badger, this happening when
everybody else was freaking out and doing #DeleteFacebook pieces.

I donated to EFF modest amounts in the past and probably will do so again,
because the fights they are fighting are good for us. Maybe they pick their
battles, I don't know. But I'm seeing a general pattern in their attacks,
which is that they go very light on companies, compared with how they deal
with governments.

Maybe it has to do, as always, with their source of funding. I can imagine
that they received significant donations from the philanthropists of Silicon
Valley. I don't care much though. My general point being that there's too much
emphasis lately on government surveillance and control from privacy
organizations and less on Google/Facebook surveillance.

I'm glad that there's now mindfulness about it in this community though.

~~~
splintercell
> For example when the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal broke loose,
> that was the perfect opportunity for them to go out against private
> surveillance, guns blazing.

This is a very American thing which I can imagine our European counterparts
not like, that is govt (USG) is treated as an enemy because it is the most
powerful entity in the world. For Europeans, it would Govt AND these mega
corporations (because the European govts do not have as much power as the US
govt).

This is why in the US, corporations are ignored because they are insignificant
on the US soil. And this isn't even a new thing, this opposition of the govt
is as old as the founding of the nation.

This is why ACLU will not speak out against censorship of right wing media on
Facebook and other companies. Keep in mind ACLU would not have any problem
defending the latter against the govt, so it isn't about what the latter
represents. It's simply, ACLU is a first amendment right based organization
and their focus is preventing govt encroaching on our civil liberties (which
is defined by what govt can't do, and not what a person is allowed to do in
any circumstances).

Similarly NRA wouldn't care if you got kicked out of a movie theater for being
concealed carry, but if a local city tries to ban guns in movie theaters, then
NRA would step in.

~~~
eswoo
> Similarly NRA wouldn't care if you got kicked out of a movie theater for
> being concealed carry, but if a local city tries to ban guns in movie
> theaters, then NRA would step in.

Well, this isn't entirely accurate. They definitely do chafe at even private
restrictions on anything gun. While I don't have time to research this right
now, a quick search of "concealed carry in businesses" certainly returns some
people complaining that businesses shouldn't be allowed to restrict that. And,
if you dug a little deeper, I imagine the NRA would be weighing in there
somewhere.

~~~
splintercell
Are you just guessing or do you know for sure? I know it for sure because we
want NRA to speak up, but they don't.

------
rjzzleep
For the self-hosted folks there are:

[https://mailcow.email/](https://mailcow.email/) \- dockerized, works with
multiple domains, sogo for groupware. Compared to mailinabox's single disk, it
has 6 docker volumes to keep track of.

[https://mailu.io/](https://mailu.io/) \- dockerized, it has a section on
kubernetes deployments, which i find weird, but I guess could make sense for
companies

[https://mailinabox.email/](https://mailinabox.email/) \- no docker, no
multiple domains, roundcube, nextcloud for groupware. Main disadvantage or
advantage, depending on your perspective is that you need a mailinabox server
per domain.

And then this is the more hands on version, which I guess would be sovereign
as ansible deployment.

[https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign](https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign)

IMHO sovereign puts too many attack vectors on a single machine.

~~~
ryandrake
This might be obvious and not need to be mentioned, but if you're self-
hosting, don't forget the obvious and often most flexible option: A Linux box
directly running plain old Exim (or Postfix, etc.), Dovecot (or Courier,
etc.), Spamassassin. No containers, no abstractions, no meta-configuration.

I've had this setup for a couple of years now and it's not failed me. Support
TLS, SPF, spam checking, DKIM, can support multiple domains and aliases.
Basically anything you can imagine. And, despite the FUD you might hear about
not using a cloud service, my mails don't get magically lost into people's
spam filters. The initial configuration/learning is steep, but I pretty much
never have to touch it once it was working.

~~~
openbasic
Do you recommend any guide or book on the subject?

~~~
ryandrake
Mostly online searches and reading the software's documentation. Unfortunately
there appears to be no site that walks you through the entire process. You'll
find "how to set up exim" tutorials and "how to get dovecot working with exim"
but so far I have found no overall soup-to-nuts guide that matches my exact
configuration.

1\. You need your own domain

2\. If you're new to Linux, I'd set up something simpler first, like a web
server just to familiarize yourself with your domain tools and your
distribution's configuration.

3\. A good half-way solution for migrating from Gmail is to set your own
server as MX for your domain and forward received E-mail to Gmail. That way
you can get familiar with setting up your MTA without worrying about delivery.
And, you can start encouraging people to start sending mail to your
@domain.com address rather than @gmail.com address. I had this set-up for
years before taking the plunge and hosting everything myself.

 _Be warned, Gmail applies very aggressive filtering to your incoming
forwarded mail, even before it reaches your "Spam" folder. This was one of the
primary reasons I decided to self-host: I was finally able to compare the list
of E-mails I received, through looking at my logs, to the E-mails that ended
up making it to Gmail. Gmail's (presumably) spam-filtering was filtering out
an unacceptable amount of false positives._

4\. Set up your host to deliver locally. You'll be able to verify it's working
by using standard unix mail tools running on your host.

5\. Set up something nicer for delivery like IMAP, and get your favorite mail
client to work. I use Dovecot, but there are plenty of options.

6\. Any bells and whistles you want. TLS, SPF, DKIM, Spamassassin, multiple
domains. I found at first I was getting a massive amount of spam (thanks for
fixing this for me for years, Gmail!) but after a few months of training,
Spamassassin is very good and I'm back down to not seeing much anymore.

Hope that helps. To your other question. I spend $5 a month for my VPS, and I
can host a lot more than E-mail there.

------
peatmoss
Most important thing is to buy a domain so you can port your email address
from provider to provider. I’ve had the same email address and several hosts
over the years.

I’m currently on Fastmail and find the service good.

~~~
fvargas
Fastmail has worked well for me with custom domains. It's nice being able to
create custom aliases for when an address is publicly visible e.g. GitHub so I
know through what funnel emails are coming from.

Like others have said, the Android app is not worth installing unless you're
okay with limited and, in some cases, poor functionality.

I suppose you can set it up with the Gmail or Outlook Android apps? I've never
tried, as this defeats the purpose of not having those companies as your email
provider :)

Still searching for a good Android mail app...

~~~
InternetOfStuff
> Still searching for a good Android mail app...

Give AquaMail a try.

I find it efficient, fast and featureful. I've never noticed any bugs.

The user interface is perhaps not fancy, but IMO not ugly either, and
certainly functional.

I've been using it for years, and they keep updating it diligently.

~~~
j45
Co signed on Aquamail - the original author was very receptive to feature
requests and fixing bugs (It was nice when he eventually added scheduled
outgoing emails). The software has since been acquired but developement
appears to be continuing.

Other clients that caught my eye also were Bluemail or Nine, depending on the
need.

------
dewey
There are so many threads like this and the answers usually boil down to the
self hosting group and the other group who believes that paying someone to do
the job is the right thing to do. I’m in the latter group and always recommend
Fastmail. I migrated all of my families accounts there with multiple domains
and couldn’t be happier. For something I use hours every day it’s well worth
paying someone to keep it secure and online.

~~~
bamboozled
Fastmail has been also flawless for me since signing up. Highly recommended.

~~~
charmides
I think paid email services are a great idea, but $50 a year and 2 GB of
storage for Fastmail seems expensive to me. Why not something closer to five
or ten bucks a year? Can someone explain to me why this type of pricing makes
sense?

~~~
pmorici
The Fastmail pricing tiers are $3, $5, and $9 per month which is $36, $60, and
$108 per year respectively. If you look at their primary competition their
prices are on par or slightly better. Here is a sampling...

Google G Suite: $5, $10, and $25 per month per user.

Microsoft: $4, $8, or $12.50 per month per user.

ZOHO: $3, $7 per month per user billed yearly.

[0]
[https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html](https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html)

[1] [https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/compare-
microsoft...](https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/compare-microsoft-
exchange-online-plans)

[2]
[https://www.zoho.com/workplace/pricing.html?src=zmail](https://www.zoho.com/workplace/pricing.html?src=zmail)

~~~
conatus
While they are on par for email, with Fastmail being superior in certain ways,
you do get a deal more value from the Google G Suite as you get a lot more
besides email incorporated in the price, i.e, cloud drive, the applications
themselves etc.

Thinking though this for a project I'm working on with a tight budget I
concluded for money related reasons I'd probably have to go with Google even
though I'd prefer not to.

~~~
pmorici
FastMail is more than just email. They include a drive like feature with the
ability to make a basic website.

I use G Suite for my side business and while it seems like a great deal
because you get all these other apps, in practice, I have never used them, not
once.

~~~
conatus
Oh really. Thanks for this. Will check it out.

We are heavy users of Google Sheets and Docs already so I know these will be
used immediately.

------
rgovostes
I'd like to switch to Fastmail, but I have a handful of seldom-used secondary
accounts (e.g., for family members), and it doesn't make sense to pay
$5/mo/each when they're free on G Suite. Their pricing structure is designed
for organizations or single users, but somehow my use case falls in between.

It seems a bit off that my household can stream as many movies as we want for
$11/mo, or have unlimited access to an enormous music catalog for $15/mo, but
e-mail service costs more.

ProtonMail looks about the same, actually more expensive, though they have a
more attractive $30/mo plan for 6 users that it includes VPN access.

~~~
BlindRabbit
I had the exact same problem. Then I found
[https://www.migadu.com/](https://www.migadu.com/)

"Have as many email addresses on as many domains you need, anytime. No extra
costs. All your projects, ideas, employees, family members and IoT devices are
welcome. Pets too.

Migadu is a radically different, independent email hosting from Switzerland.
We do not count your domains, mailboxes, gigabytes or teeth."

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I'm just browsing their website and it seems a bit too good to be true... The
only drawback I see are daily sending limits (which I'm very happy with).

~~~
bluehatbrit
I've been using them for 2 years now, I'm a big fan of the service. I thought
it was a bit too good to be true at first but I was slowly transitioning from
a gmail address to my own domain so it wasn't a huge issue if it fell over or
something. Turns out to be pretty rock solid and I'm a very happy customer
now.

------
whitepoplar
I'd love to switch away from Gmail, but its security is so compelling that,
afaik, nobody else comes close. How many other companies have Tavis Ormandy's
on staff to do security audits for their users, let alone free users? Is there
a _single_ other email provider that gets security right to the extent Google
does?

~~~
brycehamrick
Yeah I completely agree this is something that needs consideration. I do have
an email address with my own domain but for security reasons any accounts I
create are tied to my gmail address. I've known too many people who have had
personal domain email addresses intercepted, particularly through compromised
domain/DNS settings. One simple MX record adjustment could mean every single
bank account, social media profile, etc. all can be taken over.

~~~
miles
> _I do have an email address with my own domain but for security reasons any
> accounts I create are tied to my gmail address. I 've known too many people
> who have had personal domain email addresses intercepted, particularly
> through compromised domain/DNS settings._

If your Gmail account is lost or compromised, good luck getting any help from
Google; while G Suite support is decent, free Gmail account users are
basically on their own.

Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452969)

Ask HN: What to do about a wrongly shut down GMail account?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033474)

Another account lost in the Google void – how many are there?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17745761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17745761)

Professor who refused to use other genders pronouns, was banned by Google
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905384](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905384)

~~~
kbuck
To be fair here, two of these are obvious user error.

In the Etherium case, he deleted the email and wanted to get it back 2 full
years later. The only way he would have recovered from this would have been to
take meticulous backups (and test them regularly). I would expect any 3rd
party provider to honor my wish to delete data, especially 2 years down the
line (and, in fact, they are probably legally required to do so).

In the "lost in the Google void" situation, the user set up 2fa but lost all
access to their 2nd factors. I don't see any reasonable recourse to this, as
any "solution" Google implements would undermine the entire purpose of 2fa.

The remaining two are obvious issues with Google's service. The "gender
pronoun" one is a bit odd because gender pronouns don't seem to have anything
to do with the account closure (there's speculation that he was mass-reported
to exploit their abuse response systems).

------
rajuvegesna
Zoho Mail is a strong option. Comes with mobile apps, supports all standard
protocols (IMAP/POP/ActiveSync), includes Calendar and many other modules.
Zero tracking. Zero ads.

Beyond Mail, Zoho offers several apps that can replace most of what Google
offers. From Docs to office suite, note-taking to chat and many more.

(Disclosure: I am with Zoho)

~~~
plicense
To be honest, I would stay away from Zoho.

I know a couple of friends who work there and they frequently mention having
access to raw email contents with minimal supervision. That's now how I want
my email to be treated by the company hosting my email services.

~~~
vjsc
Thanks for the information. It's quite amazing and shocking to hear that these
guys are able to look at their customers emails.

That must be some kind of violation liable for a court case.

~~~
cerberusss
It's hearsay. For a counterargument: Zoho product manager replied in this
thread.

------
tkim90
Can anyone expliain why G Suite (the paid version of Gmail) is not considered
safe for data privacy? From the site it says they are encrypted, regularly
audited by 3rd parties and not used for ads.

[https://gsuite.google.com/faq/security/](https://gsuite.google.com/faq/security/)

~~~
sigfubar
G Suite isn't private because Google isn't in the privacy or productivity
business. It's an advertising company that happens to have a product line
which looks like a productivity suite. Charging money for it is just a nifty
way to defray the costs of collecting data for advertising purposes.

~~~
eximius
I know hedge funds that use Gsuite. Pretty sure their legal team would eat
Google alive if they found out Google was wantonly reading their documents.

~~~
r0fl
Don’t be so sure, google has a strong legal team and more cash for litigation
than any hedge fund

~~~
eximius
That's a silly argument for a couple of reasons.

For one, it's just a bad business decision, opening yourself up to an
incredible legal liability for relatively little benefit.

For another, just because they have more funds and a larger legal team doesn't
mean they can devote the same quantity of resources to that specific case.
Google is huge and might have resources dedicated to legal ~100x more than any
other single entity, but if Google is party to ~1000x more cases than the
other party, they'll still have a tough time matching resources.

------
newscracker
My recommendation is posteo.de. It’s a lot cheaper than Fastmail if you need
multiple mailboxes. Browse through the site and read through the company’s
values. A bonus is its focus on being better for the environment.

One point to note about Posteo is that it doesn’t allow custom domains (but
there are plenty of Posteo domains to choose from). I don’t see this as a
disadvantage for my use though.

Other recommendations are Runbox and mailbox.org, both being near the price of
Posteo while also allowing custom domains for certain plans.

Posteo, Runbox and Mailbox.org provide IMAP support. So you’re not stuck with
the provider if you want to move your mails out (unlike ProtonMail, which has
an IMAP bridge only for paid accounts and is a bit more cumbersome to
install/use than the alternative of just picking any email client of your
preference).

~~~
splittingTimes
I second posteo. Happy customer. Also, you can stay anonymous as a user, as
you can pay the yearly fee of 12 Euros in cash via postal mail.

------
mirimir
> What email service is best for privacy?

There's no simple answer, because it comes down to your threat model.

What do you want to keep private? Just content? Or also metadata, including
your identity and the identities of your correspondents?

And who are your adversaries? Random cybercriminals? Competitors? The email
provider? Criminal investigators? Foreign intelligence agencies? Your
government's intelligence agencies?

> With the recent thread on privacy in Chrome, I'm thinking of switching off
> Gmail.

OK, so the email provider is considered an adversary.

If that's the case, the only prudent option is end-to-end encryption, done
locally, and not using the provider's services. But that's barely workable.
Most correspondents won't cooperate. Configuring clients correctly is
nontrivial, to avoid attacks like Efail. Also, there's no forward secrecy, and
metadata is not encrypted.

For privacy at that level, you ought to be using something with forward
secrecy, like Signal. And if anonymity really matters, you ought to be using
something that does P2P via Tor .onion services, such as Briar or Ricochet.

But anyway, you could use email with end-to-end encryption, use pseudonyms,
and minimize metadata with some mix of VPN services and Tor. And then use
providers with better reputations about privacy and security. Such as
Autistici, CounterMail, Posteo, ProtonMail, Riseup, ScryptMail, Tutanota or
VFEmail.

However, there's no guarantee that any of them will refuse "lawful" access.
For example, Autistici acknowledges that they might "lose control" over their
servers, perhaps through seizure by police, or that their servers could "run
into accidents that could undermine [their] security".[0] And Riseup redefined
their warrant canary policy to exclude investigations of individual users, or
groups of users, that don't put Riseup users generally at risk.[1]

Even so, you're arguably OK as long as they can't decrypt messages, don't know
who you or your correspondents are, or where y'all are located.

0) [https://www.autistici.org/faq](https://www.autistici.org/faq)

1) [https://riseup.net/about-us/press/canary-
statement](https://riseup.net/about-us/press/canary-statement)

edit: alphabetized provider list

~~~
hannasanarion
> > With the recent thread on privacy in Chrome, I'm thinking of switching off
> Gmail.

> OK, so the email provider is considered an adversary.

I don't think Gmail is considered an adversary, it's just that you can now no
longer log in to Gmail without also logging in to the same account in Chrome,
which is a stupid non-user-friendly feature.

~~~
mirimir
Why is that an issue if you trust Google? Indeed, in that case, they're doing
something that _is_ user-friendly. Because stuff arguably works more reliably
if you're logged in to both Google and Chrome.

And if you don't trust Google, they're at least effectively an adversary. In
the most favorable light, that they're doing something that might compromise
your privacy.

~~~
Pigo
I'm not as usually concerned about this as some are, but I appreciate that
others are. As much as I enjoy Google products, I want there to be 50 other
options out there that work great and have their own advantages. I wish there
was more competition, in general, for most things on ye ole information super-
highway.

~~~
mirimir
I've found no search service that does a better job than Google. Plus Google
Books, Google Scholar, etc. I'm just an anonymous coward when using them ;)

------
yodon
Outlook.com (free) and Office365 (a few $/month/user on your own domain) are
both great options. I personally much prefer both the web client and the
various app clients to gmail's equivalents.

~~~
kayoone
i doubt that MS is an improvement over Google when it comes to privacy
concerns.

~~~
snr
MSFT doesn't read your email to target you with ads.

~~~
csdreamer7
You really don't know that.

MS built Win10 to spy on you and build a business from data mining. Why would
they not do that for email? (Or, more likely, change Outlook's ToS to allow it
once you are hooked.)

You could say that of any email provider, but ProtonMail is under GDPR so it
makes it a safer alternative.

~~~
devmunchies
> but ProtonMail is under GDPR

I thought GDPR was European union? Protonmail is in Switzerland.

~~~
wackro
I haven't read this yet so can't summarise, but here it is:
[https://protonmail.com/blog/gdpr-email-
compliance/](https://protonmail.com/blog/gdpr-email-compliance/)

~~~
brongondwana
Lots of people are "under GDPR". Us for example :)

[https://fastmail.blog/2018/05/24/gdpr-is-
here/](https://fastmail.blog/2018/05/24/gdpr-is-here/)

------
mikeloden
[https://protonmail.com](https://protonmail.com) privacy first
[https://posteo.de/en](https://posteo.de/en) secure and green

[https://dismail.de/serverlist.html](https://dismail.de/serverlist.html)

------
kerng
I still have a hotmail account from like 20 years ago and like it. Good thing
is you can convert it to an @outlook.com alias if wanted, as that might look
cooler. But I don't mind the hotmail name. Who knows, maybe one day it might
be cool again. I pretty much skipped gmail entirely because of the
personalized ad business. I also have a protonmail account which is good, but
am not using it as much.

~~~
h1d
I had one of their email account but after chaning my Skype profile, it
somehow released it and had to register @outlook.com address and I had no way
of getting back the old address which made a few web accounts inaccessible
including Google which asked me to check my email for accessing it from a new
device. All previous emails are inaccessible too. Unbelievable.

------
ylere
Does anyone know a (preferably self-hosted, but can be commercial) mail client
that is as as good Gmail for power users? I always found it rather
straightforward have a custom domain and even operate my own mail server, but
haven't been able to do the same for the client.

The features most important to me are:

\- Gmails speed and accuracy in search, especially on large mailboxes (100k+
emails) - this one is usually the deal breaker

\- easy & powerful automatic filter rules

\- web client

\- calendar integration (optional)

\- app for easy access to emails and search on mobile (optional)

~~~
nilsocket
How about Zoho mail

~~~
doon123
Do you work for Zoho Mail?

 _Look at the revealing comments above.._

------
lamlam
I like fastmail personally because aside from being a fast experience, I like
their well written guides and articles. It helps me set stuff up without
feeling like I'm just following instructions and helps me understand what I'm
doing and why I'm doing it.

~~~
wild_preference
I can't recommend them because they recycle email addresses when you stop
paying for them. Not really something I can take seriously. They should just
hold your email hostage until you start paying them again. Instead, they leave
money on the table and create an amateur security failure.

~~~
brongondwana
We do have plans to stop recycling email addresses quite so quickly. Having
said that, if you have your own domain (recommended by most people so you can
move providers) you also don't get the namespace reserved forever if you stop
paying. Domains get recycled too.

------
intothemild
What is with everyone here recommending Yandex?

It's not secure and its not private
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13274443](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13274443)

Don't use Yandex!

~~~
ezhik_
Please, read this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18055514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18055514)

~~~
psergeant
Your comment says — essentially — “every email company shares with their host
country”. If I take that at face value, I would take the USs and Australia’s
rule of law and due process and concern for my privacy many many times over
Russia’s current government’s.

~~~
throwaway9d0291
As a non-American:

> I would take the USs [...] rule of law and due process and concern for my
> privacy many many times over Russia’s current government’s.

I find this somewhat laughable given that we already have solid proof
(Snowden) that not only does the US slurp up emails en-masse but it considers
non-citizens to have zero privacy rights (this fun EO:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/01/new_rules_on_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/01/new_rules_on_da.html)).

The reason Russia is less of a problem is that even if I give Russia all my
email, it has an order of magnitude less data because it doesn't have access
to data from Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like like the US does. It also
has less power over my life. I have investments in US securities that could
theoretically be taken from me if the US government wished. Russia has no
power over me.

------
RandomGuyDTB
ProtonMail. Definitely ProtonMail. You can live off it for free as long as you
delete old stuff but paying better for I think $5 a month (maybe more or
less). Free is perfectly adequate for me personally though, I made the switch
a couple months ago and haven't looked back. Might wanna set up auto
forwarding though:
[https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en)

------
simfoo
Posteo [1]

They are based in Germany, are very privacy conscious (anonymous payments and
registration) and offer full encryption support. With k9mail as mobile app
I've been very happy so far

[1]: [https://posteo.de/en](https://posteo.de/en)

~~~
Leace
I had contact with Posteo support and can confirm they are very helpful.

------
vbrandl
I'm self-hosting my mail server using mailcow[0] for little over a year now
and everything works fine. It comes with a admin interface to manage accounts
and the SoGo webmail client[1].

Getting it up and running was also pretty easy. Create some DNS records as
described in the documentation, cloning the repository and starting everything
using docker-compose.

[0]: [https://mailcow.email/](https://mailcow.email/)

[1]: [https://github.com/inverse-inc/sogo](https://github.com/inverse-
inc/sogo)

~~~
JoshuaAshton
I'd much prefer it if there was just 1 docker container and not a whole
compose stack. I much prefer 1 docker container == 1 service.

~~~
jgeraert
Well, there are multiple services involved in an email stack so I guess it
does what you ask for.

~~~
JoshuaAshton
What I mean is, what a person would honestly consider a service (such as
e-mail, a website, a git server), not a technical definition of a service (a
database, dovecot, php).

I should have been more clear.

------
pmlnr
For self-host:

\- iredmail if you want it simple

\- dovecot + postfix + opendkim + opendmarc + bogofilter + rainloop if you
like tinkering and you have a small/personal setup. Drop in radicale with imap
auth for calendar/contacts, and prosody with imap auth for jabber, and you're
good for life, unless people want shiny web interfaces, in which case consider
nextcloud for contacts/calendar.

\- zimbra as an all-in-one solution

\- exim + cyrus if you want mail only for a large company and you want it open
source

------
technion
I purchase Office through Office 365, so Exchange Online is just about free at
that point.

It runs a lot of the enterprise and I think it's been quite underrated in a
lot of the Gmail discussions here.

------
lprd
I've been with Zoho Mail for a few months now and have had a great experience
with them so far! Great security features, calendar support, as well as DNS
management. I've also heard good things about FastMail and Proton mail.

Compare and find out which service best suites your needs/budget.

[https://www.zoho.com/mail/?zmc=zoho-fa](https://www.zoho.com/mail/?zmc=zoho-
fa)

~~~
xpil
Same here! I moved my company email from google apps to Zoho a couple of
months ago, and I'm not coming back. Reasonable pricing, plenty of features,
quick (and human!) responses to support tickets.

Will do the same with personal email soon.

------
ezhik_
If you need strong privacy, then go to ProtonMail.

Otherwise, try [https://yandex.com](https://yandex.com). For personal domains
you can use [https://connect.yandex.com](https://connect.yandex.com), which is
free (with ads) for unlimited users or $3 per user per month (available in
several countries) without ads.

I've been using Yandex Connect for quite long time (free and paid). They are
very good.

Yandex Connect goes with Email (fully unlimited), Cloud Storage, Wiki and
Simple Messenger. There is also an option to control domain's DNS, but it's
optional.

~~~
iillexial
Yandex is a Russian mail-service. I wouldn't trust them.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13274443](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13274443)

~~~
ezhik_
Let's be honest: Any company must comply with local authorities in any country
they work in.

I'm pretty sure, that we can find such article about any major US based
service and FBI/NSA/etc, for example. Same for major services from Europe.
Because of this I pointed to ProtonMail before going further.

By the way, this article is about "Yandex's online payment service" (this
service can be compared to PayPal), which is owned by Yandex only for 25%,
other 75% is being owned by the biggest bank in Russia, which is owned by
governance (just to clarify: Yandex is not).

~~~
mantas
US companies, in worst case, comply with democratic authorities. The whole
separation of powers thing in US seem to work pretty well.

Also, Yandex's founder did make it to anti-Putin-sphere personal sanctions
list..

------
ulrikrasmussen
Regardless of which provider you choose, consider getting your own domain
name. Then your email address its not linked to the provider, and you can
easily change again in the future.

------
anavarre
I didn't see [https://kolabnow.com/](https://kolabnow.com/) mentioned
anywhere. It's more than email, it's a groupware based on FOSS with a pretty
good track record
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolab_Now#Kolab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolab_Now#Kolab)).
Hosted in Switzerland with 2FA and strict privacy guidelines
[https://kolabnow.com/privacy](https://kolabnow.com/privacy) \- No end-to-end
encryption, though, but as everybody knows
[https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-
be...](https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-
has-all-of-yours)

------
taterbase
Check out [https://posteo.de/en](https://posteo.de/en). 12EUR/yr and comes
recommended by the fsf[1].

[1][https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-
systems](https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-systems)

------
Theizestooke
Threads about email providers seem to be a prime target for astro turfers on
HN. There are so many different providers, yet weirdly its always the same
company with the most comments.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
This seems pretty easy to prove or disprove based on the comment history of
said accounts. The few I've checked out seem perfectly legitimate.

Unless FastMail are paying people to spend all day maintaining perfectly
normal HN accounts for the odd occasions that a discussion about email comes
up... _dons tinfoil hat_

------
kevingrahl
This is not a recommendation but rather an inquiry.

I’m currently using roundcube [1] on my server but have no clue if that’s the
right choice for me. It works but I only use it because my hosting company
recommended it and I just stuck with it. It seems to be open source so that’s
a big plus imo.

If anyone here has some experience with roundcube I’d like to know what you
think about the software. Are there any flaws I should be aware of? Anything
other projects are doing better? I value privacy over functionality and am
willing to try out something new.

[1] - [https://roundcube.net](https://roundcube.net)

------
magtux
I went with Outlook 365. I've been using it for the last 2 years at my office
and really like the rules options. It's been really pleasant and the Office
web compatibility is nice.

------
andrepd
I use ProtonMail and I am quite satisfied so far. Servers being in Switzerland
is a huge plus in my book, compared to Gmail and fastmail which seems to be
suggested so often.

------
vinc
I use Mail-in-a-Box on my own server. It's free, open source, and well
maintained.

[1]: [https://mailinabox.email](https://mailinabox.email)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I set this up for a client a while back and it was a very painless experience.
They've been happily using it for a few years now with no complaints.

(usually I sign people up with GSuite and roll it into the hosting charges but
this client was very insistent on it being self hosted)

------
joshbode
Can definitely recommend FastMail - I migrated from Gmail around 4 years ago
and haven't looked back

It has a clean, powerful UI with good shortcuts. DNS management and basic site
hosting (with automatic Let's Encrypt support), great calendar and contacts
support.

Had some problems with some senders getting rate limited a while back, but
worked with support to get it fixed up.

------
eximius
Surprised Migadu isn't on here. Cheap, use your own domains, IMAP. I can't
recall the security/privacy provisions off hand, but my threat model doesn't
include nation states or warrants. As long as I keep my domain and I have
offline backups of my email, I'm happy.

Oh, and it works! Never had emails get lost due to bad mail server configs.

------
walkingolof
Fastmail have worked great for me and my family, mail, calendar and contacts
just like gmail.

------
apatters
Is there an open source email client which supports a conversation view
similar to Gmail's? I find that to be an amazingly useful feature.

The other thing Gmail does which has a lot of potential is message labeling
(e.g., newsletters automatically go into a separate tab/folder).

~~~
Arkanosis
Thunderbird + Conversations addon:
[https://addons.thunderbird.net/fr/thunderbird/addon/gmail-
co...](https://addons.thunderbird.net/fr/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-
view/)

------
dilren
I use Protonmail. Its cool that you will not served any Ads. Currently i am
using their paid version which costs me 5 euros a month. Give it a try.

------
m_st
I'm on Exchange online (~5$ per user/month) and rather happy. The Outlook Web
App online interface is regularly updated, I can use a custom domain, have
plenty of storage and adding my wife as well as alternate domains was rather
easy. Add to that support for shared calendars and great support for push
features (using Exchange Active Sync) on almost all systems.

The main problem is that it is Microsoft and thus rather complicated: I now
have a private Microsoft 'work' account for Exchange Online + a private
Microsoft 'home' account for Office 365 Home Edition. So when I want to log
into the online services (Mail, OneDrive, etc) I always have to think twice
about which login to use :-(

------
jayalpha
Get your own domain at Gandi. Free Email included.

Or buy a domain and Email as a service here:
[http://infomaniak.com/](http://infomaniak.com/)

If you are disappointed about the search capabilities of Thunderbird, install
recoll for search

~~~
ngrilly
I love Gandi, but their email service is still unable to sign outgoing emails
with DKIM, which is almost mandatory nowadays to avoid being flagged as spam.

~~~
walkingolof
I saw that too, but they add the following on their FAQ page

`If you use Gandi’s DNS however, you are free to add the TXT zone file record
needed to add the necessary “_domainkey” TXT entry for your domain. You would
then need to see with your outgoing email provider concerning the
configuration of their mail server for the service.`

source:
[https://docs.gandi.net/en/gandimail/faq/index.html](https://docs.gandi.net/en/gandimail/faq/index.html)

~~~
ngrilly
Yes, this answer has been there for a long time. But it doesn't solve the
issue.

------
nik1aa5
I administer all my domains on eurodns.com. They offer a decent service for a
good price. Bonus: They use open-xchange as their mail backend, so you profit
from a great web client.

An account with 10GB for mail plus 10GB for cloud storage with unlimited
aliases costs about 3€ per month.

I mainly use their service for family mail. The only downside is that
passwords of mail accounts cannot be changed individually in the web client
i.e., I -- who has the account at eurodns -- as administrator have to set the
passwords.

I'm not affiliated with them. While the solution is not perfect, pricing is OK
and domain service provider plus email hosting is done in the EU, which is the
most important point for me.

------
bambataa
I use mailbox.org. It’s sligtly cheaper than FastMail but there’s probably not
much in it.

It’s been a good service so far. I have no complaints.

~~~
fuzzy2
Tried that. However, because they refuse to let their spam filter look at mail
_contents_ , it’s worthless. Other than that, it’s acceptable and custom
domains are possible, too.

Many of my mail addresses have been around for decades and receive substantial
amounts of spam. Google correctly deals with that. Mailbox.org does not. In
fact, during the week I experimented with it, their filter didn’t clear away a
single spam mail.

~~~
Accacin
I'd like to add I've been using Mailbox.org for about two years now and
haven't personally had a problem with spam, although I actually didn't know
they had a policy to not look at the content of the email.

------
tslothrop
I switched from Gmail too a few months ago, setting up my own domain as well.
I went with Mailfence, it's slightly cheaper than proton mail (€2.50 per
month, but there's also a free tier), and still privacy focused. I think a few
things could be improved (no catch all email address available, for example),
but for that price I don't think I can complain.

Edit: forgot to add that I used this website to compare different email
providers: [https://thatoneprivacysite.net/email-
section/](https://thatoneprivacysite.net/email-section/)

------
bit_4l
I use both ProtonMail and Zoho Mail. \- If you go for better security,
ProtonMail. I use this for my personal email. \- If you need better UI/UX &
some other utilities, use Zoho Mail. It's free though.

------
humility
I've been using mailbox.org with a custom domain for over two years now.
Although it's not free, the plans are quite cheap(starting from EUR 1/month).
Have not had a single issue with it.

------
Xunxi
[https://tutanota.com/](https://tutanota.com/)

[https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)

Port to your own domain name

------
roydivision
I’ve been using [https://runbox.com](https://runbox.com) with my own domain
for 5 years now, and have only good things to say about them. Excellent
service.

~~~
robin_reala
I moved to Runbox from GMail earlier this year after the AMP-in-mail debacle.
I wrote up my criteria and a bunch of different suppliers[1] and Runbox was
the pick. I’ve been mostly happy with them, although their uptime hasn’t been
brilliant recently.

[1] [https://www.robinwhittleton.com/2018/02/18/dropping-g-
suite/](https://www.robinwhittleton.com/2018/02/18/dropping-g-suite/)

------
pcpcpc
I've been using GMail/Google Inbox for awhile and thinking about switching.
Now that Google's announced they'll be shutting down Inbox next year, I want
to finally make the switch.

It seems like there's some consensus around FastMail for email. How's the
calendar functionality with FastMail? Is there another good non-Google
calendar alternative?

I also made heavy use of the task/notification/snooze feature in Inbox. Is
there anything like that in FastMail? Is there another good task management
app that anyone would recommend?

------
BlindRabbit
[https://www.migadu.com/](https://www.migadu.com/)

~~~
newscracker
Since yours is a new account here, I have to ask. Are you part of the team
there or are you just a user? How’s the support? Whenever I, as a non-
customer, contacted Migadu, it seemed like nobody read the emails.

I also find the pricing logic a bit like it’s too good to be true, and am wary
of providers who cannot sustain themselves.

~~~
Schnouki
I'm just a user and I'm pretty happy with Migadu as well. I only contacted
them once, and got a reply within a few hours. And a _real_ reply, with
technical details, written by someone who obviously understood the question
very well.

The webmail is _really_ basic though: it's basically Rainloop
([https://www.rainloop.net/](https://www.rainloop.net/)) without any plugin.

------
anon39FE4
Without evidence, just observation, can someone here explain to me why it
seems every top comment and their child comments have sort of a corporate
shill objective?

------
niftylettuce
[https://forwardemail.net](https://forwardemail.net) if you are just
forwarding domain aliases and want to switch off

------
8fingerlouie
I recently switched from GSuite to MXRoute.com after being recommended the
service here on HN. Unlimited accounts/subdomains and 5GB space for $30/year.

~~~
kameit00
I also use MxRoute. No problems so far. I would recommend it too, if you don't
want to run you own email server. Also push works with macOS and iOS.

------
omerh
I’m using ProtonMail with the free plan for more than 6 month now, still have
some husk from Gmail being auto fowrorded to it. And for work I use gsuite for
now.

ProtonMail only did one thing wrong lately. They’ve added a payers feature a
@pm.me short domain and allowing for the free users to only receive emails
with this address. That was irritating and absurd, so I’m still thing if I
want to move to move completely.

Fastmail recycling makes them irrelevant.

------
antpls
Does anyone know about managed (free or paid) email servers without any web
client? Only with IMAP, POP3, etc activated and storage space.

------
woolvalley
The hardest part is changing the email addresses for all of your accounts.

Good opportunity to adopt a password manager and make your passwords strong.

~~~
newscracker
I found that what’s even harder is dealing with commercial entities who can’t
propagate the email address change throughout all their systems. So don’t
release your existing accounts soon.

------
fingers76
Google Inbox - best thing ever to happen to email. Unfortunately they have
announced that they plan to shut it down in March. GMail really is a horrible
experience in comparison.

Please sign here if you want to try and save Inbox:
[http://is.gd/save_google_inbox](http://is.gd/save_google_inbox)

------
benhardy
Using FastMail on my own domains. One account covers all the domains. Having
more domains costs the same as one. They support several different kinds of
address aliasing/wildcarding (including Gmail style '+' wildcards and multiple
recipient). Their DNS is absolutely great with useful defaults.

Never looked back.

------
caycep
How competitive is iCloud? since it already comes for "free" with the paid
iCloud storage account...

~~~
samat
It does not have a custom domain, sadly.

------
bproven
Other than supporting the company that is the reason you are leaving gmail
(free), what are the thoughts on just paying for gsuite for $5/$10 a month
since the privacy statement on gsuite is clearly stated?

I'd like to avoid google, but the email service is pretty damn good (spam
filter especially)

------
petecooper
I'll leave this here - it's a chunky read and might need tailoring to your
situation, but it's an excellent walkthrough:

[https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-
guide/](https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/)

------
greenyoda
I've been very happy with Fastmail.

~~~
r3n
Another happy customer of Fastmail here, and these are my opinions why you
should give it a try:

1\. They often express their opinions on topics like security and privacy.
Like how things impact their users, where they stand, and how they plan to do.
As a user I am happy to see a company actively talk about hard topics like
these.

2\. While they are not the most stable software service I ever use, but they
always provide timely update. They also write postmortem to explain what
happened technically, what did they do, and their future plans. As a
developer, I am appreciated when a software company spent extra effort to
acknowledge and explain issues of their service.

3\. Their business model is simple. I pay money, they provide service.

------
thraxil
I use AWS WorkMail and I'm moderately happy with it. It's pretty barebones,
but works and hasn't given me any problems. I went with it because I use
Route53 for my domains, and host most of my stuff on AWS anyway, so it was one
less account/service to manage. The web interface is really basic, but I
mostly access it through emacs/gnus or the android email client. My only
complaint is that some of the documentation is wrong. It tells you to use an
exchange setup for android, but that breaks. The plain IMAP setup works fine
though.

I can't really speak to privacy aspects, but I'm assuming that since I'm
actually paying for the service, it's a little better than if I were using a
free service like gmail.

------
pedrogpimenta
I'm super happy with mailbox.org, it has a feature that I've never seen in
other place which is disposable addresses so that you can make accounts
wherever you want without fear of spam! You just deactivate that email when
you want or it will expire in 30 days.

------
hnkf
I’ve been paying for a Mini account at Runbox for 2 years.

I think they’re hosted in Norway or some other “safe(r)” location. The UI
definitely needs some polish, including their marketing pages.

Functionality-wise it’s top notch. I’ve no complaints to log so far. I also
use them for CalDAV, CardDAV, and host a domain with a sub-account my wife
uses.

I’ve needed their customer support twice, and it was the best possible service
in both accounts. This last time it was about 2FA after I locked myself out of
my account. Really good service.

That’s that. I’ve used Proton and Tutanota before. A long way back I was a
very happy customer of Lavabit. All of these are privacy-conscious.

Read the privacy policies, try to make sense of them. I would avoid Gmail like
the plague, but I’m morally opposed to Google.

------
Annatar
Which service is best? The one you roll out on your own, in your rack, on your
own servers in the basement. Unfortunately, configuring a complete end-to-end
e-mail solution in 2018 is an incredibly complex affair. The hardest part is
the SPAM filtering.

On the command line, I use pine with the maildir patch; in the browser, I
recommend the open source version of "eGroupware", a complete replacement for
Microsoft Outlook:

[https://github.com/EGroupware/egroupware/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/EGroupware/egroupware/blob/master/README.md)

[https://www.egroupware.org/](https://www.egroupware.org/)

~~~
lifeformed
Is there a good turnkey solution for this, and other services? I mean not with
my own physical servers, but I'd pay to have an image with mail all set up and
other services, like remote storage, etc, all ready to go and plop it on ec2
or something.

~~~
Annatar
No idea about Amazon or Azure ready images.

------
euske
I don't like how this question is phrased. It should be

"Good alternativeS to Gmail?"

Yeah. Please be it to _multiple_ choices, for availability reasons and
monopoly concerns. Sadly there aren't many good competitors in this arena
(anymore), which always makes me nervous.

------
Crosseye_Jack
If you want to get your hands dirty
[https://mailinabox.email/](https://mailinabox.email/) \- The downside being
no iOS push email as long you can put up with with that or you jerry-rig
something else for push (say a simple a simple Slack bot to say "Hey you got
mail from XYZ" and you then open mail.app yourself) or just live with the 15
min pull you will be fine. Have auto updates enabled and hosted on AWS with an
RDNS record and not had any issues with it since.

If you don't want to get your hands dirty or you can't live without iOS push
email then FastMail - Downside being $50/year (if you want to use your own
domain).

------
saxonww
I'm doing the same thing, and I chose FastMail. It was easy to set up with a
custom domain, and I've been making heavy use of aliases and plus addressing
which I like. At least for my purposes, the web client is every bit as capable
as the Gmail interface. I haven't tried to import mail from Gmail yet, but it
looks straightforward.

The big drawback I think is that Gmail was the interface for Hangouts/Voice,
so I either need to find good alternatives for those things, or keep my Gmail
account around for that purpose.

I guess it feels a little weird to be paying for a personal email account, but
for a single user it's not awful, and I end up owning the entire address. I
think it's worth it.

------
SimonPStevens
The most important thing is having your own domain. Then whatever provider you
choose, the address is easily portable.

I've no idea what your requirements are, but I've used office 365 small
business premimum plan for years (£9.40 per month). It comes with a hosted
exchange server which gives you loads of flexibility for very little effort.
And for my purposes, I really like outlook as a desktop client. Not everyone
agrees though. And as I want the desktop office apps anyway, the extra money
for the plan with exchange included is minimal.

There is also a cheaper 'essentials' plan which gives you the server stuff
without the desktop office apps if you don't need/want/like them.

------
wchris
Check protonmail.com and tutanota.de as alternatives

~~~
ufo
It is worth noting that these don't support IMAP and Contacts/Calendar like
most email services do. (They say that it has to do with how they handle their
encryption)

~~~
achamayou
ProtonMail does have an IMAP bridge you can setup locally.

~~~
ufo
(Only for Windows and Mac OS, though)

[https://protonmail.com/bridge/install](https://protonmail.com/bridge/install)

~~~
qertoip
IMAP on Linux does work as well. It's a stable beta. I use it w/o any issues.

------
Bud
If you have your own domain, and self-host or have a small reliable provider
host for you, client doesn't matter so much. You can pick your mix of clients
for various devices. This is how I've done it for over 20 years now.

------
rcdwealth
Posteo may be best for privacy as third party provider:
[https://posteo.de](https://posteo.de)

Other resources on webmail: [https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-
systems](https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-systems)

For your self-hosted email, I recommend Courier MTA with Courier IMAP which is
available on Debian GNU/Linux and other VPS/Server solutions: [http://courier-
mta.org/](http://courier-mta.org/)

It also offers pretty nice, secure webmail SQWebMail system.

------
akulbe
I generally recommend _against_ setting up your own email server.

Most people just want to _use_ it and not _maintain_ it.

However, in circumstances like this where you want to escape a crappy
solution, I have been recommending "Mail In A Box"

[https://mailinabox.email](https://mailinabox.email)

It's as close to a turnkey solution as I've found. I've been using it for one
of my domains for a few years now.

You'll need to be comfy with the CLI to set it up. You'll also need a VPS.

EDIT: didn't realize other folks had already recommended it. It's worked great
here. :)

------
lucb1e
I self host using hMailServer (open source) and Thunderbird. It's so user
friendly, if you are capable of installing software generally, you'll also
manage this with no problems (maybe some reading up if you don't know the
difference between IMAP and POP3, but that's about it).

The issue is that HMS is Windows-only, but the ease of use is superb compared
to anything I've seen on Linux. And it's open source so I'm moderately happy
keeping this legacy system running in a VM until it's ported or a manageable
alternative comes along.

~~~
ekovarski
+1 hMailServer; Deployed it for a few clients who needed it to work with SQL
Server. It was rock solid and hosted hundreds of domains and a ton of email
accessed over various devices.

It's not glamorous software as its pretty basic but if all you need is basic,
it will not disappoint you, and usually most of the needs of many folks is
pretty simplistic.

------
stanislavb
Here it is a list with several Gmail Alternatives
[https://www.saashub.com/gmail-alternatives](https://www.saashub.com/gmail-
alternatives)

------
tibu
Own server with [https://mailinabox.email/](https://mailinabox.email/). I
don't use it but some friends use it successfully for years

------
contem
Stay on GMail, but don't log-in to the web interface. Instead use Thunderbird.
That way you can read your mail without being forced logged-in to search or
video.

Google has been making this harder and harder though (now calling Thunderbird
insecure, and requiring you to allow insecure app's in the options), but it is
a good canary in the coal mine: Once I can't avoid this unified/universal log-
in, I'll know Google turned me into an adversary.

With this setup I deem Gmail to be the best service for privacy and security.

~~~
dkhenry
I recently migrated to staying on GMail but using offlineimap and a program
called notmuch to view and send mail. In this world I have all my mail
locally, GMail is just an IMAP endpoint to store my mail.

------
yannovitch
I haven't seen more traditional email providers with lot of focus on privacy,
such as :

\- infomaniak :
[https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/e-mail](https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/e-mail)
starting at 1.5€ a month

\- myKolab

However I have recently switched to a self-hosted solution, after years on
gmail, because I wanted to be in control of my personal data, and because I
can't be a proponent for privacy while being on a service like gmail. Time
will tell ;)

------
thinelvis
You can use a standard email client hooked to Gmail to stop Google from
getting your browsing data.

You can relay your Gmail to another account with read-only access, replying
from a VM with only email use (I do this on my phone). Or, only get/send your
email from a VM that does nothing else.

Because it seems like there's two issues here: Google gaining intel from your
email itself, and Google gaining intel from your browsing data, gained from
your use of Gmail in a browser. What I've suggested addresses browsing data.

------
jxbo
If you are willing to run your own, have a look at.
[https://poste.io/](https://poste.io/) I'm currently evaluating and running
this myself for about 2 Months now. Really working great so far. The guys have
very quick response to error reporting. Everything run via docker on a aws
small instance.

An completely free version could also be:
[https://mailu.io/](https://mailu.io/)

------
mrmondo
I’ve had a very good experience with Fastmail (as others have commented as
well I see) for heavy email use, calendaring & contact syncing across 7~ iOS
and macOS devices.

------
atmosx
Tutanota: [https://tutanota.com/](https://tutanota.com/) (Germany)

Proton: [https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/) (Switzerland)

Fastmail: [https://www.fastmail.com/](https://www.fastmail.com/) (Australia)

I went from self-hosted to fastmail for personal emails and I'm pretty happy
with them. I have a gmail account too.

------
mychael
Fastmail and ProtonMail

------
hungryroark
I haven't read all the comments but so far from what I have read I haven't
found anyone mentioning Protonmail. Is it bad? Or not that known to people?

~~~
harianus
It is mentioned but does indeed not show up in the top comments. I use it now
for a few weeks and I’m happy with it. It’s not cheap for having 3 custom
domains: €90 or so, but I’m okay with paying for privacy.

------
jaakl
In EU at least you can switch mobile operators and keep your number; also
there is some bank account porting system (not sure if you keep your number).
Same way E-mail porting should be also required, so I can keep my gmail
address. If mobile operators could forced give up "their owned" number
prefixes, and create (pretty expensive) technical solution, then why email
domain holders cannot be forced to do same?

------
Bakani
vfemail and protonmail are good mailbox, i have been using both for long and
the are serving well. A trial of their will convince you.

[https://protonmail.com](https://protonmail.com)
[https://www.vfemail.net](https://www.vfemail.net)
[https://gold2naira.com](https://gold2naira.com)

------
vbezhenar
I didn't find anything better than Yandex for custom domains. It's free, it
works and made by a huge company with good reputation.

------
feliksik
For the privacy savvy:

[https://www.startmail.com/en/](https://www.startmail.com/en/)

Their servers are in Europe, and they cannot decrypt mail themselves. It's
decrypted in your browser.

    
    
      10 GB personal vault
      IMAP support
      10 custom aliases
      Unlimited disposable aliases
      PGP email encryption
    

I have never tried it though.

------
dejaime
It depends on why you are seeking an alternative service.

Since you mentioned privacy, Proton Mail is, in theory, good for those with
privacy concerns. Why in theory? Well, can't really trust anyone these days,
can we?

I mean, trusting a convicted perp or an unknown entity? Well, the unknown
might be clean still, so it's better than nothing.

But in the end, for privacy, the best is definitely self hosting.

------
wakkaflokka
I've been wanting to switch from Gmail for a while, just to try something new.

I like the concept of ProtonMail (that my email is supposedly encrypted at
rest and accessible only by me) but honestly the conversation here steers me
away from it. Also the interface is fairly slow.

The top recommendation here seems to be FastMail, which I'm doing a trial run
of now.

------
arihant
For personal mail, Zoho is hard to beat. Free up to 5GB and $36/year for up to
30GB. They also communicate very well about any downtimes, disruption, which
is extremely rare. Also, there is real customer support. I've accidentally
deleted spam messages and they recovered it within hours after shooting one
email.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I agree. I have been hosting my mail on Zoho for almost 2 years now and it's
been pretty solid. The cool thing is you can use your own domain with their
free tier if you don't need a lot of space. Also, using exchange active sync
protocol, you get push email on iOS.

------
wprapido
I'm split between GMail, ProtonMail and Yandex. Each of them having upsides
and shortcomings, I'm quite happy

------
krylon
If you do not need custom domains, I can remain posteo
([https://www.posteo.de/](https://www.posteo.de/)). They charge one €uro per
month for a 2GB mailbox, but on the upside, the servers are located in
Germany, and they are completely ad-free.

------
crispinb
I've just gone the other way. Having recently moved from macOS to Windows, I
couldn't find a single mail client that I am willing to use daily. I'm now
forwarding my hosted IMAP to a gmail account, simply in order to use the gmail
web client. I do admit this is kind of sad.

~~~
earenndil
Claws mail? Thunderbird? Outlook? Mailinabox? None of those work?

~~~
crispinb
Never heard of Mailinabox, and I don't want to buy or subscribe to Office
(AFAIK the only way to get Outlook). I've tried the others you mention, as
well as a bunch of alternatives. Windows software in general is much poorer
than that available for macOS, and this seems particularly true of mail
clients. The built-in UWP one is particularly hilarious (does Microsoft really
think anyone will use it?)

------
Slaul
If I switch from gmail and I set up automatic forwarding of my emails to my
new service, does Google still read my mail? Is there any easy migration path
from gmail to another service that doesn't involve updating my email for every
service I've ever used?

------
Roelven
I'd like to add [https://soverin.net/features](https://soverin.net/features)
here as well. It's similar to Posteo but offers unlimited aliases and more
storage. Servers hosted in the Netherlands.

~~~
jboynyc
I was a Soverin customer for a year but recently made the switch to Fastmail.
I really wanted to like them, but sadly it seems like Soverin is content with
their product being in a (barely) beta state. During the year that I used
them, there were no improvements to spam filtering (which is abysmal), single
sign on (nonexistent), reliability (poor, particularly for caldav) or
filtering rules, to name just a few pain points. Their customer service was
super responsive, but usually just to tell me that whatever I was asking about
(flagging false positives, filtering mail based on an address pattern) wasn't
supported.

Soverin, please look at what Fastmail is doing and try to get at least 80% as
good. The world needs more fastmails.

------
Endy
I'm the weird one, I use Yahoo.

------
yc-kraln
I self-host SOGo on my own machine, it gives me mail + calendar + contact
sync. Finally moving off from gmail feels so great.

For others I recommend office365--fairly inexpensive, excellent support, and
available either in the EU or entirely within Germany.

------
sufyanadam
[https://sealmail.net](https://sealmail.net) is pretty good. I've used it for
a couple years without any issues. It's imap based and I hear they're working
on a web client.

------
tomerbd
i'm going to miss inbox so much.

1\. Reminders together with emails in same inbox. 2\. Can change Reminders
text. 3\. Bundling. 4\. Snooze Repeat. 5\. Snooze Location (RIP). 6\. Google
Keep Reminders.

Not sure how i'll manage my life back after March 2019.

~~~
alkonaut
Could the inbox features be implemented by a mail application for "non-gmail
mail" (i.e. imap) or does it require some special gmail sauce?

I'd pay $20 for a smartphone mail app that works like inbox. A lot of people
probably would.

------
greenspot
I like to extend the question: Which online mail provider has many or just
some third party integrations, in particular those offering mail merge and per
recipient email tracking.

Gmail is here unfortunately by far the leading product.

------
dllthomas
As for email clients, the happiest I've ever been was using nmh with some
scripts and aliases. Setup was sufficiently not out-of-the-box that I haven't
replicated it very often over the years.

------
born2burn
Protonmail. It is a free service from a company in Switzerland with end to end
encryption. To add your own domain it charges few bucks a month. I used to
self host but have moved to it completely.

------
voidr
Yandex mail is free and you can get it to work with your custom domain.

------
Egidius
Does anyone have any experience with
[https://superhuman.com/](https://superhuman.com/) ? It is supposed to be very
nice

------
known
[https://prism-break.org/en/all/#email-accounts](https://prism-
break.org/en/all/#email-accounts)

------
YvesWilken
What about ProtonMail? [https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)!
Secure Email Based in Switzerland.

------
grizzles
Anyone know - If you download your gmail cache from Google, is there an easy
way to convert that to Maildir or is OfflineIMAP still the way to go?

------
grep4master
Runbox. Norway-based, privacy-focused, responsive support, reasonably priced
and so far reliable. It checks all the boxes for me.

------
obahareth
I would say ProtonMail:

[https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)

------
gbtw
I like [https://soverin.net/](https://soverin.net/)

------
rakibtg
Being privacy concern i have stopped using email services. I would self host a
server, how about that?

------
psiops
So either fastmail or host your own? Really? Any entrepreneurs present today?
I sense opportunity..

------
paride5745
I am switching to outlook.com + cock.li (for anonymous emails).

Keeping Gmail only for my Youtube addiction...

There are better alternatives out there, but outlook.com offers what I need
for free.

I know it's not a very privacy friendly platform, but with many of my contacts
on Gmail, there is no point in going full privacy like with Protonmail IMHO.

------
arunmp
I'l go with proton mail. fast, secure(reasonably) and has a free version.

------
gibsonf1
Zoho mail works well. Actually Zoho Docs and powerpoint are very good.

------
StreamBright
How about Amazon WorkMail?

------
JoshuaAshton
I selfhost with iRedMail which has a docker. Has done me fine so far.

------
r0m3chco
Tutanota is secure and can use domain Posteo is ethical and anonyme

------
chrischen
iCloud mail. No issues, and I already use the native iOS client.

------
soufron
Buy a domain and use Thunderbird, or another email software!

~~~
the_svd_doctor
You still need a mail server no ... ?

------
pokstad
iCloud: free, no ads, privacy minded and push email in iOS

------
3K7m7bUZyWA1KCD
￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸￸

------
ivanfon
I use Thunderbird on desktop and K9-Mail on Android.

~~~
Endy
That doesn't actually provide an alternative, those are just clients.

~~~
jarvuschris
There are tons of options for mail server if you can find a client UI you're
happy with over Gmail's web UI (or Inbox's :'( ).

IMO that's the hardest piece to replace, and I'm still not happy with any
alternative

------
elminjo
a true alternative has not to be hosted in a country of the Five Eyes group. I
switched to mailbox.org and I am really happy.

------
z3
+1 Protonmail

Good security practice and decent Android app.

------
bullen
Write and host your own SMTP server! ;)

------
rajaganesh87
Protonmail.ch

------
kakksakkar
Protonmail is my choice.

------
edgarvm
What about protonmail?

------
unstatusthequo
Protonmail.com

------
cntlzw
posteo.de

Yes, this costs a small amount of money.

------
fjeuplos
Protonmail

------
molteanu
Fastmail

------
alphabettsy
Fastmail

------
im0nde
mailbox.org

------
nopacience
Nowadays i recommend runbox.com.

The services are good and when needed support is also good. Clients have given
good feedback.

In the past i have recommended protonmail and fastmail.

~~~
ekovarski
I am evaluating Runbox and Migadu right now; My only nitpick with Runbox is
their pricing page, they need to clean it up and simplify it. Its information
overload. I can always ask/click for more details but present me with the most
basic info up front and centre.

------
IBLEtech
Do not just consider Google to release your data like that. The news may be
broadcast that third parties will have access to your data now. Google had
always been keeping data for long. Switching to another platform may not be
the best because those ones too never secure data. Then why should switch,
except you have another aim of switching.

------
rustcharm
Microsoft Outlook. Works great on-line and in the native app. Works with
Apple's email client or Microsoft's on iOS.

Great pricing, can have it on your own domain, and the best calendaring I've
ever seen.

[https://outlook.live.com/owa/](https://outlook.live.com/owa/)

------
mankash666
None.

None come with $0/annum, spam filtering, deep search, state of the art 2FA,
large amounts of storage, large collection of plugins, cross OS native
clients, ....

