What email service should I use instead of Gmail?

Having seen people argue about this here before, my guess is you're going to get one of three recommendations. Zoho (https://zoho.com), Fastmail (https://fastmail.com, Proton (https://proton.me)

Fastmail

Supports custom domains and I believe has a tool to migrate emails away from Gmail

Just a warning that owning your domain means also owning the security of the domain.

If you lose access to eg gmail or they ban you, nobody you care about will access your email.

If your domain gets hijacked or you fail to renew, now a bad actor could receive all your email forever.

(I use my own domain for email)

I moved to ProtonMail (from G-Suite) and I'm pretty happy overall. Their Unlimited offering is interesting as it includes VPN, storage and calendar.

The few things I dislike about ProtonMail is the search and the fact they don't have the email client app on F-Droid. If you decide to move to Proton, I would advise against importing all your emails (maybe just the last X months). Keep a local backup of all your emails to search them, that worked the best for me and avoided cluttering my new email box.

First, you should own your domain, to own your email identity. With a domain, Gandi (my employer) includes two mail addresses: imap, roundcube, sogo, sieve filters, aliases,...

https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email

I have been using https://posteo.de/en from many years now. They are ad free, secure and an affordable alternative. Their web interface is poor but not a problem for me as I use email clients on all my devices.

I quite like https://migadu.com mainly for its very easy to understand pricing system, when you have 5+ domains and domain aliases gmail becomes very very expensive and that’s before adding all the seats

I'm soft-locked into Google Workspace/gSuite/Google Apps/??? with my primary account at a custom domain, and I really want out of my subscription but there isn't any way to convert that to a personal account. I have so many OAuth accounts, purchases, doc shares, etc associated with that Google account that it would be difficult to do without. Is there any way to keep that Google account without having an active subscription?

Also, I'm paying for Apple One and it could host my email... but should I? Its private relay system is pretty cool... but I really don't want to get locked in again.

I really want a self-hosted IMAP server, but to have decent spam filtering and deliverability. I'll set all the domain keys and stuff, but I need a trusted IP for the mail server or some path to make mine trusted.

I can recommend Proton mail

https://proton.me/

I use mailinabox on a Linode vps. I have no trouble receiving email, but my email doesn’t always arrive in gmail and outlook inboxes.

Mailinabox supports exchange activesync and comes with an install of nextcloud for syncing my contacts/calendar/notes and some specific files like a keypass db across devices.

My only issue is, I need to still use something like a gmail account as a recovery email for my domain registration and Linode account. A major fear of mine is for some reason being locked out of the domain, or VPS, or a credit card that pays for it, and having no email since the recovery email relies on that domain. I have been considering fastmail or zoho.

I can recommend both Zoho and Protonmail. User of both and each is great for its intended use, Zoho - commercial, multiple accounts with a custom domain, Protonmail for personal use and storage.

I really enjoy Zoho with a custom domain. Unsure on migration, sorry.

I would like to add Microsoft Office 365, most of you would like access to the Office applications. If not, that is fine as you can still pay less. You also get Azure Active Directory included for free, which you can use for single sign on applications you have(up to 10 applications).

I am founder for a new startup and we decided to go for Office 365 as our email service because it just made most sense for our business. And those who knows me, know that I prefer to avoid Microsoft solutions most of the time.

mailbox.org

Simple and privacy focused. I pay 3 euro/month for 10 GB email storage and 25 email aliases which are very nice. I haven't had a problem with them so far since 2015.

I'm using a own domain in the format of service-namemydomain.com all hosted by mailcow. The feature set and anti spam worked better for me than GSuite/Gmail and I have the server for various home/fun projects already.

So if you are going self-hosted, I can really recommend MailCow (https://mailcow.email/)

I have been using tutanota for half a year. It was something like 10 euros for a year. It has pretty decent regex filters so I can write filter by subject and therefore I get zero spam. I do not even have to pay them to get the essential features but I kind of want to because of the low price. Not going to go back to free email that is for sure.

I migrated from a legacy GSuite account to MXRoute. Quite DIY but very solid, and cheaper than many of the other popular options. (Black Friday deals appear to still be available for now: https://mxroute.blackfriday/ )

I was able to migrate all my GMail mail using imapsync.

I've moved my 3 domains from GMail for Domains (whatever it's called now) to Migadu about a year ago, no complains so far.

I also self-host Postfix, Dovecot and OpenDKIM on my VPS, but that's mostly for sending automated emails (notifications etc) from the subdomains.

https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/

$4/user/month for a 50GB inbox

multiple domains + multiple aliases that you can also send as; us-east, us-west, eu-west regions

cheaper than fastmail, protonmail, tutanota, ...

If you're already in the Apple ecosystem, I'd recommend subscribing to iCloud+ for $1/month. It gives you a mailbox with:

- custom domain support

- wildcard redirections

- "hide my email"

If you have an iPhone, you can tweak the configuration directly from the Settings app, it's very convenient.

Thank you all for helping me find a new email service! Based on what I’ve read here I’m considering either Proton or Fastmail but I will research them a bit before I decide. Thank you everyone for taking your time to help! :)

Very happy with https://mailbox.org/en/ - they support custom domains as well and cost a fair price.

For comparatively better privacy and lower cost, here are a few services to consider (they offer custom domain support and IMAP access):

Mailbox.org

Runbox.com

Mailfence.com

Migadu.com

If price is not a big concern but privacy is, consider the following:

ProtonMail (supports IMAP on paid plans)

Tutanota (no IMAP support)

Get a domain and a proper hosting provider. I use HostGator, which is probably the bottom of the acceptable barrel. I'm sure others can come up with better hosting ideas.

iCloud Mail with Custom Domains if you’re on iOS et al.

Alternatively I had a one seat Exchange Online license for a few years that went pretty well reputation and anti spam wise

I used fastmail. Zero complaints and love it. I don't use their web client though, I just rely on the Mac / iOS mail app

Your own, hosted on a VPS in a non-US extradition country maintained by locals. Otherwise, you have no expectation of privacy or of durability, a-la Lavabit because a corporation in the reach of the US Gov can be squished and bullied whenever. That single company that runs an email service will always a SPoF. At least if you run your own on multiple machines on multiple providers and use a reputable domain registrar that can't be pushed around, you have HA.

I have my own domain and its associated email. I use Thunderbird as client.

Besides that I use Protonmail as well for non-important stuff.

I think for email there are good alternatives, but for docs and sheets not so much?

Run your own mail server ;))

jk Spamhaus cartel would bury it in seconds.

I love Hey (https://hey.com) for its "screener" feature. It supports custom domains but not Gmail migration.

The screener keeps new senders out of your inbox. A rich set of keyboard shortcuts helps triage new senders into one of a few categories including simply blocking them. You can choose to block at the address or the domain level.

Do not use a provider that doesn’t let you configure your own domain. Never use that one email address @ unless they also let you keep it or free (like e.g. Tutanota, Proton do). Just don’t. Imagine it doesn’t exist. No matter how ruthless you are, it will be a friction in moving to a different provider when you want to.

I will list some:

- http://mailbox.org (I use it; this is my main provider and my personal domain is setup with them and that is “personal/public mail”. They are decent and private. Their spam filter is not the best but much better than Gmail’s which isn’t really a compliment. Other services on their suite - like doc, notes, storage are nothing to write home about. Though their new pricing tiers is not much less than non-cheap providers. I am on the old pricing tier and I don’t see myself moving to anything else unless they enforce it. Pathetic support - they simply don’t respond most of the times. Well, I guess you get what you pay for.)

- https://tutanota.com (I use it, not on the domain though - and not really for “public” usage. Please know that you just can’t have IMAP access - either use their app, or the web app, no other client - or at least that is how it was last I checked. They are extremely responsible, really good team, keep releasing new features - both for usability and privacy; much better than Mailbox on many aspects. They are really good!)

- https://fastmail.com/ (It’s the “HN Exclusive Favourite”. Too expansive for my usage and that too their first paid tier, which is very limited in features aawy. People swear by their mail client - I have never used it and I doubt I will. I secretly suspect HN has a shill/fan/etc following of these folks here just like Apple has :-D)

- https://protonmail.com (I might move to them if I ever leave mailbox.org. They are good. Because none of these providers are good if you get into the discussion of 5 eyes, 14 eyes, and 7 ears etc; I am not saying you should not but then you would end up with zero providers or just one like riseup.net or so or maybe not even that. RiseUp is great though, I donate to them and have a “non-public” email with them which I barely use.)

- Zoho (I’d say stay away; I’ve reasons, some of those reasons might be off-topic for hn)

- https://purelymail.com (If it wasn’t a one-person setup, I’d have definitely tried them; a friend uses them and he says it’s excellent; very good/transparent pricing and he is happy with help/support)

- Migadu (has very questionable daily email quota on their base plan. I would not want to deal with that and hoping for an exception or that it is not really enforced)

My use-case is not hiding from state actors, because I can’t. I am not that skilled or motivated. If yours is similar, I highly recommend pick one of mailbox, protonmail, fastmail.

Finalise a domain now (preferably something that lets you keep your whois data private) and never renew for less than 2 years at once. Have different kinds of backup email with your domain registrar e.g. gmail, icloud.com (if you have one) etc; 2FA; your phone number (in my country it’s easier to kidnap someone and torture for few hours to days to get the password than SIM hijacking/sppfing, you mileage might vary),

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