FastMail Testimonials

[Bamb0]

UUGGHH I hope not!

[ReuvenNY]

Was indeed a spammer - banned.

[an3]

I've been a Fastmail user almost since Day 1, and a paying subscriber for around 15 years. Even though Gmail has now overtaken FM in terms of ease of use and features, there is one thing that keeps me coming back to FM for my personal email provider:

Unlimited email addresses.

Using the format <anyname.folder@username.fastmail.com>, I'm able to give each company I do business with an email that is completely unique to them, which then gets filed into its own folder. This has saved me numerous times when there have been hacks and data breaches, and my email gets sold to spam/scam artists, who begin flooding my inbox with scams. I know immediately which company gave away my information (since they are the only ones to have that email address), and it takes all of 10 seconds to create a rule to forever block any messages to that email.

It's a feature that is incredibly useful, and I'm surprised that more people don't use it.

[RLBrooks]

Originally Posted by an3

Unlimited email addresses.

Using the format <anyname.folder@username.fastmail.com>, I'm able to give each company I do business with an email that is completely unique to them, which then gets filed into its own folder.

I agree, it is very useful. I use it for select purposes. However I feel it is incomplete. You don't have any way to limit the use of the addresses to only those YOU create and you don't have any way to make them go away should you not want them active anymore.

Since your username is part of the address, anyone that wanted to could send you emails to BOZO@username.fastmail.com or replace bozo with thousands of other names that you don't have complete control over.

To keep from totally polluting my FM account, I created some FM aliases and use those in my generated email addresses. If I should get unwanted mail to random addresses as I described, I could kill the alias. That means I'd have to first changes all the addresses that I want to keep.

I'd love for FM to create a real disposable email address tool around this concept (And I'd pay extra for it!). Until then I also use Sneakemail and E4ward which give me the complete control I feel this concept requires. (Note, Sneakemail has shut down new user signups for some time. No idea if they will ever be restarted. This is part the reason I also use E4ward; in case Sneakemail shutsdown.)

[camner]

My solution is to use my own domain, with mail servers hosted at FM. So, the emails I make up are in the form <amazon@mydomain.com>, <paypal@mydomain.com> etc. I’m not exposing my FM email address.

I’d say I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, and in my Sieve rules I must have 50 or so email addresses that are sent directly to the trash heap (more accurately, they are deleted silently).

Works like a charm!

[ChinaLamb]

Originally Posted by carlomilton26

Damm even I am having a similar kind of issue, I have searched all over the internet and even have posted on number of threads on different forum, no solution seems to work. I am really frustrated, can anyone of you here help me resolve this issue, I am very much tired now.

You are responding to a message posted in 2001... It is unclear the issue you are having.

Rather than responding to the testimonials thread, and a post someone made almost 20 years ago, why don't you go to the forum below, and start a new post clearly describing the problem you are having. There's a great community that'd love to help you.

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/forumdisplay.php?f=27

[ReuvenNY]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

You are responding to a message posted in 2001... It is unclear the issue you are having.

Rather than responding to the testimonials thread, and a post someone made almost 20 years ago, why don't you go to the forum below, and start a new post clearly describing the problem you are having. There's a great community that'd love to help you.

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/forumdisplay.php?f=27

This is a spammer. He/she is already banned.

[giskard]

Originally Posted by RLBrooks

I agree, it is very useful. I use it for select purposes. However I feel it is incomplete. You don't have any way to limit the use of the addresses to only those YOU create and you don't have any way to make them go away should you not want them active anymore.

Since your username is part of the address, anyone that wanted to could send you emails to BOZO@username.fastmail.com or replace bozo with thousands of other names that you don't have complete control over.

To keep from totally polluting my FM account, I created some FM aliases and use those in my generated email addresses. If I should get unwanted mail to random addresses as I described, I could kill the alias. That means I'd have to first changes all the addresses that I want to keep.

I'd love for FM to create a real disposable email address tool around this concept (And I'd pay extra for it!). Until then I also use Sneakemail and E4ward which give me the complete control I feel this concept requires. (Note, Sneakemail has shut down new user signups for some time. No idea if they will ever be restarted. This is part the reason I also use E4ward; in case Sneakemail shutsdown.)

The new Masked Email feature in FastMail would seem to be what you're looking for, and if you're using 1Password, then it integrates with that.

Originally Posted by camner

My solution is to use my own domain, with mail servers hosted at FM. So, the emails I make up are in the form <amazon@mydomain.com>, <paypal@mydomain.com> etc. I’m not exposing my FM email address.

I’d say I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, and in my Sieve rules I must have 50 or so email addresses that are sent directly to the trash heap (more accurately, they are deleted silently).

Works like a charm!

I've been doing the same with my own domain name for years too, the only issue I encountered was that some businesses would send an email to the address I'd registered with (e.g. wessexbuilders@mydomain.com) but I'd never receive the email, even though my domain setup had a catch-all redirect. If the email was sent to my gmail account then it worked, so I can only guess that the custom email address was treated as spam. Since using FastMail, I've been able to set it up so that FastMail's MX and DNS records are registered against my domain name on my domain host's control panel, then I've added my domain name (still hosted by my domain host) to FastMail and hey presto, so more issues with not receiving emails to made-up email addresses at mydomain.com

That feature alone is makes FastMail worth it for me.

[triyck13]

Hi all - I recently started my 'degoogle' journey (well, half a journey at least). I stumbled over Fastmail, tried it now for 10 days in various situations and all the functionality I need. Created a detailed documents with feature description, pros & cons. I love it!!! Signed up for three years. Got myself a trash domain for random online sites. Aliases are fantastic. The whole UX I like much better than Gmail - I'm a Gmail poweruser, having been with them since the inception, using it at work since a decade as well. FM has a much better flow for me, and the functionality is top notch. There's a few minor things I don't like, most importantly the calendar integration (to be fair, Google is to blame here as well not allowing to easily share with non Google users etc.).

On the whole privacy topic: I don't mind it. Yeah, maybe the government or someone else will get a warrant and be able to read my emails. So be it, if that's the case, I'm anyway in serious trouble and should never have used email. I honestly don't care about that. PGP I don't care about either, it only helps if my contacts support it as well. So yeah, that's my personal view. What I worry about is Google soaking up all the info they can about me (that I gave them 'willingly'), and it being shared with other parties I don't know about.

Next I'll be looking into Sieve, RegEx filters etc. ...

[ChinaLamb]

Originally Posted by triyck13

Hi all - I recently started my 'degoogle' journey (well, half a journey at least). I stumbled over Fastmail, tried it now for 10 days in various situations and all the functionality I need. Created a detailed documents with feature description, pros & cons. I love it!!! Signed up for three years. Got myself a trash domain for random online sites. Aliases are fantastic. The whole UX I like much better than Gmail - I'm a Gmail poweruser, having been with them since the inception, using it at work since a decade as well. FM has a much better flow for me, and the functionality is top notch. There's a few minor things I don't like, most importantly the calendar integration (to be fair, Google is to blame here as well not allowing to easily share with non Google users etc.).

On the whole privacy topic: I don't mind it. Yeah, maybe the government or someone else will get a warrant and be able to read my emails. So be it, if that's the case, I'm anyway in serious trouble and should never have used email. I honestly don't care about that. PGP I don't care about either, it only helps if my contacts support it as well. So yeah, that's my personal view. What I worry about is Google soaking up all the info they can about me (that I gave them 'willingly'), and it being shared with other parties I don't know about.

Next I'll be looking into Sieve, RegEx filters etc. ...

Glad to hear it. I've been a paying customer since Q1 2003. Wow... 20+ years now. Not looking back. You'll enjoy the service. I sure have. I use DAVx to sync calendars and contacts to my phones, and a host of their other services. I gather emails and calendars from multiple different jobs here, and manage it all in Fastmail. Even have it set up to send emails through those other domains so that various companies have a record of emails I send. Again, everything's here in Fastmail and it just works.

Welcome to the club.

[ankupan]

I joined the FM family in 2004. Still one of the best services.

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Glad to hear it. I've been a paying customer since Q1 2003. Wow... 20+ years now. Not looking back. You'll enjoy the service. I sure have. I use DAVx to sync calendars and contacts to my phones, and a host of their other services. I gather emails and calendars from multiple different jobs here, and manage it all in Fastmail. Even have it set up to send emails through those other domains so that various companies have a record of emails I send. Again, everything's here in Fastmail and it just works.

Welcome to the club.

[Bamb0]

Originally Posted by triyck

Hi all - I recently started my 'degoogle' journey (well, half a journey at least). I stumbled over Fastmail, tried it now for 10 days in various situations and all the functionality I need. Created a detailed documents with feature description, pros & cons. I love it!!! Signed up for three years. Got myself a trash domain for random online sites. Aliases are fantastic. The whole UX I like much better than Gmail - I'm a Gmail poweruser, having been with them since the inception, using it at work since a decade as well. FM has a much better flow for me, and the functionality is top notch. There's a few minor things I don't like, most importantly the calendar integration (to be fair, Google is to blame here as well not allowing to easily share with non Google users etc.).

Im glad ya found an email service ya like buddy

Welcome to EMD!!

[truemagic]

Using the format <anyname.folder@username.fastmail.com>, I'm able to give each company I do business with an email that is completely unique to them, which then gets filed into its own folder.

Does this still work in 2023? that's without any filter/rules/sieve?

I tried creating xxx.folder@customdomain.com but it anything sent gets delivered to the FM Inbox instead. Even with xxx.folder@username.fastmail.com it doesn't work (gets Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender).

If this works I would like to replace my current method of using xxx@sub.customdomain.com because the latter (subdomain catch-all) is not adoptable by, say, a new email service in case I'm migrating out of FM.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by truemagic

Does this still work in 2023? that's without any filter/rules/sieve?

I tried creating xxx.folder@customdomain.com but it anything sent gets delivered to the FM Inbox instead. Even with xxx.folder@username.fastmail.com it doesn't work (gets Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender)...

This works correctly if you pay attention to the details. If your account is username@fastmail.com:

• Emails sent to "foldername@username.fastmail.com" will be automatically delivered to your folder "foldername" (if it exists).
• If the "foldername" folder does not exist, the email will be delivered to your Inbox.
• Emails sent to "foldername.subfoldername@username.fastmail.com" will be automatically delivered to your subfolder "foldername.subfoldername" (if it exists).
• Of course, if your account is at a different Fastmail domain (such as sent.com), you need to replace "fastmail.com" with the other domain name (such as "sent.com").
• Read more at Fastmail Help.

There are a few more details involved when using your own custom domain "mydomain" hosted by Fastmail:

• In Settings>Domains, click Edit and examine the setting for Routing. The default is "Accept mail to anything@user.mydomain and deliver it to user+anything@mydomain.". This performs the same trick to move the subdomain address to the initial part of the delivery address so it defines the top-level delivery folder.
• In Settings>Team & Sharing>Team addresses you set up the email addresses you want to use for incoming messages, both at Fastmail domains and your private domain, and how to deliver messages sent to those domains. You can set up specific aliases at your domain, such as "bob@mydomain" and "alice@mydomain", and you can also set up a catch-all (wildcard) if an incoming message is sent to "bobb@mydomain" (which you didn't set up a specific alias to handle). See Fastmail Help for instructions on how to set up the catch-all. Since you can specify the Deliver to details for the catch-all wildcard, you can create a folder to hold those rogue messages (such as "wildcard") and deliver the messages which don't match an alias to the wildcard folder by specifying a Deliver to address of "username+wildcard@fastmail.com" or whatever Fastmail domain your account is using.
• If you set up the alias "bob@mydomain" to deliver to the "bobby" folder, incoming messages to "bob.games@mydomain" will be delivered to the "games" subfolder of the "bobby" main folder (if those folders and subfolders exist). If the subfolder does not exist, the message is delivered to the "bobby" folder, and if that folder does not exist to your Inbox. The alias delivery directions override the default folder and subfolder delivery methods.

All of this works very well. I have been using this system for many years. Recently (a few month ago, I believe) Fastmail added the ability to specify the Deliver to for the catch-all wildcard custom domain, and it's very useful to discover when spammers are trying random usernames at your domain name.

Bill

[truemagic]

Originally Posted by n5bb

This works correctly if you pay attention to the details. If your account is username@fastmail.com:

• Emails sent to "foldername@username.fastmail.com" will be automatically delivered to your folder "foldername" (if it exists).
• If the "foldername" folder does not exist, the email will be delivered to your Inbox.
• Emails sent to "foldername.subfoldername@username.fastmail.com" will be automatically delivered to your subfolder "foldername.subfoldername" (if it exists).
• Of course, if your account is at a different Fastmail domain (such as sent.com), you need to replace "fastmail.com" with the other domain name (such as "sent.com").
• Read more at Fastmail Help.

There are a few more details involved when using your own custom domain "mydomain" hosted by Fastmail:

• In Settings>Domains, click Edit and examine the setting for Routing. The default is "Accept mail to anything@user.mydomain and deliver it to user+anything@mydomain.". This performs the same trick to move the subdomain address to the initial part of the delivery address so it defines the top-level delivery folder.
• In Settings>Team & Sharing>Team addresses you set up the email addresses you want to use for incoming messages, both at Fastmail domains and your private domain, and how to deliver messages sent to those domains. You can set up specific aliases at your domain, such as "bob@mydomain" and "alice@mydomain", and you can also set up a catch-all (wildcard) if an incoming message is sent to "bobb@mydomain" (which you didn't set up a specific alias to handle). See Fastmail Help for instructions on how to set up the catch-all. Since you can specify the Deliver to details for the catch-all wildcard, you can create a folder to hold those rogue messages (such as "wildcard") and deliver the messages which don't match an alias to the wildcard folder by specifying a Deliver to address of "username+wildcard@fastmail.com" or whatever Fastmail domain your account is using.
• If you set up the alias "bob@mydomain" to deliver to the "bobby" folder, incoming messages to "bob.games@mydomain" will be delivered to the "games" subfolder of the "bobby" main folder (if those folders and subfolders exist). If the subfolder does not exist, the message is delivered to the "bobby" folder, and if that folder does not exist to your Inbox. The alias delivery directions override the default folder and subfolder delivery methods.

All of this works very well. I have been using this system for many years. Recently (a few month ago, I believe) Fastmail added the ability to specify the Deliver to for the catch-all wildcard custom domain, and it's very useful to discover when spammers are trying random usernames at your domain name.

Bill

Thanks Bill, for the comprehensive explanation. I'm still trying to get some of these to work, and I appreciate the help very much!