What email services do you use (2021 edition)?

[just1acc]

1. ZOHO - FirstNameLastName - Official ID
2. Gmail - Username - Primary/Main/Catch All
3. Organisation Mail - FirstNameLastName
4. Outlook - FirstNameLastName - Reserved/Not Used
5. Domain Mail - Fancy/Not Used
6. Yahoo! - FirstNameLastName - Gmail forwards, so that I don't need to open Gmail/Primary ID in shared computers etc. Plus disposable emails.
7. EuMX.net - FirstNameLastName - Don't know why I've kept it. May be just different webmail versions to fun around.

[hadaso]

Fastmail (mostly with my own domain)

Spamgourmet
My work email address.


I also have a Gmail account since 2004, and a Hotmail account and Yahoo account since 1999 or perhaps 1998, but I don't really "use" them. They just exist, and sometimes get emails about changes in usage terms. I also have an email account from my ISP that is only used to receive their bill.
I use Fastmail for accessing almost all my email, including work email. Only rarely I open Outlook at the office to send mail internally at work. Most of the time I reply from Fastmail to work email.

[truemagic]

Gmail - Primary
Outlook (backup/internal use)

In my country if you spell an webmail provider other than gmail or hotmail over the phone (eg. bank officers, interviewers,etc) they will be like "what?" then I probably need to spend more time saying out character by character. So it's tedious to have a custom/new provider which is not as popular right now.

[emoore]

Fastmail is my main email provider. I recently got a inbox.eu account (its only $3/year) to evaluate it as an alternative as I'm worried about the direction Fastmail is moving.

I have Gmail (free), Outlook (free), Zoho (free), Comcast (my ISP), Vivaldi (free) and Yahoo (free) accounts that I use mainly to help test Thunderbird IMAP support. I rarely use webmail.

[evfrson]

Originally Posted by emoore

I'm worried about the direction Fastmail is moving.

I hope you don't mind me asking but what do you find worrying about Fastmail ?

I was thinking of trying them but if there is something I should know I would appreciate it.

[emoore]

Originally Posted by evfrson

I hope you don't mind me asking but what do you find worrying about Fastmail ?

I've had an account for over 18 years. They were a good choice if you wanted to use IMAP (before IMAP became available with most free email providers/ISPs and http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/imap/isps/) became obsolete), and had reasonable prices. You had a smaller mailbox than many free email providers but you had real support, the ability to do lots of customization and avoided the potential privacy issues of the well known free email providers.

They've gone up-scale (even the cheapest plan supports CalDAV/CardDAV), and recently quietly dropped support for POP/IMAP/SMTP in their cheapest plan. After almost 20 years the cheapest plan only has a 2GB mailbox. There are free email providers with 1TB mailboxes. There is support for numerous types of two-factor authentication for webmail but they have no plans for U2F/FIDO support for email clients (I know because I submitted a support ticket about it after Thunderbird version 60.0 added support for U2F/FIDO).

All of the recent development efforts seem to be for webmail or their mobile app. I don't use either.

There are a lot of things to like about Fastmail. They're reliable, SpamAssassin/Sieve works extremely well, no conflict of interest because their main business is mail, I stopped backing up my mail because I have confidence they won't lose any, they have a support ticket system (I even once got help from one of the founders), and they're a survivor (that is not a given). I'm a moderator in the MozillaZine forums and notice many other Fastmail users there.

They're pushing JMAP as a faster/better successor to IMAP though there aren't any Windows based email clients that support it yet. I'm looking forward to when Thunderbird adds support for it (its in the version 91+ roadmap). I'm still on a legacy plan (about $16/year due to multi-year discounts). I figured I'd have to upgrade to the basic plan ($30/year) when I wanted to use JMAP. It seems now I'd have to upgrade to at least a standard plan ($50/year) and possibly maybe even a professional plan ($90/year).

I don't have any plan to switch from Fastmail at the moment but the direction they are moving is causing me problems. I'm basically waiting to see how JMAP turns out.

[evfrson]

Thanks for your detailed reply.
I understand your frustration but your issues wouldn't affect me if I signed up.
However I am worried about the Australian authorities attitude to surveillance of email and the internet in general.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by evfrson

... I am worried about the Australian authorities attitude to surveillance of email and the internet in general.

I think they said in the past that since they don't operate any kind of communications on Australian territory they are not subject to these regulations. All their servers are outside of Australia (mostly in the states). Also I understood that since they operate from Australia, American authorities need to go through international channels to legally force them to allow access to data. This might not be the case anymore since now they have an office in Philadelphia, in addition to their headquarters in Melbourne. Still they are an Australian company.

[TenFour]

My main issue with both Fastmail and POBox.com is that I have experienced long customer service delays with issues that should have been resolved immediately but instead went on for more than a week. My POBox.com issue was never resolved. Both had to do with adding or removing domains, preventing me from using them for email. I don't like to pay for bad cs, no matter how minor the issue.

[trussrod]

Originally Posted by TenFour

I experiment a lot, but at the moment:

1. Gmail as my main email handler, with my domain email as my main address used for most things forwarded from my domain registrar, using Google SMTP to send. I have several Gmail accounts for various things. Best spam/junk filtering and search, which would be hard to give up since it is the archive of all my email back to 2006.

How do you use Google SMTP to send emails that are not @gmail.com?

[TenFour]

How do you use Google SMTP to send emails that are not @gmail.com?

It's sort of a funky workaround, but it is one option Google Domains recommends for those that want to send domain email without paying for email services somewhere. Works fine with personal domains, but no way to setup DKIM or DMARC. You can of course add an SPF record at your domain host and I recommend something like this to help ensure deliverability: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Google domains answer: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/9437157

[webecedarian]

My main ones are still

Hotmail

though I keep trying others - Proton, Gmail, etc. Don't like any of them.

And still open to any suggestions for free email that does not require anything like a telephone number.

[TenFour]

And still open to any suggestions for free email that does not require anything like a telephone number.

You can remove your phone number once you've signed up for Gmail, but you say you don't like it. If it's important I wouldn't recommend most free email services other than Gmail or Outlook.com. Free services are prone to disappear. What features are you looking for in a free email provider?

[Mugwhamp]

Fastmail (paid account since 2004): main account and central hub for all of the services below
Gmail: personal account though not used often for email
G Suite: work, managed through Fastmail
iCloud: not used for email
Outlook: not used for email
Yahoo: not used for email

[mechanic]

Strange that there are so many gmail users, when gmail is not even listed in the https://prxbx.com/email/ list - it's definitely not recommended. And using Australian based companies - don't these people read the newspapers?