As an added bonus, you can then easily create a unique email address for each service you deal with. Then you can do things like guaranteeing mail from important sources doesn't accidentally end up in your junk mail folder, or guaranteeing mail from a business that thinks spamming is OK because you once bought something from them does.

I made the switch from an @gmail to @mydomain.com a few years back. It's been freaking fantastic. While you do have to pay for it, switching email providers has been next to seamless.

Same here, I thought it would take months but it actually took minutes. I set Fastmail to connect through IMAP to Gmail, it got everything in a few minutes, I pointed the domain to it and I was done! I couldn't believe it was that easy.

I can't wait for HEY to implement custom domains so I can ditch gmail for good.

Curious, why does it take HEY to replace gmail? What's the killer aspects those two have others don't?

(Not parent author) I believe what makes HEY compelling to some email users is that it is opinionated about what email workflow should be like and fits the bill for many.

While a similar way of using email can be achieved in other mail clients [0] the simplicity of having such features by default it's by itself a good reason.

Some features that are non-trivial to emulate in other email clients are:

- Grouping emails with different subjects etc to the same

- Adding private notes is some emails

- Clipping specific parts

- Some UI specific features (Focus & Reply etc.)

[0] https://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-...

Not to mention the blocking of spy pixel tracking out of the box and the screener.

and the paid providers actually have customer service

Not only do they have customer service if things go wrong, they have customer service to take random requests.

I've submitted four "hi this is just a feature request, no action needed" tickets to FastMail over the four years I've been a customer. Every time, a person who appeared to have a clue (based on their responses) replied to me with at least confirmation of "sure, we'll think about it, might be a heavy lift" and they did two of them.