News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by spaceman_2020 on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:19AM (#32107314)
I’ve moved away from Chrome and Google Search. But I’m struggling to move away from Gmail, especially since this email is linked to so many critical official accounts (bank, government agencies)

Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere?

Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own domain name?

Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by cube00 on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:38AM (#32107468)
There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time

Visit each site in your password manager and knock over a couple a day.

You'll never get anything that fully automates this because every site does the change differently. Even LastPass's automated password changer could only ever do a handful of sites fully automatically.

I've seen everything from full self service, to manual approval, to begging their privacy/legal department, to sites claiming allowing me to change my email address would represent an unacceptable security risk. I ask those sites that make up reasons like that to delete my personal information and move to someone who understands why email addresses are bad primary keys.

If you use your own domain, you'll never have to do this ever again, no matter how many times you change your email provider.

You need to start today, if you wait it's only a matter of time before Google does it for you by locking you out of your account for reasons they won't explain. Browse the GMail subreddit and observe the sea of hundreds of people locked out each week.

Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by can16358p on Friday July 15, 2022 @09:32AM (#32107991)
And until the transfer is over, mail forwarding rules to the new (custom domain) email address would be a nice idea to not miss anything in the meantime without manually logging into Gmail.
Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by St_Alfonzo on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:30AM (#32107392)
Moving away from Gmail was easy for me. Get a new address at a reliable provider or self host. And then you can use Gmail's own Mail-forwarding functionality to forward everything to your new mail address, and theres also an option to delete the copy at gmail. Whenever you have time, set the new address at your accounts. And after a year or two you have changed all accounts and can delete your gmail address. A slow change is better than no change.
Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by dismalpedigree on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:35AM (#32107439)
This is the way.
Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by krallja on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:23AM (#32107342)
Fastmail will support your domain name and has a very good importer from Gmail. You don’t have to transition everything all at once. One thing that helps is to use different apps to access Gmail (like the official app) and Fastmail (your phone’s built-in Mail app), and if anything arrives @gmail.com, either unsubscribe or update the address.
Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by cruano on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:37AM (#32107459)
I think you kinda have to update it manually everywhere, but that's why you get your own domain, so you only do it once. Personally, I discovered just how much spam/marketing email I was getting when I only migrated the "important" things to my own so I'm currently running with two emails.

As for alternatives, I have iCloud+ with my Apple One subscription I already pay for. That lets you setup five custom domains, with up to three emails each[1].

I think even if you don't switch yet, it's a good idea to change your domain name while you still can because most services ask for confirmation on the old email and we've all heard the horror stories with Gmail locking you out of nowhere

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by theandrewbailey on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:51AM (#32107582)
Another vote for Fastmail. I set up my own domain on there about a year ago, and have been happy. Fastmail has wildcard inboxes, so I canary trap[0] the email addresses I give to people and websites.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap

Re:Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life? by DoctorDabadedoo on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:24AM (#32107348)
I like Zoho for mail handling, the free tier covers up to 5 user with a custom domain, the small letters is that they don't provide IMAP/POP under the free tier, but it's pretty easy to set up.

If you're concerned about privacy I would evaluate fastmail.com