> All that said: can someone point me in the direction of a hosted email service that is reliable (this is a must, I don't want emails to bounce and I don't want spam), has native mobile apps w/push notifications, has a good web ui, and generally just works? And can anyone confirm that once I pull my email from google apps that I could then use it for those google services?

Fastmail does all that, I'm using it for years now: https://www.fastmail.com/?STKI=/u226717

I've set up my custom domain with iCloud mail and it's been 100% painless. The web client is pretty basic but also snappy and reliable. YMMV if you're not in the Apple ecosystem; but if you are, it's all super smooth.

I have no idea how it works with the Google stuff, as I'm actively trying to avoid it; but last time I checked, you could create a Google account with any email you like, and things just work.

My concern is that once I switch off of Google for hosting, their internal systems might not forget about the prior account status and still disallow me from using said services. But yes I agree, everything google has touched in terms of services I use has made them worse. I used to have a reliable set of cameras :/

Zoho Mail is amazing, been relying on it for over a decade now.