I’m trying to move away from Google and replace my Gmail account. But reading about the different options, I’m realizing I don’t really understand email at all - e.g. the difference between the client and the domain name, the different protocols, encryption.
Does anyone have articles or books to suggest as a “Basics of Email: 101”? Thank you!
(Have read you’re not interested in self hosting - I think that’s very sensible. It’s a lot of work and even then, very difficult to do it well and be reliable)
Suggest finding a reputable email provider, and they will require payment.
I recently moved from gmail to proton. The migration process was very smooth, with proton copying over all my existing email and calendars from gmail. However, their web clients are very slow in comparison (since they’re encrypted - click on an email and it’s 3 seconds or so to open, an eternity!). I find that annoying enough that I’ve setup thunderbird via a proxy, but that has negated some of the ease of use.
There are quite a few good options around, maybe others will chip in with recommendations.
Once you have a new mail client, your [email protected] address will not be valid. However, if you want it to, you can keep your old email account with gmail as well, and have it forward all incoming email to your new home. That allows you to gradually move your accounts over at your own speed. I think this is important as there will be more than you expect of them, but the process isn’t hard.
Most of those new providers will also allow you to use a personal domain, and multiple users. So you can register a domain that stays with you - that’s the domain.org bit of your email address, and multiple users - the bit before the @.
The good providers will have guides and documentation about helping you through this also.
Thank you, Proton was the provider I was leaning towards. I’ve also heard good things about a small Canadian company called xyz and was debating waiting for Thundermail. But what I’m seeing is that maybe the way to get around this is to obtain and use my own domain so it’s not a hassle to switch if I choose to change providers.
For another email provider alternative, I would suggest Forward Email. I still haven’t used them yet, but my goal is to switch to them from Proton when I get around to it.
I was thinking of playing around with email hosting, at least for offline backups, and I’ve been interested in using Stalwart.
I also suggest Porkbun for purchasing a domain.
No problem, and yes, that’s correct - once you have your own domain then you can hop between providers a lot more easily as you don’t need to change a thousand web accounts when you do. It’s also useful if you move into self-hosting in the future.