About start to ride off from Gmail

Hello, it seems a while since my last visit to the pub.

This week, I start to think to ride off Gmail, that I use since 2008 (and even before with an older account that I lost) and I want to go to a more private friendly mail solution.

I create an account on mailbox.org and start to test this platform, and I don't know, maybe the missing of a labels/tags system and of app mobiles, bother me. If I can keep my current mail workflow (that use labels), and if I can avoid using the Gmail app to access my mailbox.org account (that seems to work well with ActiveSync protocol), it will be better. The office style tool part is a bonus here (And help remove another Google services usage).

I already have a ProtonMail account, I don't use at the moment, but it can be an alternative solution that have mostly all I want. 5 GB seems enough for me if I don't use too much proton drive. Maybe the 200 labels limitations on the standard tier will be an issue for me, and I don't think I can integrate contacts from ProtonMail in my android phone.

I also take a lot of Fastmail, but I have concerns about their privacy policy since there have servers in the US.

For the moment, I have some criteria :

5 GB or more for the mails.
Support for labels/tags
Mobile apps for Android (or maybe, you can recommend good mail apps I can use instead of Gmail app)
Alias addresses with custom domain
Mail extensions (like said mailbox.org, you know the alias things with + character, i.e. username+something@domain.tld)
Contact and calendar support
"Slick" desktop web app. I try to use Kmail, and I don't know if I can migrate to a desktop client. Anyway, for the moment, I prefer to have a good web app.
And in bonus, a drive support with office tools (for the moment I only see mailbox.org to have this).

Guys, if you have comments, suggestions on another platform or solution about my criteria to recommend, I will thank you.

I know it will take time, but, for the moment, I have to remove closed accounts from my password manager, close unused accounts, etc. and choose a mail platform before start mail migration.

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Replies

~nopalm wrote:

Its hard to do, but I moved to proton mail a few years ago and it has been pretty smooth sailing. Setting gmail up to forward stuff works really well, that way you can slowly catch anything you might have missed updating in your initial move. I used the desktop bridge to transfer a lot of my more important emails before deleting everything off the gmail account.

I had a friend that used fastmail for years and years but I agree it seems less feature rich and privacy focused than proton so I went with that.

~mnbryant wrote (thread):

ProtonMail does just about all of this, minus built-in office tools in ProtonDrive.

I like using the web app, but they also offer a Desktop Bridge client that allows you to integrate with email clients like Kmail and Thunderbird.

As a bonus, take a look at EteSync. It's an end-to-end encrypted contacts and calendar sync service. It's open source and you can self host it, or you can pay $24/year ($2/month) to use the hosted version. It doesn't integrate with Proton directly, but it integrates with Android and KDE PIM (or so I've heard).

Proton also has a program for importing emails that were exported from another service.

~inquiry wrote (thread):

Not sure how it compares with others, and I'll admit the overall interface seems clunky at times, but (for pay) hushmail.com's email alias feature has been a huge plus for me for prolly half a decade, now.

~zampano wrote (thread):

Protonmail does all of this if you pay for it. I use a paid Protonmail account and it's totally worth it. Remember, if it's free, you're the product.

~enochthechronocom wrote (thread):

Tutanota? You could use this in combination with SimpleLogin for aliases. Ticks all the criteria except having drive storage.