Alternatives to Gmail

June 25, 2022 10:01 AM

What are the best current alternatives to gmail? Preferring a web-based option, although I could set up SMTP on (a lot of) devices. Details why to switch are below the fold.

I have a "boutique" domain ([e-mail]) which autoforwards to gmail.

Over the past month or so, I have not been receiving e-mails from known, trusted sources. One is a general news digest (nextdraft), and the second is for misfitsmarket.

A couple of weeks ago, I applied for an auto refinance from my credit union (obvs, another trusted source) and I didn't get the approval until the loan officer texted me and sent to my gmail address.

Yesterday, and other times in multiple instances when my spouse e-mails me with an attachment (to: [e-mail] from: [e-mail]) gmail immediately flags as possible phishing attempt as google cannot confirm it is coming from my domain. Of course it isn't. We are both using gmail and have it set to send from domain address instead of gmail address to have the portability of leaving any email provider as needed.

I have checked my hosting provider (hostgator) and the e-mails are making it to their server, but they are absolutely being blackholed somewhere after that. Not even showing up in gmail's spam filter.

So... what are the best webmail providers today?

posted by a non mouse, a cow herd to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

Response by poster: For diagnostic purposes, I forgot to mention that I sent several scans from the Konica Minolta machine in our office to both e-mail addresses yesterday (car loans. What fun!) and all came through very quickly, despite a very weird e-mail address.

I subscribed to a mailing list last night using my domain address and never got the follow up e-mail to confirm the address. Signed up this morning using my gmail address and received it in less than 30 seconds.

So, yeah. Want to leave Gmail to have my e-mails show up. And, wouldn't be bad to get away from them, in general.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:10 AM on June 25, 2022

I am quite happy with Fastmail.
posted by wesleyac at 10:48 AM on June 25, 2022 [14 favorites]

Best answer: Does your domain have a proper SPF record? If it doesn't, Gmail will naturally assume that messages coming from your mail server at Hostgator but appearing to be from another domain are spam, and just drop them.
posted by kindall at 11:12 AM on June 25, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: This is a problem with forwarding email in general. When your forwarding server connects to gmail and says “Here’s an email from [e-mail]!”, gmail will say “Hey, you’re hostgator, not creditunion.org!” and consider the email suspicious. Compounding that is that a domain owner can specify “only these servers may send email from my domain, and if any other server tries it, discard the email.” So it’s less a gmail thing and more a forwarding-in-general issue.

That said, I switched my family from gmail’s legacy free plan to Fastmail and I’m very satisfied. I’ve recommended them to a number of people. The migration is automated and super smooth. You can have them accept your domain mail directly which will resolve all your forwarding issues; in fact they will host your DNS and automatically do a bunch of fiddly configuration (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) that you’d otherwise be responsible for.
posted by pocams at 11:12 AM on June 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Another Fastmail recommendation. I have my own domain too and no issues.
posted by chr at 11:20 AM on June 25, 2022

Best answer: Sorry, I should clarify: this is a problem with forwarding email in general that is indeed worse now than in the past, as you’ve noticed.

The big providers like gmail have recently become more aggressive about distrusting mail senders who don’t use SPF (specify what servers can legitimately send mail from their domains), or who don’t use DKIM (a cryptographic thing that can also interfere with forwarding.) So more and more senders are setting up SPF and DKIM lately, which makes forwarding their emails less reliable.
posted by pocams at 11:22 AM on June 25, 2022 [4 favorites]

Agreed on both counts. Fastmail is the default gmail alternative, and also it may very well not solve this problem for you, because forwarding is a bad way to do this. Whichever provider you choose, set up the custom domain directly there and stop forwarding or you are almost sure to continue to have problems.
posted by primethyme at 11:26 AM on June 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

Another vote for Fastmail here. Very good integration with custom domains, and great email service with many features.

I also agree with primethyme , follow the Fastmail instructions to integrate the custom domain properly and don't do any forwarding.
posted by jpeacock at 11:32 AM on June 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: ProtonMail is pretty great.
posted by neushoorn at 12:02 PM on June 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: The 3 top options for email are:

workspace.google.com (the paid version of gmail) Good for search, tagging and the best 2FA if you need that.

Fastmail.com - Great all-round email that isn't from Google.

ProtonMail - Best for privacy and security, but as a result more complex to setup. Based in Switzerland.

All of these cost money to use with a domain, but you get what you pay for.
posted by Lanark at 12:34 PM on June 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I’ve used Fastmail with a custom domain for many years now and it is an excellent service. Their documentation and interface will guide you through pointing your domain at them and setting up DNS records for SPF and DKIM.
posted by silby at 11:18 PM on June 25, 2022

Another Fastmail recommendation here. I migrated email there a couple of years ago from a different not-gmail host, and it worked very well. I don’t use their web interface often but when I do I like it.

Also recommending not to do that forwarding thing, whichever host you choose - sounds like a recipe for missing mail and other oddities these days.
posted by fabius at 2:10 AM on June 26, 2022

My favourite Fastmail feature is you can set up folders and subfolders for example:

- accounts
- money
- internet

and then just use

- [e-mail]
- [e-mail]

when you sign up for various things. Fastmail will then autosort those emails into those folders which makes email management a doddle.

It also has a good mobile app (Android, at least).
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:13 AM on June 26, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks all, for all the great advice. I have updated my SPF and DKIM and will give it through the week to see if that resolves issues. If not, will move to Protonmail (financial reasons and privacy reasons, Fastmail does sound awesome, too.)
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 9:00 AM on June 26, 2022

Response by poster: Belated follow-up.

Went with Protonmail. Little disappointed in what I would consider bait-and-switch advertising, but ended up being about the same as going through Fastmail.

Took a little tinkering to set up, but that's largely on my hosting provider not wanting to use Protonmail's defaults. Also, they are in Switzerland and I am in Texas so any question could only be answered and acted upon almost a day later.

The two periodic e-mails I knew were being black holed magically started appearing, as hoped.

I did a variation of flabdablet's suggestion from a different askme, and it appears to work wicked smooth. (I put the random in the "doesn't have" field instead of the to: field). In testing, I literally never saw it in the Gmail inbox even though it was already in the Protonmail box.

Added, unexpected bonus: Work decided "no personal e-mail on our network anymore" between the time I asked the question and today. Well... they only blocked the big providers (gmail, aol, yahoo, etc.) Proton is flying under the radar.

Thanks again, all, for the suggestions!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 12:26 PM on July 16, 2022