Hello everybody! One of the last google software I use is my gmail, mainly since I’ve had it for so long and migrating seems daunting. It’s time however.
I do eventually want to self-host my own email, possibly with something like this: https://docker-mailserver.github.io/docker-mailserver/latest/
But to do that I’d need to set up and maintain stability on a home lab for a short time first, something I can’t do yet because of my living arrangements, which means self-hosted email may be a few years away.
In the mean time, I looked at https://www.startmail.com/ and https://tuta.com/secure-email (since tuta is very highly recommended on lemmy). Sadly, while tuta sounds great, it has the deal breaker (for me) that I can only use their clients.
That’s why I’m leaning more towards startmail, though of course I’ll take advantage of the 7 day free trial before committing to it.
Meanwhile, is there anything else that you can recommend which is:
- an EU company
- privacy and customer first
- crucially can be used with Thunderbird
- that will save me 59.88 Euro a year
- That allows for the creation of folders in the Inbox (I use this constantly for organisation)
A very big bonus would be if I could somehow import my gmail emails to it, in a sensible manner, like I see startmail offering to do. CalDAV support would also be really nice.
Also, I’m thinking for about a year I keep both gmail and whatever I switch to, while having gmail forward everything to the new one, so that I make sure everything has been migrated over there.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: While looking at reviews for various services, I came across a video offering a startmail discount link, so I can now get it at 29.94 Euro for the first year. This makes it a lot more attractive even if I don’t stick with it for more than a year, but I would still love to hear your suggestions or thoughts :)
Edit: since i found that discount link from the video, i decided to try startmail. Im still on the 7 day trial (just meaning i havent been billed yet), but so far i really like it. Ive already started changing my apps/services/websites emails to aliases i set up (the unlimited aliases of startmail are a godsend in this regard), and the importing tool they have really easily copied my gmail emails/folders over to the startmail account. From there, it was a simple matter of moving the folders from the resultant gmail folder to my actual SM inbox where i wanted them, adding the account to thunderbird, and re-setting up the rules for the SM account in Thunderbird. Id still love to hear all your suggestions in case I do decide SM isnt what i need, but so far it seems like its a winner
German company.
Checking them out now :)
@promitheas
A quick web search, interesting mention of both mailbox, disroot servers stores messages un-encrypted.
So it seems that the user must save messages encrypted. Then there is the problem of the average non-nerd user that does not know how to encrypt messages (e.g. they send a quick reply from the moblie phone).Yeap exactly, I just replied to your other comment with basically this :D
I’d rather have something simple that works for now, and eventually when I am able to self-host my own email, I can look into and spend the effort securing everything.
I do enjoy Tutanota, yeah having to use their app is a bit of a drag. I generally use Tuta for any professional email stuff, and self host my own email.
When I setup my mail server mailcow was fairly popular so that is what I went with, and it has worked great for me.
I might have used mailcow on a vps I had for a short time for a project I was hosting on it. Not sure though, I can’t remember. I’d much rather go with something simple that I don’t need to micromanage, or that I don’t need to worry that I’ve misconfigured hence won’t be receiving mail, so when the time comes I’ll probably be looking for solutions like the docker mailserver I linked to above, or similar.
@promitheas
disrootI considered it, and it looks really good, but the free plan only allows for 1GB storage. I see at the bottom of this page: https://disroot.org/services/email that they do offer paid storage increases, but I don’t see if thats the monthly, annual, or lifetime charge. Do you know?
@promitheas
Don’t know, but regular reserve copies to mbox format, 1gb should be sufficient. The advantage of small space allocation:)Hmmm, just watched this video: https://piped.wireway.ch/watch?v=aat1q9VLDjk and if what is mentioned in it is true, its concerning, especially if they store emails on their server in plaintext, and it sometimes takes a long time for emails to arrive.
@promitheas
No sound, but perhaps contact those people for a response to the video?
Why would someone store messages in plain text? Are they sent via SSL/TLS?The way I understand it from that video and the short time I’ve had to look this up, is that you need to handle the E2EE yourself.
Been using Thexyz for a long time but another I also use that has so far been reliable and inexpensive is Cheap email for everyone | Purelymail. Also use it with my own domain. See if they fit your criteria.
EDIT: Oops. forgot about the EU requirement. Maybe nevermind.
Check out https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite . Swiss-based, reasonably priced. There’s no end-to-end encryption, but that’s the only thing missing.
I’ve been a satisfied customer of Fastmail for several years. Based in Australia. Great features for email aliases, folders, and rules.
