I have this bad feeling daily that for whatever reason I loose access to my gmail. Don’t think of anything shady but simply I just loose it. There is a very small chance to it but still. You can read the stories that people uploaded their family photos to google drive and the algorithm marks their kids photos CP and they loose their account. Or maybe your email is used to spam or anything similar. There is no way to talk to google support, it is an endless loop of help pages. I just can’t live with this. I know billions of people do, but I cannot. My email address is registered to hundreds of websites including government and banking sites. You could literally destroy me financially or other ways by just gaining login to my gmail. Google could cause me HUGE problems by locking me out. I decided to start transitioning to an email with my own domain. I have the doimain, I have the email client setup. So what do you do with your existing stuff? Most websites dont even let you change the email. I have to take appointment in government offices to change my email. It seems like a giant task.
Have anyone took this leap?
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Never had gmail, I used my ancient hotmail to signup for a google account.
did it years ago. created several new email addresses for different purposes with one main new personal one. I set up a forwarding to that main address from Google while I transitioned online accounts to the new email addresses. now I use Google only for YouTube and my phone but the Google mailbox is pretty much defunct, occasionally I get an email but that is still being forwarded to my new main one
make periodic backups of your gmail account content on your own computer(s) and setup auto responder on gmail to use a new email address; easy peasy
In addition to the other advice given in this thread, set an autoreply in your gmail that telld you that you have switched email addresses and include your new address. This way, people know of your new email address if someone still manages to mail you on your old email address.
I switched to Fastmail a few months ago and love it.
My tip is: Start simple.
I’m thinking about this every once in a while. What about using a custom domain and a relay service like FireFox Relay or Addy.io? That would give you the option to move your actual email around easily, even after you lose access to it.
I just did this. I have an android phone so I will have a hard time getting rid of google account but I have used clodflare to create a custom email and have setup forwarding/sending vianalias inside gmail. I made a separatr address for website registrations and personal mail. I will slowly start the transitioning of all my accounts.
You have to accept that privacy costs money because your data isn’t being sold. For $5+ a month you can use proton Mail or tutanota. For ~$2 a month you can use Zoho mail or Titan mail.
Whatever you choose, it will be worth it.
Speaking from experience, I’d recommend not choosing protonmail because it is very difficult to cleanly stop paying and leave - forwarding mail to another address is a paid feature. It’s also not very standards compliant (no IMAP/SMTP support without running a buggy bridge). Their security features are mostly useless and better security can be achieved on standards-compliant services if you try.
@flying_wotsit
Buying one or more domains and using those with protonmail gives you 100% portability. Just redirect your domains to a different mail server if you decide to make a switch.
@nothingcorporate
@nothingcorporate
If you set up a domain with Protonmail, you can have unlimited email addresses for that domain, although they all go to the same inbox that way. I like to use a website’s name as the user when I sign up with a website, so it’s like officedepot@mydomain.com. If I start getting emails to that address from somebody other than Office Depot, I know those rat-bastards sold me out.
@dansity @privacy
With Proton Pass it will even generate those fake emails for you. No need to tweak any settings. And the best part is that you’re not forced to use the password manager that goes with it.
Consider getting your own domain. That way you own your own name, but you can swap email providers behind the scenes
I’m still transitioning to gmail from my hotmail accounts…
I know some still working on this with their AOL accounts…
*Lose
Sounds like you need to start using MFA.
Doesn’t take nearly as long as you’d think if you start to slowly transition stuff to the new address.
I found this easier than expected. I was already in the habit of not using my main personal account for online signups etc - just for friends and family. So i setup forwarding for the important contacts first. If I get a fwded mail i make sure I respond from the new one so they have it . There were still some services using gmail - utility companies etc. I switched each of those to other addresses using a redirector - at first simplelogin , now hide my email (but probably going to switch again). I left the gmail live for now. Downloaded everything using GoogleTakeaway. I havent yet closed it down so not sure what that involves yet, but Im not dependent on it now.
It might seem daunting at first, but get started and gradually move stuff to your new address. It does sound like you live in a place where this might be easier said than done saying that. Maybe the gmail address stays live only with a few final gov services (dont forget to filter and fwd them).
Before you change your accounts over to your new email, use email aliases like anonaddy or simplelogin for your online accounts.
This is what I’ve done. I’ve literally just moved to Proton from Gmail. I created aliases for all my sites. The only site that knows about my Proton email address is SimpleLogin.
The only emails in Gmail now are from Google services tied to that Gmail account.
I used Bitwarden to help generate the aliases.
Does bitwarden offer an email alias service, or you just used it to generate the alias names?
No but you can use API’s from various alias services so that Bitwarden can generate your aliases for you.
Same, easy as… Plus you know who’s leaking your email to spammers and can just turn off the tap, it’s glorious. Combined with temp mail (browser add on ) for truly disposable addresses and I get no spam. They’ll probably find their way through in time, but for now, golden.
you’re a fucking genius.
I’ve been contemplating this exact thing and after reading this thread, I know what I’m doing tonight. ty!
The biggest downside is there is a cost associated with doing all this. I’ve gone from free to paying for a domain (optional), SimpleLogin and protonmail.
If you’re going to use SimpleLogin and proton then look at their proton unlimited tier. I had SimpleLogin prior to proton so I only use the Mail Plus tier. SimpleLogin comes included in the unlimited tier.
I frequently encounter people asking about moving from Gmail but I never understand, please help me understand if I’m wrong. Doesn’t Gmail still let you forward emails to a 3rd party address? In which case just sign up for another email service and you’re done. Email is a standard, not a service. I’ve changed email addresses probably about as many times as years I’ve been alive, it’s probably the least likely service I could think of that you could be tied in to. Am I missing something huge here?
Multiple concerns: it will only forward emails as long as the acvount is alive. Google recently annoinced it will close accounts that are inactive for certain time so if you stop using it and just use it for forwarding you are risking to lose the mail. As well there is the privacy concern that google reads every email of yours and by forwarding you are not really solving that concern
Well yes, you move the accounts across to your new provider when you come across them or sign up for new ones (I presumed the problem was that you had so many accounts that you’d forgotten them, and for some reason you needed some legacy information from them). If a few inactive accounts die then no big deal surely, you sign up for new ones?
Yes; this.
I personally went with Proton Mail which even has an easy way to import your existing Gmail emails into your new Proton Mail account so they’re still all in one place.
Start by changing your most important services to your new email, and set your gmail to forward everything to your new email. From then, sign up to new sites with your new email and change emails of old accounts if you have time, it’s not a huge rush.
As long as you set up the email forwarding, you’ve done most of the important work right there.
You can also auto-label anything in your new account based on From: in the header to indicate that it got forwarded from the old account. This way you will know what you still need to switch over.
Yeah I have them auto go into an “old email” folder rather than clutter my inbox especially if it’s forwarding crap newsletters/spam etc. I was very liberal with my old email…
You can also set Gmail to send from your other account. So you get Gmail as an email client.
🤦♂️
That’s the whole thing you want to avoid lol
But it’s step 1 to moving off. Often just having the one place is what holds people back. I’ve migrated several people from Gmail by just starting with that as an easy transition… just giving out a different email with everything else staying the same.