Yah the dkim was largely what I had issues with. Mostly because it wasn’t mentioned to me that it was necessary. But once I was aware of it it was quick to fix

It is definitely a pain in the ass but I’ve haven’t had any companies as far as I know block my emails yet with my setup. The biggest thing is setting up your dns correctly to prevent your emails from going straight to spam

Ah you are correct. Never heard of their bridge until now

Protonmail has a free plan with a inbox size limit that 99% of people will never hit. I’ve had it since 2019 and only 15% usage of my capacity

Not a lot of other good options if you don’t self host which is a bitch even for professionals nowadays

A self hosted email server for privacy while keeping thunderbird access

Otherwise protonmail is the way to go