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Ask HN: Best Gmail alternative that handles multiple emails in one inbox?

9 points by offsky ↗ HN
I have read many posts here of people getting their google accounts locked for no reason, so I am trying to protect myself and am planning to migrate. I run several websites and currently have different email addresses from different domains all forwarding to my gmail and I use the "Send mail as" feature to select which address I am sending from. This is a critical feature for me, so I was hoping to get some advice on which gmail alternatives support this feature. Thanks!

11 comments

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LinuxBender
Fastmail [1] is very easy to set up and supports the features you use. It is not free, but it's quite affordable. Their HQ is in Australia. [2]

[1] - https://www.fastmail.com/

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastmail

slow_donkey
I didn't find it obvious that Fastmail allows multiple wildcard domains but it is a supported feature and extremely useful for throwaways and custom projects.
JaggerJo
This. I’m a happy customer with a pretty complicated setup.

Configuration is made super easy with profiles ready to download for mac/ios.

robertcope
How many email accounts does Gmail have? How many have you seen locked for no reason? It has to be a staggeringly low percentage. I understand the fear, of course.
offsky
Yes, I am sure it is a staggeringly low percentage, but I would also like to support smaller companies, and I like the idea of being able to contact a real human if a problem occurs. Don't mind paying.
polka_haunts_us
I'm having the same thought as OP today after reading about Andrew Spinks from Terraria. The main point to me isn't that I expect Google to ban my accounts and get me wrongly caught up in their support web (although I have generally low trust in them as a company, not as low as many people here), it's that if that were to happen, my life would be irrevocably boned. I mean I've had my gmail addresses since 7th Grade. Literally EVERYTHING I have is tied to them.

To me, paying a small yearly fee for email where I can actually talk to human support is like buying Fire Insurance. On the one hand maybe my house never burns down and I'm just throwing money away, on the other hand if something bad ever does happen, thank God I did it.

runjake
Despite the odds being relatively good, it’s not a risk a lot of us are willing to take.

Also, that old saying applies: “If you aren’t paying for a service, you aren’t the customer, you’re the product.”

polka_haunts_us
Just wanted to report in that I went ahead and signed up for a demo of Fastmail's Standard Plan and spent some time this evening routing to "me(at)(mydomain)(dot)com", it absolutely supports the "send as" functionality that you're talking about. Yearly plan runs 50 bucks a year. Very easy to setup, big fan.
codegeek
You can use a CRM like close.com. They are really good at this. You can connect multiple emails and once connected, you can send email as any one of those emails.