How the hell should I even switch mail providers?
from Persen@lemmy.world to degoogle@lemmy.ml on 19 Jun 2024 20:31
https://lemmy.world/post/16711792
from Persen@lemmy.world to degoogle@lemmy.ml on 19 Jun 2024 20:31
https://lemmy.world/post/16711792
I have completely stopped using google services and software on my personal devices (even have lineageos + microg on my phone. The problem is that I can’t just explain to the technically uneducated people that I changed mail providers. How should I go about doing this?
#degoogle
threaded - newest
I would look at my list of accounts stored on my keepass folders, and start migrating the accounts, one by one, to a new email account. Some of them might allow changing the email, some might require creating a new account.
My email provider shut down, so I had to migrate off of it. Every account I had allowed changing emails, although I had to contact customer support about some.
Oh, you reminded me of that. Thankfully that isn’t that important for me.
“My new email address is persen@icloud.com”
Done.
No explanation necessary. Just give people the new address.
(Just used icloud as a bad joke there.)
If op still has the gmail an auto response like “this address is no longer checked, please email me at [new email]”
People would just ignore it or send an email later.
what are these conversations looking like when you’re having them?
And you can auto-forward your gmail messages to your new address.
support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en
I just did that last year and I found some people are too lazy to get the hint but many will notice you’re sending replies back from a different address and will get it on their own. You can’t fix everyone, so don’t try to, I guess.
Wow, this is actually a cool feature. I might set it up later.
Just set up forwarding with a message including the new address. On a related note if your looking to host your own mail server I did for a few years with the docker Mail-in-a-Box. Setup was easy but convincing everyone else’s email providers I wasn’t spam was the hard part.
Yeah fuck hosting your own mail infra if you’re not a big company with lot of money to throw into it. Just not worth the pain
Besides, the benefits of doing it are pretty damn minimal except if you specifically want to learn mail infra
The problem is that I can’t just explain to the technically uneducated people that I changed mail providers. How should I go about doing this?
Speaking as a nontech person, I can assure you that none of us care in the slightest.
Just give us the new address and we’ll change it. We might curse you for making us do the work, but probably we’ll feel like badasses when we do it in only three hours.
Ok, that isn’t a problem with family and friends, but for school or work, I would have to change my email on multiple services. Forwarding might work, but I couldn’t ever cut gmail off completely.
God I fucking hate email so much. Why can’t we all agree to move to literally anything else?
… Such as?
@boogetyboo
Well, we're talking over one potential alternative, but how many competing standards is that now?
@helenslunch
How this would translate to business applications - audit trails, documenting decisions etc - that’s where I can’t see a way out of email.
I mean take your pick. Matrix is probably a good option…?
Or signal if you want a centralized system.
I mean it’s not ideal but still better than email.
Signal is a non-profit that could go tits-up at any time and then suddenly we would have no more communication. Whereas Matrix is not dependent on the Matrix Foundation to function. It’s just a protocol, much like email.
Yes, I agree that centralization isn’t always a good idea.
I hate it too, I need it and hate it. But it is the standard and honestly if we all switched to whatever else, we would hate that too. The mechanism isn’t the problem, imo, it’s the requirement of maintenance and monitoring.
Yes, that’s the problem. A standard invented 40 years ago. One we’ve never been able to move away from.
Absolutely not. There are a dozen different protocols that could solve the problems inherent in email.
None of those are problems for me.
What is it that you hate about email, then? You’ve piqued my curiosity.
Threading and formatting. Trying to decipher who said what and when. The increasingly ridiculous size of signatures in every email. Being dropped from an email thread because someone hit reply instead of reply-all. Or the opposite. Being unable to leave email chains. Creating a new email chain every time you send a new subject. Trying to find absolutely anything in my inbox due to the absolute disarray of it all.
Of course Gmail specifically introduces a whole other level of bullshit. Like a completely broken search function, and the inability to block anyone (spammers), the “all mail” option not showing all mail, folders being collapsed in the sidebar and fucking react emojis…
Thanks for elaborating! You raise a lot of good points.
I recently tried to consolidate all of my various email addresses into Thunderbird and oh boy is it fun trying to get a 20 year old Gmail account to cooperate. I often find myself having to open up Gmail in my browser just to get anything more complex than checking or writing new email accomplished. It doesn’t help that I have a quarter of a million messages organized between ~70 “folders”, I’m sure, but holy hell… it’s a nightmarescape. Thunderbird never stops querying the server. I’m about ready to backup all of the old messages and just burn the whole account down.
I could never get into Thunderbird. It would always crash out from the shear quanitity of old emails in each of my accounts.
It took me about a year to move my personal account away from Gmail and finally delete it.
Unfortunately Gmail is required for my work. I often direct people to another business email I set up but the boss doesn’t like that.
While you’re at this, get yourself your own domain so should you ever want to move provider again you don’t have to change your mail address again and can just point the new provider to the same domain
Thanks. I will, when I actually have regular income and could afford it.
Most of the reputable TLDs like .net can be had for around 10USD a year from providers like Porkbun.
Wait, could I set it up with something like duckdns?
Theoretically yes, but it is probably not a good idea to use it for email since duckdns might not exist in a few years meaning you cannot log into services that used that email.
No. You don’t own that. Plus you need direct control over DNS records since you need to set up MX and TXT records and I think some other records as well.
Oh, ok
It’s like when you move IRL. Just give them your new address. Done.
Set up auto forwarder from gmail to your new account
Tell people you changed email address
Ez
Autoforwarder and autoreply. Tell them automatically 😊
I’d recommend having a tag set up for Google forwarded mail in your new account, so you can change addresses of people/companies that still use your old email address.
and alongside that, include your new mail as the reply to address, hopefully people will click for that while replying, and eventually save/use the new mail