Comment by sshine
3 months ago
+1
When I migrated from Gmail to Fastmail years ago, I thought Fastmail felt... less featureful.
When I rarely visit my abandoned Gmail, I can't believe I put up with the clunkiness.
Lean software stands the test of time.
Fastmail hasn't had a noteworthy UI change ever.
Minor annoyances:
- Clicking an iPhone notification opens the app, but never brings me to the actual email
- It is difficult to unfold the full extended header section on iPhone
- ...I can't think of more...
It saves my drafts, it's not annoying, it has a mobile app.
I might switch away for a solution that is more affordable when hosting emails for many family members and organisations. But for a handful, I really can't recommend it enough.
Fastmail had a UI change a year ago, where they went all "rounded corner" and created unique rows for every message that weren't so easily sorted with Stylus CSS. I emailed them about the changes, and a few weeks later the messages were listed in a way that I could easily apply my own stylesheet again. They also acknowledged on their subreddit the UI change was not incredibly popular (even the CEO was "not enjoying" it) and they took some feedback and provided a few better UX customizations in the options.
At one point, Fastmail had an error parsing Unicode in misconfigured iCal files (Google Calendar showed events correctly) but after a short back-and-forth, they fixed it within a week.
Now, Google Calendar has had a problem with my organization's iCal files for the past four weeks. Submitting a bug report via the help community is very opaque and unhelpful (a la "Have you tried turning if off and on again?"). Fastmail loads the iCal correctly. I have no clue if Google is aware or when they'll ever fix it.
One huge productivity advantage to FM over Gmail? Sort by sender name. (This makes it so easy to bulk apply changes)
Setting up own domain has been straightforward. (It's a bit of work ensuring DNS records have DMARC/DKIM/SPF, but it's all in the FM checklist/documentation.) Setting up Python scripts to auto email me using app passwords has been straightforward. Creating aliases and throwaways is straightforward.
I have not regretted paying for email; specifically, Fastmail.
It's great when the source of revenue for a company is the user, rather than other companies that the user is being sold to. Too bad this is so rare these days.
Why are people accessing emails from the webUI. Email is SMTP and IMAP, use any number of clients to access your email.
>use any number of clients to access your email.
Your car can have any colour, as long as it is black.
All native email clients are stuck in 2005, lack most basic features, and have bugs not fixed in decades. Also, most providers have poor support for new IMAP features, such as NOTIFY.
I loved Mimestream when I worked at a place that was on Google.
https://mimestream.com/
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Name one feature (i.e. thing that requires client support, not UI) that's new in email since 2005 and that's also worth having.
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Probably the nothing to install experience. Every Android phone comes with Gmail and every device has a web browser. Do people have to install Gmail on iOS?
I'm using Thunderbird with POP3 accounts, download on my laptop then remove from the server, daily backups. My phone has K9 (the old one with the UI I like) and I never remove messages from the phone. When I send mail from the phone I bcc myself so I can see the message from my laptop later.
Why? Because I don't like to leave my mail forever on somebody's else server. They can lock me out at any time (it will probably never happen) and my mail is mine.
Would I recommend this to anybody? Of course not.
Is it a problem not to have access to all of my mail when I don't have my laptop with me? It never happened to be a problem and it's always less likely to be a problem because of all the messages that are exchanged outside email and on mobile first platforms, even for work.
Thank goodness, Gmail does not come on iOS. No other apps are pre installed except Apple's, and I am always very thankful for that when I set up a Samsung tablet as a kiosk and have to delete sponsored apps, AI apps, Spotify, Microsoft apps, Samsung apps, Google apps, kids apps...horrible experience.
> Do people have to install Gmail on iOS?
Why would Gmail be pre-installed on iOS?
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The Apple Mail client works very well with Gmail. The only real negative is that it’s not true push email, though it is largely close enough.
The thing I miss most about macOS now that I’ve gone all-in on Linux is actually Apple Mail. It’s just a simple and clean Mail app.
My current choice is Evolution and I’ve had very good luck with it so far. But ultimately the best Mail experience is on my iPhone.
I was using Thunderbird/BetterBird, but now that a Windows client isn’t a requirement for me anymore, I much prefer Evolution. Thunderbird is a notable pain when it comes to an inability to reliably export/import your user profile to other machines. It’s also such a cluttered application and I find the calendar UI to be horrendous. Good luck using a trackpad to scroll through months of the year.
iOS comes with a mail client. It connects to my exchange, gmail and Zoho accounts.
You don’t install gmail, you connect a mail client to it or visit it in a web browser.
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If your concern is just having access to your emails if someday shit hits the fan and you’re locked out, why no smtp ? Seems easier.
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> Why are people accessing emails from the webUI. Email is SMTP and IMAP, use any number of clients to access your email.
Because the UX of most email clients is extremely bad when compared with the webui of these email providers.
It's also IMAP is an awful protocol with so many glaring issues its impossible for a modern client to paper over them. Fastmail invented JMAP but it doesn't seem to have taken off with any other providers.
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Try Mailspring. I’m a huge fan: https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring
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The amount of configuration required to rival what's available out of the box in Web clients (especially indexing, searching, filtering, blocking, etc.) is a bit too much for someone who isn't already interested in it. I tried GNUS in Emacs and a few TUI apps; I do like having all my emails accessible locally, but for day-to-day use, web clients are more convenient. I haven't tried Thunderbird or Outlook (if it still has a local version), though, so maybe I'd have all the conveniences I want there - but since I already have them in Fastmail, I just don't have an incentive to switch.
I find myself using the web UI because it's much faster than MacOS Mail, which often gets a bit stuck when downloading new emails via IMAP. I'd prefer to use a native app, but it happened without me thinking - I just ended up going for the fastest option unconsciously.
Try Thunderbird. It's easy to set up IMAP to gmail, and it's very quick. Keep what you want on the server (or download and delete) and just never look at the web client again.
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I like using the webui because my mailbox is too large to pull down locally and it’s easier to handle through the web.
I also have it pulling to local clients that just keep a few messages. Maybe 30% of the time is webui.
Has worked well for me for 30+ years (substituting telneting in and using pine until webuis existed).
“Email in the cloud mainly” is a useful pattern.
Every desktop mail client is bad in its own way. And then I have to set it up on all computers I use. Web UI just works.
Guess you've tried every desktop mail client?
I only use one computer and my local mail app (macOS's in my case) just works. I can't imagine trading it for visiting some web site to read my email.
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Because Fastmail has a fantastic Web UI, have been using it for years.
Nothing is more fantastic(er) than a native application handling multiple e-mail accounts without effort or lag.
Thunderbird and macOS mail are great for that. Supporting everything from GMail to personal mail servers, and everything in between.
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Well I usually already have my browser open, and "Ctrl+T, 'fa', [enter]" loads up my email basically instantly. I don't want email notifications (or any notifications, really) so a local app just seems like it would introduce a lot of clunk for not much benefit.
A lot of providers don't give you imap anymore or it's an extra cost option. SMTP also comes with a ton of traps because of spam fighting measures.
Also monopolies and mobile devices and skill issues.
Which providers don’t give IMAP?
I migrated from gmail to Migadu. They have a webmail client, but they make a point that they Do Standards.
They also let you host as many domains as you like and the servers are all EU based.
Because it is really nice. I prefer it to thunderbird/(apple) Mail.
I get the same interface on my own computer as when I go on some other machine.
I never understood why anyone would want to download an application to do something as simple as checking email.
To have a copy of your emails on your device, for backup, and offline use.
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Because native apps are faster, work when you aren't online, and are all around more pleasant to use.
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This is the way. Use a tui client like alpine or mutt, and enjoy managing 100s of thousands of emails in ms. I feel physical pain when I have to see colleagues and acquaintances wait for several seconds in their heavy web interfaces. I can manipulate batches of emails with terminal tools and the power of Maildir.
I do the same, but with mu/mu4e in Emacs. Not having to open a browser to read email also helps with staying focused for me.
I use it with Spark on macOS and iOS (Spark Classic) and it just works. Archiving works fine, marking as spam actually moves and 'activates' Fastmail's training. There's email masks, aliases, the UI is always fast and responsive in the web view when I go there.
Have you had any issues with Spark or are there any downsides using it? I haven’t used Spark since I started using Fastmail and have been thinking about it
None that I've found. I think just make sure when you configure the account in Spark that the folders are set correctly (i.e. archive and spam folders are mapped to their folders in Fastmail) so you get the correct functionality from them.
> - Clicking an iPhone notification opens the app, but never brings me to the actual email
I've been using fastmail on iOS for years and have never experienced this issue. Clicking from a notification opens up the email. Maybe there's a setting you can adjust?
The only thing I miss from Gmail is a "send and archive" button to save me a click when replying to emails.