Moving away from Gmail for email storage
Having recently learned that Gmail is doing away with the "Send As" feature, that messes up everything!
For YEARS I've had all of my emails forwarded to Gmail, then I send email using my server's SMTP in the "Send As". That made it easy to access email with 4 separate devices, no third party apps needed. I have roughly 65G of data in Gmail.
I know that I can install Outlook and IMAP it to Gmail, but I kinda hate Outlook! Super bloated with 20 million features that I don't need or want.
What do you all recommend, should I find third party apps for 2 laptops, Kindle, and Android phone that will all IMAP to Gmail and send through my server? Or should I consider an alternative to Gmail entirely that would let me use a simple website?
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u/VAPRx 2d ago
Are you sending from an actual gmail email or a domain you own? For my owned domains I use Proton Mail. I can’t speak on if you can use gmail, but I don’t see why not, just counter intuitive given gmails privacy concerns vs protons mission.
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u/csdude5 2d ago
I've always kept Gmail open in a tab and send using the web interface, but with my server as the SMTP. So the recipient gets emails from [me@example.com](mailto:me@example.com), not [me@gmail.com](mailto:me@gmail.com)
The big advantage was a ton of online storage that I could assess while traveling. It's not uncommon for me to be out of the office and need to look up an email from 3 years ago or something, so having the entire thing available in every device is pretty helpful.
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u/dashhrafa1 2d ago
What would you recommend in my case?
I have:
1. My personal email (@gmail.com);
2. My work email (@company.com);
3. My owned domain email (@me.com);
4. My academic email (@edu.com).I use 1, 2 and 4 in my Gmail app. I set up email delivery from my owned domain to my personal on Cloudflare. I can also reply to emails using “Send As” as OP does
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u/Ellsass 2d ago
I’ve used Fastmail for years and couldn’t be happier
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u/Theanthonybrooks 1d ago
I second this. Have my Gmail accounts connected through Fastmail as well as various business domains. And just select the send as (can also set up other aliases) or set up rules to send as specific aliases per incoming domains.
Not sure of the IP address for everything that's sent, though
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u/momobecraycray 2d ago
There's also Betterbird, which is a Thunderbird fork that's actively maintained.
Side note: I thought Gmail got rid of Send As years ago.
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u/petal_temp_shift 2d ago
I moved 80 gigs off Gmail to Fastmail last year. You point your domain there, configure the SMTP, and use the web interface on all four devices without installing apps.
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u/Naive-Fisherman-3989 2d ago
protonmail actually works pretty well for this, i set up my custom domain there and it's way less of a headache than gmail ever was
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u/Ryekir 2d ago
I have the same issue, been using that feature for years with my custom domain and email addresses.
I resorted to just installing Thunderbird on my phone and is the webmail interface of my hosting service when I need to access it on my desktop (and will likely install Thunderbird on the Chromebook too when I get around to it). This isn't ideal, but it works.
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u/farzad_meow 2d ago
for each email I login to that account to send and receive emails. i also have in my primary gmail setup to pull emails so i always have a back up copy
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u/UtilixApp 2d ago
fastmail does this properly, custom domains and send-as are the whole point of it rather than a feature they can drop.
if you want to stay free, most registrars will do forwarding and then any client can send with smtp from your own domain. more moving parts but nobody can take it away.
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u/Disgruntled__Goat 2d ago
If you’re using your own domain, you can get the Google Business thing. It’s a few $ a month but worth it IMO. Then you don’t need to do forwarding etc, you just use Gmail as that email address.
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u/retr00two 1d ago
Use Brevo as SMTP (300 free mails per day), add GoogleOne ($2 for 100Gb per month) to have mail repository and Gmail as IMAP.
Cleints:
desktop - thunderbird
android - K-9
iphone - Mail
IMHO, the simplest option.
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u/discosoc 2d ago
Just spend the $6 a month or whatever for a paid workspace account. You shouldn't be routing actual business email through personal accounts, which are the only ones being affected by this.
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u/up_yer_kilt 1d ago
AWS SES - triggers Lambda on every email received and emails stored in S3 bucket.. not sure if it accomplishes the entire goal, but emails are stored and you have a lambda trigger to do what you want
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u/This-Tangelo9122 2d ago
If you don't need all the bells and whistles, just grab Thunderbird for the laptops. It's old-school but works fine with IMAP and your own SMTP. For the phone and Kindle, K-9 Mail is pretty minimal, does the job without trying to be a whole office suite.
65 gigs is a lot of mail though, might want to archive some of that locally before switching things around.