- I have a bunch of accounts that use my gmail as the login, and inevitably some that aren't in my password manager.
- People will email my gmail
Is there some explanation about what to do to make a clean break?
- Set up new email at your service of choice
- Import whatever old email from gmail that you want to keep
- Go through whatever list you have (password manager, your brain, etc) and update email addresses (as a bonus rotate passwords while you're at it)
- For a few weeks, regularly look at both your new and old email. As something comes into gmail, either unsubscribe or update your email for that sender, and delete it.
- A few weeks later, nothing remains to switch over (at least nothing of importance).
- I did _not_ setup mail forwarding. First because I don't want Google to know I'm leaving, and I don't want them to know what my new address is.
- like all big changea, the switch to a new, custom domain name is a good moment to make some cleaning. By not forwarding mail I'm curating my existing life to only the things I actually care about. If I haven't received a mail from a specific site in years, maybe that site isn't that important after all
- most emails I receive are from some account on some website, so I know I have to migrate this account
- but I still might receive important mail from people who still use this old adress. I just copy/paste the content from a client connected to the new adress and reply
The issue is that this kind of transition might last for a long time. I haven't decided yet how long I'm going to do it though.
- some services like Fastmail have a one click email import Transfer all emails and then delete any content on Gmail
- go through all existing services and change your email address, most services allow you to do it. If it's not possible then consider closing and reopening account
- never use 3rd party logins (Google, Facebook)
- start replying to emails with your new address, people will update the contacts over time, you have to start somehow
- you can keep your old Gmail address around for a long time, it doesn't cost you anything
I don't think it can be done quickly, but you have to start somewhere, and use the forwarding features of gmail.
The advantage of owning your own domain is covered in another thread. Since I can switch to another domain registrar, I'm not even tied to Gandi. But Gandi seems like one of the better registrars. They are French.