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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

Buy a domain (I bought lastname.contact) and subscribe to Fastmail or a similar paid-for service. You can then use anything@lastname.contact and if your email service provider drops you, you can switch to another and not care about your contacts trying to reach you or updating the email address of all your online accounts. I couldn't be happier with the switch (I was using Protonmail before, and Gmail a long time ago). I still use my work g-apps account (only) for the Play Store on my Android phone.

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> I couldn't be happier with the switch (I was using Protonmail before, and Gmail a long time ago)

I am curious: What made you switch from Protonmail to Fastmail?

You can't use any 3rd party mail app on Android and the official one is really bad (no thread view, fails to send emails to some valid addresses…). Also, you can't two-way sync your contacts. And the encryption thing is not really useful since too few people are on Protonmail (so all your messages will be stored in plain text somewhere) and Protonmail will share your data anyway (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28427259).

I tried to do this long ago but I have two main fears:

1. Is it easy to set up the redirect from Gmail to the new account?

2. When I send email from new account (custom domain), how are you completely sure it is not going to be on spam? I send unsolicited emails to people in big corps (journalist asking for interviews/comments, not spammy :-)

> 1. Is it easy to set up the redirect from Gmail to the new account?

Yes super easy. You can do this using Gmail's filter service. However, many services will also let you log in to gmail via POP/IMAP (OAuth for auth) and fetch the email from your gmail for you that way.

> 2. When I send email from new account (custom domain), how are you completely sure it is not going to be on spam? I send unsolicited emails to people in big corps (journalist asking for interviews/comments, not spammy :-)

I guess it's hard to know for sure, but I've not noticed any problems with this when the underlying provider is a well-known sender such as Gmail or Fastmail.

You don't need to set up anything in Gmail either, Fastmail has Gmail connectors that pull all your mail and calendars and even lets you send email through Gmail from Fastmail. It's ridiculously convenient.

I have had Fastmail pull from Gmail for about 10 years just in case I need to log into a website I haven't logged into for ages. It just works. My gmail is abandoned save for the occasional password reset which flows through Gmail to Fastmail.

You point your domain to Gmail. Then when they ban you, you point your domain instead to the new place, like Fastmail. So it's not really redirecting from Gmail, it's just changing a DNS record.

On sending from a custom domain, your mail provider walks you through setting up a few additional DNS records (for DKIM, SPF) that allow you to send from your domain through their servers. They maintain the reputation of their IPs and so you get their good deliverability.

1. Yes, can't be easier 2. None of my emails have been flagged as spam.

By doing this you are trusting the .contact gTLD provider. Do you have idea how reliable are they? Would they reclaim your domain for some reason?

They have to follow the regulations of the gTLD. They can't just reclaim your domain at will.

For the .contact gTLD you will find them at https://donuts.domains/about/policies/ or over at ICANN.

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