iCloud Mail or Gmail? | Hacker News Reader

iCloud Mail or Gmail?

6 pointsbigbaldhead26 comments

I know, it sounds stupid, but I recently bought an iPhone and I use Windows as the main OS (Linux as the second). I'm going crazy deciding because I've had Gmail for 5 years with over 20,000 emails and iCloud Mail with just 30. I'd like to switch from Gmail to iCloud, but I'm afraid that if I lose the iPhone and switch to Android it won't be the same anymore.

On the iPhone I also have ADP enabled, so this complicates both security and Apple account recovery. Personal use: I see everyone has iPhones but uses Gmail. Why? Gmail collects more data to profile you with advertising, Apple does not. I also have Tutanota and ProtonMail, but I would like to use iCloud Mail.

I use iCloud for Drive and stuff, but for email I only use Gmail (Apple Mail for Apple stuff only). For social media I use Gmail. I've been stuck for months, I don't know what to do, especially if I lose or break my iPhone, my only Apple device. and I can't buy another one, never lost or broken a phone in my life, I'm always attentive as if it were a child

You can continue using Gmail through the Apple Mail app with "Hide IP Address" and "Block All Remote Content" enabled, which significantly reduces Google's tracking capabilities while maintaining access to your Gmail history and account across all platforms.

I connected Gmail to the Mail app on MacOS via IMAP, backed that up to iCloud, and setup my personal custom domain with iCloud Customer Domains. I then forwarded the Gmail to it and deleted all the mail on the Gmail side. I would not go back to Gmail, I considered getting rid of the Google account entirely recently. Hide My Email is also really nice and easy if you use Safari.

You are a good candidate for AppleCare. You will worry about the phone a lot less and be able to afford repairs.

As for email, why limit yourself to just one? If you really want to dump Gmail then buy a domain and sign up with the email provider of your choice. It isn’t expensive and is easier than you think. Then you aren’t platform locked at all.

I don't know where you live but here in Italy when I discovered Applecare it had already expired without the possibility of activating it

They have a new service (not sure if it’s in Italy yet), where you can get AppleCare at any time, not just within the first 60(?) days. The catch is that it’s designed for people who have multiple Apple products they want to protect. If you just have the iPhone, it wouldn’t make sense.

do you know the name of the new service?

AppleCare One. Here is the press release.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/07/apple-introduces-appl...

looking at the site I found it but it tells me that I don't have any suitable device, I have an iPhone 15 so I don't think it's the fault of the device but of the country

This is possible. I think devices outside of the normal range may need inspection to be added. If it would an inspection issue, I’d expect it would tell you that instead of saying it wasn’t eligible.

for me it would be useless (I think) to buy a domain, I don't send many emails (about a couple a month) I just have to receive them. in my country we only use whatsapp for everything, emails only when you have to deal with government services or sign-up to social media and stuff

Icloud email works fine. With icloud plu$, you can alias fake email addresses that forward to your inbox and can be deactivated if and when they collect spam.

Firefox said on the most recent update that it also offers email aliases (but forward to what? I didn't check)

There are also some security features (in settings) standard.

I tried to stop message threading, but Apple Mail still offers "context", which tucks a previous message below the current one. In my case, I replied to an individual in a group message, and they replied to me individually, but it looked for all hell like the reply was to the group, which was an embarrassing optical illusion.

I really ask email to do as litte as possible.

A lot of my (extremely long) Apple experience consists of turning off gratuitous features that interfere with my workflow. But mail is reliable, and also accessible at icloud.com (log in) if you enable icloud web access.

I have iCloud plu$. I’ve tried Gmail account in app mail but I didn’t like it, but I will try again

I got my Gmail account back when it was in invite-only beta. I tried moving to iCloud, and ProtonMail… it never happened. I have too much history, too many places have that Gmail account and I don’t even know who. Even if I had an exhaustive list, changing it everywhere would likely be impossible.

I recently decided to give up and start divesting from the other accounts.

I will likely keep the iCloud Mail account, since I use iCloud for contacts, calendar, etc.. but it’s only my dad and a few accounts that it’s used for these days.

When I went to ProtonMail, I religiously tracked every time I used it anywhere so I should be able to unwind it.

I want to divest from Google as a whole, I even pay for Kagi. However, at this point it would be impossible to actually delete my account. All I did by trying was complicate my life and confuse everyone. I told my family to use iCloud to email me and my dad was the only person who actually switched. I suffered in this purgatory of email providers for probably the last 10+ years before recently coming to my senses.

I do just use the email though. I don’t use Gmail as the reason to use all of Google’s information management stuff. I don’t use Drive, Docs, Keep, Tasks, Contacts, Calendar, or any of that other stuff. Gmail, YouTube, and Maps (for points of interest and business information… not navigation). Early on with the iPhone where were weird sync issues when trying to use Google Contacts with the Apple apps, due to some different fields in play, so I moved away from all of that and never looked back. In my personal life, the crossover between mail and calendar is pretty light, and I only send email to a few people where contacts integration also isn’t a big deal.

I did have about 5 alt gmail accounts. I did recently go through those, migrate some accounts, and delete those in full, so that was nice. But most of them had been sitting largely unused for 10 years, which made it easier. I’ve also been using the same password manager for nearly 20 years, so that was also a huge help.

in my country we don't use text messages or emails to contact but whatsapp (so no emails) I have 7 gmail accounts, 1 main one, a secondary one that I manage for a family member and another older one that I have just for nostalgia, I use the others for spam. I only use Apple apps and they work great for me.I could never use proton mail as the main one, the apple services I use are: reminders, apple maps, imessage, drive, and other apple apps, they work. owned by google I only use youtube and gmail

You can keep your gmail forever and have it forward to anywhere you want, so you don't have to hunt and change your preferences for every account you ever made. What are you agonizing over? It's easy to switch e-mail providers and very little hassle.

I’ve done email forwarding in the past. I’m not a fan.

I am all in on the Apple ecosystem with 5 Apple devices. My Apple ID which I’ve had since 2003 (iTunes) is attached to a Yahoo email address.

iCloud email just uses standard protocols and can be used with any email app. You just have to go on the web and create an “app specific password”

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102654

But why move to iCloud? I even use Apple’s Hide My Email with my yahoo account.

> iCloud Mail or Gmail

Neither. Purchase a domain, sign-up to Fastmail, point domain at Fastmail, install mobile app. Thats it.

I've already made the switch and I don't regret it, it took me hours to move everything from one account to another

You switched to Fastmail?

No, to iCloud

You can use your iCloud e-mail with any device: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102525

You don't need to have an iPhone or other Apple device.

i tried with thunderbird but i can't login

To simplify the transition of all the services I created a python script that reads the mbox file from google and writes in a list all the services that have sent me emails without duplicates

The iCloud Mail Spam filter is weird, it filters out a lot of legit mail for me.

i deleted 5 mail, now i have only 2, one mail i can't delete. the other after i transfer all my account on icloud ill delete. sorry for my english Thank you guys

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