Why I stopped using Gmail after 18 years

I have been using Gmail since 2007, but now I have decided to stop using Gmail for a couple of reasons. By using multiple Google products, you expose yourself to the risk of being locked out of all of them if you ever do something in one product that gets flagged. For instance, if you publish an Android app and it gets pulled down, or your YouTube channel gets copyright struck, you risk losing access to your Gmail. Furthermore, by keeping your emails with Google, you also aid them in their surveillance and let them track you and perform targeted advertising based on your data.

What triggered me was Google's recent announcement "to block sideloading of apps from unverified developers". It feels increasingly unsafe to have too many eggs in Google's basket. That's why I want to become less dependent on Google, and more flexible in, for instance, switching to a different mobile operating system.

I didn't want to host my own email server though. Since there's so much spam out there, it requires some work as an email provider to get trusted by other email providers. Otherwise, you risk having your emails being sent to the recipients' spam folders. Also, my email is something I always want to be working, so I don't want to risk having any downtime, which I might have if I were to run it myself.

There are many different email providers to choose from. Some common choices among people who don't want to have their email with Google are: Proton Mail, Fastmail, Mailbox, Purelymail, and Migadu. I opted for Migadu, because they only charge $19/year and let you have a practically unlimited number of domain names, mailboxes, and aliases. So if I want to buy a domain name for a side project and have an email address for it, I can simply add it to my subscription at Migadu without being charged anything extra. Furthermore, there are a lot of positive reviews about them online, when checking sites such as Hacker News, Lobsters, and Reddit.

When moving away from Gmail, I'm also changing to using my own domain name for emails, which I wasn't doing before. Before, I had a regular @gmail.com address. The advantage of using my own domain name is that it becomes almost trivial to move to another email provider in the future. If I ever get tired of Migadu, I can simply start a subscription with somebody else, move my emails, and update my domain name's DNS records.

My move away from Gmail will be an ongoing project for a while. I immediately updated my email address on the services I use most frequently. But I also configured my Gmail account so that all emails get forwarded to my new email address. And when I receive any email addressed to my Gmail address, I update the email address registered with that service. In this way, I spend small doses of time when I receive something. It's also quite a therapeutic experience to update the email address with any service and to feel less bound to Google each time.

This isn't the first time I have tried to use my own domain name with a different provider than Google though. About 10 years ago, I had the same thoughts. But that time, I went with a .xyz domain name and Namecheap as a provider. The problem I experienced then was that people didn't receive my emails or they were sent to the spam folder. So it got pretty tiresome since I couldn't trust that my emails would be read by the recipient, and therefore I needed to send emails from my Gmail to confirm if my email from my .xyz domain had been seen.

This time I think it will work better. I'm using a .se domain name. And based on what I have read online, Namecheap's email doesn't have the best reputation, while people are happy with Migadu. Based on my experience so far, during the few weeks since I started this project, I haven't experienced any problems with sending emails to people.