📧 I’ve pretty much decided to declare email bankruptcy and just start over. Any advice on transitioning to a new service (looking at Proton and TutaNota) and finding existing Gmail emails worth preserving?
@UndamnedOne I’m not sure about advice for moving to these services. But I used Tutanota and the emails I sent and received there were very difficult to get out once I decided to go with Proton a year or so later. Proton is much more user friendly and I can use their Bridge app to move/copy emails between them and other services using the Mac Mail app if I wish. Tutanota is like a walled garden. Exports are possible but not easy at all.
@UndamnedOne I set up accounts at both Proton and Tuta a couple of years ago when I wanted to get out of Gmail. Proton was for 'work' emails ad I was considering Tuta for personal emails. Proton has been fine and has been a good replacement for my old work email service I was running through a hosting arrangement, which wasn't very satisfactory. Sorry, I can't remember how well the transition went, but I think it was a smooth process, and I do have some old messages stored in the new account. Although they didn't come from Gmail.
I like Tuta, and was seriously considering it for all my personal emails (even ran it for that for a few weeks as a trial), but I also thought I needed to have quick access to the old Gmail account, so I eventually switched to mailbox.org, which does have a paid service that allows you to import all your Gmail messages. In reality, I have not had to access many of the old Gmail messages apart from a couple of controversial issues in our community where I needed an archive of messages that gave a comprehensive account of what happened and was said. I have kept Tuta as a backup, and have had to use it a couple of times.
Also, another thing that tipped the scales for mailbox.org is that it has cloud storage and document editing built in, like Google Docs does, and I have found that very helpful for shared editing in a couple of community groups I'm involved with. It's more of an 'office' package than Tuta. If I needed only email, I would probably have used it in preference to mailbox.org.
So, I now have a large collection of Gmail messages stored in mailbox.org I never look at! I kept the old Gamil account, added an automatic forward and autoreply directing people to the new account, and relied on Gmail to filter out spam (which seems to have worked).
One problem that has come up recently with Gmail is they are blocking a lot of emails from custom domains if the DNS settings of the sender aren't what they demand. That's been fine for most of my email addresses apart from one, which used to me my main email address, which I can't modify.
Hope this helps and isn't too much of a ramble!
@pkboi this is amazing thank you! I really only have one personal email address (which might be part of the problem). I also have a million iCloud+ aliases which have been really easy to use and manage. I thought also about switching to iCloud as a solution. I almost wonder if it would make sense to have, like, an email address each for: family/friends, professional, newsletters, and a throwaway one for account sign ups. Hm. That could get unwieldy. And probably expensive. I’ll probably look at Tuta and mailbox per your suggestion. Again, thank you!!