this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Not that many people use email much anymore, but as you often need an email address to sign up for other shit... anyway, I need a better option than gmail, I'm sure you can appreciate why. Email is so old school at this point that most of the time I don't even think about it anymore.

Anyway, I need some email options that aren't gmail or otherwise attached to a billionaire. I'm not really interested in non-email methods of communication, I'm specifically asking about email.

Thanks in advance.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

Not that many people use email much anymore

Where do you live, because I want to go there immediately.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Riseup.net Private, free, encrypted

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

I'm currently using Migadu. It's $20/year for their cheapest plan. They give you a lot of control over the email service, so it might not be the best if you're a noob. In fact, they require you bring a domain name. But, they let you create unlimited users, aliases, have fancy routing, etc.

https://purelymail.com/ looks interesting too. And is cheaper at $10/year.

If you do decide to get a custom domain, just some tips:

  • get something that ends in .net or even better .com because shitty companies with shitty IT departments will block other TLDs (I've had this happen with FedEx and my local garbage company). There is no spam folder for them, the email just explodes.
  • probably don't pick a domain with one of your names it in for better anonymity, unless I guess you have a popular last name? [email protected] looks cool, but consider if you want random sites like lemmy to have that data.
  • don't pick a homophone or weird word because at some point you'll have to speak your email to another human and it's really awkward to tell your bank that your email is [email protected] or [email protected] or was it [email protected]?

Also, the web interfaces of some of these other email services might not be as good as Gmail's UI. It helps to use an email client instead. Thunderbird is fine or you could use something simpler like claws-mail or even something like mutt.

[–] LemoineFairclough 2 points 3 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago

proton.

Proton unlimited comes with unlimited everything on proton pass, including disposable email addresses

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Most if not all non-paid options will have privacy concerns similar to gmail, so you’ll have to pay. I pay for Proton, and though I’m not thrilled about some of the political bullshit their CEO has been up to recently, I think I’ll stay with them for now since they’re still good for privacy, and their other services are solid. They’re also very upfront about what they charge and why, and I think they still plan to transition to a non-profit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 hours ago

There's also Tuta if you're looking for an alternative.

[–] Imgonnatrythis 16 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Who's not using email? I'm green with envy, but I think it's a ludicrous premise to think not many people are using email.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

i don't use email much at all, only signups at a few places.

at work, communications with my coworker or clients is by phone or in person, not email or very rarely sms. email is mainly the required communications with the state (business registrations, taxes and shit) and invoices and receipts for things we use or buy online. plus lots of spam. lots and lots of spam. oh, and scams. lots of scammers and phishers too.

[–] jubilationtcornpone 4 points 5 hours ago

I also wondered what kind of rock OP lives under. I use email every day, multiple times per day. I probably send more emails than texts.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I use proton and for registering on different sites I usually use addy.io. Also, I recently found a new mail service that looks nice and might give it a try soon, disroot.org

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago

ProtonPass will also generate aliases and forward the mail to your email account. But, as someone else mentioned, the CEO's politics seem sus.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I use Fastmail with my own domain. Not free, but worth it given how much I rely on my email/calendar. There's a 30-day free trial before committing though, so you can kick the tires before deciding.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago

I second this. Fastmail has been a joy to use. Since the users are paying, the company has (less) incentives to enshittify. JMAP? Count me in!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

if you wanna forget privacy and subscribe to a proprietary startup instead, use hey mail because it just sorts well. otherwise just use proton like everyone else said

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (4 children)

I'm currently moving (for the last year) from Gmail to mailbox.org.

They have a free level, but I wanted aliases, so I pay $30/year. Worth every penny.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I moved from proton to mailbox a few months ago and so far I'm really happy with it too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Same here. Moved from Outlook to Mailbox a year ago and I'm happy with it, using mostly custom domains with catch all. I havo also recently enabled encryption which wasn't hard to integrate into my mail clients at all. They dont have a free plan, but the cheapest plan is 1€/month (which doesn't allow custom domains).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I've been there for several years as well. Works great, and I get pretty much no spam.

At one point they offered "envelope with money sent via postal service" as an anonymous payment option, IDK if they still do that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Been with MailBox.org for ages and it's been absolutely fantastic. Proton had very limited offerings at the time, but even now I haven't felt the need to move.

I think the most basic email offering is €1/month.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

I use proton for a while now, its been great and well supported. The proton pass lets you use unique emails to register too. Its paid, for that anyway. I've been in love, I still don't keep my passwords on it opposed to a USB drive, but some i've started to just out of simplicity and lack of need of serious security for those.

[–] baggachipz 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

PurelyMail is a great indie mail service. I love them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I use Tuta mail. It is entirely open source. There are both paid and free tiers. I started on a paid tier, then downgraded to free. I like the option of a usable free tier when money is tight. I use addy.io for aliases.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

How do you use email aliases or what do you find them useful for? I've played around with generating unique aliases for different websites I use, but I'm not sure I did anything useful with that setup. Normally, if I get spam I usually just hit the unsubscribe link and that's been sufficient. Currently, I just have 2 emails: one I use for businesses and such and one for random websites that I don't care too much about. Is having more aliases better?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

While I'm using Proton rn, I'm planning to migrate to Posteo with Addy.io for aliases. However they all cost money. If you mean free email that's not tie to a billionaire, I can't think one off my head. You can achieve "free" by hosting your own email server as it sounds you're intended for receiving only, but the electricity still cost some, plus you are doning free labor to make sure it is happy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

While we're at it, anyone got a good site for temporary addresses that are basically used exactly once? And ideally don't immediately get flagged as spam addresses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

https://www.byom.de/trashmails/

Decent functionality, and it didn't get flagged most of the time I used it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

To DIY you can buy your own domain and attach it to any paid email provider, then you get an infinite amount of temporary addresses. e.g. if you own @ rumschlumpel.blahblahblah.org then you can create abc@ , xyz@ , abc123@ , etc. as much as you like.

Just about all the email provider suggestions in this thread have a paid tier that you can configure your own domain with.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

To add to this, Bitwarden integrates with a few of them so you can automatically generate a unique email on the fly when creating an entry for a site. (docs link)

I use Fastmail and use my own domain for about 90% of stuff. Sites I don't even want to have my domain get a [email protected] email autogenerated from the BW extension. It's pretty convenient once all setup.

For literal one-time use, I've generally had good luck with 10minutemail. I'm not sure how much it gets flagged as spam right away these days, but the nice thing about it being free is you can always try and find out for a particular site.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

TIL about the Bitwarden integration! Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Mailbox.org already provides 3 different aliases even at the lowest tier, but I've already filled those with non-temporary aliases and I don't really want to pay three times as much just for throwaway-aliases ...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

mailbox.org