Migrating From Gmail

Iโ€™ve been using my gmail account since a few months after the beta started. Iโ€™ve moved a dozen times since then, but my email stayed the same.

However, over the years Google has lost my confidence that theyโ€™ll do the right thing and do no evil. Itโ€™s for this reason I donโ€™t use their apps, donโ€™t invest in tweaking gmail, or even (especially) sync my contacts.

As a Mac user for almost 20 years, Iโ€™d like to use iCloud for my email, but I canโ€™t use custom domains with Apple. While I donโ€™t foresee Apple losing my trust and confidence, I canโ€™t be sure.

Tying my email to a third party domain will lock me in to their ecosystem, for better or worse. Moreover, I could lose it all in an instant by the whim of an algorithm with little to no recourse.

With Gmail, Iโ€™m not the customer, the advertisers are. And because our interests are not aligned, I have no idea how my data will actually be used.

What to do?

The obvious answer is to move my email to a domain I own. Then find a provider that supports open protocols and that I pay at a regular interval.

Iโ€™m leaning towards Fastmail. Theyโ€™ve got a nice detailed migration guide, Iโ€™ve been a customer on the business side for a number of years, itโ€™s time to renew, and most importantly their systems behave in ways that I expect.

The main blocker isnโ€™t even money, itโ€™s updating each account that uses my gmail as a login to my new address. Lock-in, albeit defacto and of my own doing, is a bitch.