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Old 25 Jan 2022, 08:37 AM   #1
smtper
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Join Date: Jan 2022
Posts: 18
Experience migrating away from Fastmail

Hi,

Before joining Fastmail, I've read a lot of reviews and random comments on furm that sing their praises. During the trial period, everything seemed to mostly just work, which was great.

However, this year I've seen

- outages,
- intermittent high CPU usage,
- settings reverting on their own and
- the recent poor UI redesign forced on users

The last two tells me Fastmail subscribes to the school of thought where they think they know what the user wants better than the user and should shove it down their throat.

Now that I'm looking to switch away, I see that there's no way to disable automatic renewal. I can only close the account, which would forfeit the rest of the service I've already paid for.

To any long time users, was Fastmail always this bad and I just didn't hit these issues during the trial period? Was there some recent change in management?

Does anyone have experience migrating away from Fastmail? How long should I plan? I think migrating to Fastmail took about a week of importing and tweaking settings. I don't think I'm using anything too fancy from Fastmail at the moment.

Thanks for sharing.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 10:15 AM   #2
Terry
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[quote=smtper;624464]Hi,


The last two tells me Fastmail subscribes to the school of thought where they think they know what the user wants better than the user and should shove it down their throat.

A lot of It people think that way

Now that I'm looking to switch away, I see that there's no way to disable automatic renewal. I can only close the account, which would forfeit the rest of the service I've already paid for.

Remove your credit card

To any long time users, was Fastmail always this bad and I just didn't hit these issues during the trial period? Was there some recent change in management?

Personally I have been waiting 10+ years for the UI to be updated

Does anyone have experience migrating away from Fastmail? How long should I plan? I think migrating to Fastmail took about a week of importing and tweaking settings. I don't think I'm using anything too fancy from Fastmail at the moment.
I got stuck on the from addresses something from hotmail or msn does not excite me.

Also there are hundreds of fastmail features you many not be aware of....tooooooooooo many for me to explain.

/QUOTE]
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 10:24 AM   #3
rscaramelo
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What's your new service?
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 10:48 AM   #4
smtper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
A lot of It people think that way
Indeed very sad. Fortunately its still possible to move away from all of them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
Remove your credit card
Thanks! I'll give that a try.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
Personally I have been waiting 10+ years for the UI to be updated
How many UI redesigns has there been over these years? From the other thread, it sounds like previous changes were smaller? Did some settings also revert when that happens? How many changes were not revertible though Settings?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
I got stuck on the from addresses something from hotmail or msn does not excite me.
What do you mean by "stuck on the from address"?
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 11:02 AM   #5
smtper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rscaramelo View Post
What's your new service?
I've not picked one yet. How much work it takes to migrate factors into my choice, which is why I'm asking.

I'm looking for a paid service, usable with multiple custom domains, with focus on its core of good uptime, delivery and receipt, minimal and unchanging UI. Unlimited aliases would be really nice.

I could run my own servers but even though I can set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, there's always a risk of undelivered emails to large mail providers. (I don't send bulk e-mail.)

I could use the domain registrar's e-mail service but the good one doesn't really offer e-mail (only forwarding) and I'm trying to transfer away from the less good one.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 11:09 AM   #6
Terry
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smtper View Post


What do you mean by "stuck on the from address"?

The email address you give out to receive your mail

you@fastmail.com sound better than you@hotmail.com or who ever you go with.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 11:12 AM   #7
smtper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
The email address you give out to receive your mail

you@fastmail.com sound better than you@hotmail.com or who ever you go with.
Oh, I see. I only ever use my own domain, even with other email providers.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 12:02 PM   #8
Terry
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I have one but found some of my mail would not arrive at some M/s & Google email services, so slowly went back to a fastmail domain.

But miss my own domain as I could have anything at the from address.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 07:15 PM   #9
JamesHenderson
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smtper View Post
I've not picked one yet.
Whilst I am also not particularly overwhelmed by the UI changes, I cannot find another email provider that does as much as Fastmail does, I would also be interested in knowing which service you find.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 08:38 PM   #10
TenFour
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Quote:
Does anyone have experience migrating away from Fastmail? How long should I plan?
Migration time and difficulty is highly dependent on how you use FM and what you are moving to. In my case, I found moving my notes and files was the slowest and required the most manual work on my part. Moving email, contacts, and calendar was relatively easy and quick, depending on how much email you have. As to UI changes, good luck finding a provider that doesn't suddenly change the UI from time to time! In my experience probably the longest lived UIs are good old Roundcube, which I don't like, and Gmail. Strangely, Gmail changes very slowly, and often provides access to the old version for quite awhile after making any big changes.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 11:15 PM   #11
earlybird
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If you really want to leave, Fastmail makes it really easy.

- use isync to pull all of your IMAP data and push it into new IMAP service
- use a DAV sync tool to transfer calendar and contacts data
- use a WebDAV tool like rclone to pull all Files from Fastmail
- recreate identity and filter setup at new hoster
- switch mx on your domain.

This takes very little time when compared to Gmail or O365 because Fastmail's characteristic is a rock-solid implementation of IMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV & WebDAV. And you can use high-quality free tooling if you prefer.

Where to go? Runbox 7 looks like they copied a lot of Fastmail's (previous) UI design.
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Old 25 Jan 2022, 11:56 PM   #12
JoeR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesHenderson View Post
Whilst I am also not particularly overwhelmed by the UI changes, I cannot find another email provider that does as much as Fastmail does, I would also be interested in knowing which service you find.
Same here, I'm interested too in what the OP decides too.
I'm sick of the UI changes.
But no one else that I have seen offers sieve, loads of included domains, & loads of aliases.

My ideal situation would be to have my own custom-made web based access to fastmail where I set the UI & nobody messes with it.

If I had computer smarts I would dedicate myself to setting up my own web-based equivalent to thunderbird or outlook. Then I wouldn't care that they keep moving everything
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Old 26 Jan 2022, 09:57 AM   #13
smtper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
I have one but found some of my mail would not arrive at some M/s & Google email services, so slowly went back to a fastmail domain.
That's concerning. How recent was this? Did you use Fastmail's nameservers with your domains? Did you try using your domain with other email services?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
In my case, I found moving my notes and files was the slowest and required the most manual work on my part.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Fortunately, I don't have any notes or files.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
As to UI changes, good luck finding a provider that doesn't suddenly change the UI from time to time!
Hm, with current trends, maybe this needs to be addressed first. What provider has been around long enough and who doesn't do this? Or maybe we can make a list of those who do so they can be avoided.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
In my experience probably the longest lived UIs are good old Roundcube, which I don't like, and Gmail. Strangely, Gmail changes very slowly, and often provides access to the old version for quite awhile after making any big changes.
Gmail actually still allows using the basic HTML interface!

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en

Though they've been making it hard to switch over the years. And because its the "old" interface, it fortunately never changes.

Now that you brought this up, if I don't find anything better, I'm considering switching back to Gmail. And migration would be super fast since I already have most things already set up there.

Quote:
Originally Posted by earlybird View Post
If you really want to leave, Fastmail makes it really easy.
Thanks for the checklist of what to do!
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Old 26 Jan 2022, 10:13 AM   #14
Terry
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mail trouble a few months ago....gave up trying to sorted it was mainly a known M/s problem, but annoying to phone people are ask for them to check their junk mail folder.

The problem was not with Fastmail, also I used terry@mydomain and the terry part gets flagged as spam.
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Old 26 Jan 2022, 10:48 AM   #15
smtper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeR View Post
Same here, I'm interested too in what the OP decides too.
I thinking of reading through this thread http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=76258 and going through this list https://www.thinkprivacy.ch/email/ plus Runbox, Purelymail and migadu.

If anyone know that any of these do change their UI let me know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeR View Post
My ideal situation would be to have my own custom-made web based access to fastmail where I set the UI & nobody messes with it.

If I had computer smarts I would dedicate myself to setting up my own web-based equivalent to thunderbird or outlook. Then I wouldn't care that they keep moving everything.
An alternate frontend would be great. But even that still carries the risk of Fastmail changing the backend on you.

Unless you're setting an IMAP and CalDAV client. For example, Roundcube mentioned earlier in this thread. But then you don't have access to other stuff like Settings for managing domains and aliases, etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeR View Post
I'm sick of the UI changes.
I've often dreamed of a software company that just makes clones of software or website with older UI, whenever a major UI change happens.

Last edited by smtper : 27 Jan 2022 at 10:27 AM.
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