Goofbye Gmail

As I have been writing about lately, we are in the process of detangling ourselves from big tech. Both of us have used Gmail for many years, and now we want to stop. It's going to be a long process. I studied this a bit and knew what I was getting myself into. There are some things I can share that will make this process easier for anyone who undertakes it.

I have my own domain. Anyone can buy one. They are just a few dollars a year. Most email services that you have to pay for, even iCloud from Apple, allow you to use your own domain when you set them up. The benefit to doing this is that if you ever want to move to another email service, you can take your domain with you, and you'll never have to change your address again.

The service I chose was Fastmail. Because I am a member of OMG.LOL, I got a 10% discount off the price of a two-person account. Still, it's going to run us about $90 a year for full-service accounts that include email, contacts, calendars and document storage. Fastmail was able to import all the mail from my Gmail account, all 156,000 messages as well as my hundreds of contacts in less than two hours. It will also continue to import messages as long as the account is open, so I am not under the gun to get the transition done rushing. I will probably never close my Gmail account. I will just stop using it over time as I transition.

Most of us use our email addresses for two primary purposes. One is to get email, of course. The other use is as our username at the many, many websites that require one. I have 276 accounts where my Gmail address is also my account name, ranging from the American Automobile Association to Zoom. Many of these are critical, like my bank, my insurance company, my pension plan and others. Some are inconsequential — like Airbnb, where it doesn't really matter if I just start a new account. There isn't a shortcut to changing these accounts, according to the Internet. I know because I asked. I'm just going to have to slog through a few each day until I get it finished.

I got a free app from the Apple Store for iOS called Unroll.me that allowed me to unsubscribe from a lot of the newsletters I receive without having to find an email from every one of them, find the link, click on it and go through the process manually. Instead of resubscribing to them using my new email address, I am going to use a feature of my RSS service, Inoreader that generates special email addresses that result in the newsletter being sent to them on my behalf. I can then read the newsletters using their app instead of receiving them in my email inbox. I can cut down on the email I get, while still keeping up with the newsletters I like.

I will also have to notify all of my contacts of my new email address. I'm already suffering a bit because I recently stopped using Facebook. I used Messenger quite a bit and there was no way to migrate or export those conversations. Now I am putting another potential stumbling block into staying in touch with some people. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of the process of getting away from the big tech companies. It is by design.

I am sure as this process moves along, I will learn more about how to better handle it. When I do, I will pass those tips along.

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