What are people’s thoughts on using Apple email? I was thinking of switching from Gmail.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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Do you mean iCloud Mail? I assume it is as secure as all the other iCloud services themselves. Personally, I don't use iCloud (except for the "Find my" feature). But you can set up any third party Email service with the Apple's Mail app. I use Mailbox.org as email provider and have it set up with the Mail app on my iPhone. It works flawlessly. Third party email providers often come with additional costs (the lowest tier with Mailbox.org was 12 € each year when I switched from a freemail provider a couple of years ago). I don't know if iCloud Mail is free of charge, other than additional storage space.
Yes an iCloud email. I have an iCloud subscription already and I also use the Hidr my Email feature a lot. But everything right now is forwarded to Gmail.
So I’d like to just switch completely over to iCloud, maybe even have a hide my email for every account I have. I feel like Apple is one of the safer ones to go with because as far as I know (maybe I’m wrong) they aren’t in the business of selling user data.
I want private and safe, but also simple and easy. I wonder if Apple is a good balance here.
Apples eco system does have pretty good safety features. As far as I have heard, Apple is indeed not up to sell user data outside their eco system. However, they collect data from their users and use it for their own purposes. It is always a good advice to go through each setting (of phone as well as laptop) and evaluate if it is needed for functionality (e.g. location services or access for the camera or contacts). Not only will this measurement reduce the amount of (usually) unneccessary data that is being transmitted otherwise, but it will also improve battery life as well.
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Do you mean an @icloud.com address?
Yes an iCloud email. I have an iCloud subscription already and I also use the Hidr my Email feature a lot. But everything right now is forwarded to Gmail.
So I’d like to just switch completely over to iCloud, maybe even have a hide my email for every account I have. I feel like Apple is one of the safer ones to go with because as far as I know (maybe I’m wrong) they aren’t in the business of selling user data.
I want private and safe, but also simple and easy. I wonder if Apple is a good balance here.
How techie are you? If the answer is not very much, then forget about this; but, if medium, then I would try to set up a custom domain so that all your emails are easy to migrate.
For example: you buy fosterj.me, and now, all your emails are like: [email protected], [email protected], or even, lets say, [email protected]
This way, you would only have a single migration to do (Gmail -> fosterj.com), and, from then on, you are independent to choose which provider to associate with.
For this providers, you have the following options (which, if not tech savvy, you can use without the custom domain, simply by registering, lets say, [email protected] or [email protected]):
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Apple: Ok, they don't sell your data, but they CAN do it and they hace access to all your mails
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Protonmail or Tutanota: They DO NOT have access to your emails, only YOU can read them using their SEPARATE apps (so, no more apple mail app, but, in exchange, you are private from your provider)
I would personally recommend ProtonMail + Custom Domain, or simply ProtonMail, but it depends on what you can and w@nt to do :p
I hope I was clear, feel free to ask me for more clarifications!
Tagging @[email protected] for more context
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Dovecot + Postfix + SpamExperts
+1 for postfix.
If you do this it's good to use something like mxroute as an SMTP server so deliverability is their problem.
Can I ask what client you prefer?
I dislike thunderbird and roundcube.
The Spam Experts inbound filter is quite efficient at preventing spam and allows you to manage which domains have permission to send emails to your domains. As for the client, I usually check emails from my mobile phone, and since I have Android, I use K9-Mail, which for me is the best option available. There's also FairEmail if you're interested in trying it. For desktop computers, I generally use Roundcube; I think it's fine for basic needs. Occasionally, I also use the email integration from Nextcloud, though I can't remember the client's name. Thunderbird has improved significantly in recent years, and I think it's a good alternative. I have also used Mailspring, which is open-source, although there was a part of it that I wasn't completely satisfied with.
protonmail, tuta or guerillamail. i'm using proton, it is great, even the free version
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purelymail, or if one guy running email by himself makes you feel uncomfortable, migadu
Migadu is like two guys running email? 😂 no 2FA support
two guys running email?
Is it? I can't tell from the about me. It says "In 2014, two of us, Michael Bruderer and Dejan Strbac, started...", but nothing else on the page talks about the size of the company. It started as two people, but is it currently two people? Anyone know?
no 2FA support
The webmail client does have 2FA, but when connecting via client there is no 2FA. Although, not sure what this would look like. Would you enter a TOTP every time you want to connect to the IMAP server? Or do you mean more like an OAuth2 flow, like Gmail, and that asks for your TOTP?
I actually haven't gotten around to playing with purelymail. Not sure if they handle this differently. What service are you thinking about?
Imap doesnt support 2fa.
IMAP protocol as well email clients do not support second factor authentication for the mailboxes. Even if they did, IMAP connections are made way too often which would make authentication unusable. Imagine needing to enter your TOTP token every few minutes. We could enable 2FA on the webmail, but IMAP/POP/SMTP accesses remain unprotected which beats the purpose. We are working on solution here which will allow sand-boxing a username/password pair to a webmail use only. We do offer so called App-specific passwords via mailbox identities though. These are commonly touted by email providers as 2FA. They are not.
My problem is the whole change of address thing. Unfortunately google had perfect timing when they offered a decent amount of storage. It was early enough that changing email was no big deal and late enough that soon it would be. I very much don't like this because if google like just went dark all of a sudden it would be a bad day. Yeah I know its unlikely to the xtreme but still. I know privacy people do not like this idea but I really would like the government to run an email where all citizens are guaranteed one. To me this would make it much easier to have an official one and other emails. I don't get why folks are ok with corporations doing it and trust that they will use safeguards but don't trust the government would. The US postal service is a good example. Laws were well made to protect mail to the point where one way of safeguarding things from police searches was to put it in a stamped envelope. Man I wish our current society and government would be doing things like that again.
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