This video covers Privacy & Encryption settings
You'll learn about all of Aster's privacy and encryption related settings & configuration options available to keep your inbox secure the way you want it.
More tutorials and informal videos are on the way to the official channel!
Give it a watch, or send it to a friend who wants to take control of their privacy settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9RGxxag9qI
No more going between registrars, copying DNS records, or paying normal rates, instead enjoy:
- Buying domains: right in Aster!
- Instant setup: your new domain is automatically ready to use for custom email addresses
- Zero manual configuration: DNS, MX records, and verification are automatically handled for you
- Ease of use: manage your domain and email together, no third-party logins required
To get started, just head over to the "Aliases & Domains" section under the general settings, and navigate over to the "Domains" tab. Then you should see a new section titled "Purchased domains" where you will be able to grab your new custom domain.
This is optional! Domains from other registrars work exactly like they always have, this is just another option.
Recently you may have noticed, Aster Mail looks a little different. We've cleaned up the interface, and made it easier to navigate.
- A cleaner inbox: Less visual noise, and redesigned categories to make it easier to switch between them.
- A tidier sidebar: Sidebar items have been slightly adjusted and the sidebar now also collapses if you'd rather have the room.
- Consistent UI: Settings menu, visual customization, and profile icons moved to more predictable spots based on where people kept looking for them.
The new design is live for everyone today so check it out!
Found something that feels off? Let us know through the feedback form in the settings menu.
Aster Mail is rolling out our new translation feature which adds an integrated translation feature which runs entirely on your device using self-hosted models (nothing is ever sent off to a translation service), You're able to add languages you already know to your "Languages you read" or "Never translate" lists, and select when you want this feature to turn on, or off.
Please note this feature is not enabled by default, to enable it go to: Settings → Behavior → Translation →Translate Incoming Mail → Enable
There's support for many languages so try it out, and feel free to give us any feedback!
We also released new founder walkthrough covering all about sending to external emails!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osjWi_nYm4E
Welcome to r/AsterPrivacy, the official community for Aster Mail, our privacy-first, end to end encrypted email service. This is the place to connect with others who care about protecting their inbox and taking back control of their communications, and we are genuinely glad you are here. If you are one of our early members, you are helping shape this community from the very start, and that means a great deal to us!
What to Post
We welcome anything the community would find interesting, helpful, or worth discussing! Share your migration stories, your questions about PGP and key management, your thoughts on end to end encryption, the ways you are de-Googling your life, and any feedback or ideas you have for Aster Mail itself. And if you are new to all of this and unsure where to begin, you are just as welcome here, because everyone started somewhere, and the question you hesitate to ask is often the one many others are wondering about too!
Community
We keep things friendly, constructive, and welcoming around here, and we care a lot about making privacy feel approachable instead of intimidating. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing, learning, and connecting, whether you have been running your own mail server for ten years or you are just now hearing the words "public key" for the very first time!
How to Get Started
Introduce yourself in the comments below and tell us what brought you here, because we honestly cannot wait to meet you!
Post something today, since even a simple question about encryption or email privacy can turn into a really good conversation.
If you know someone who would love this community, send them our way, because a privacy community only gets better when more thoughtful people show up.
Have a question for the team behind Aster Mail? Drop it here anytime, because we actually read this subreddit and we love hearing from the people we are building this for!
Lets make r/AsterPrivacy something special! 💙
Just makes you think, if a simple, ALPR can lead to situations like this, what could abuse of flock provided information lead to?
This video covers PGP Key management
You'll learn about all of Aster's PGP related settings & configuration options available to get the most out of said features.
More tutorials and informal videos are on the way to the official channel! (Weekly uploads)
Give it a watch, or send it to a friend who wants to properly manage their PGP settings: https://youtu.be/F_MIbOMF_iY
This week was about reliability, stability, and security. We have fixed tons of bugs, more than we can count in one post, plus we rolled out a few new features. From this point on, we aim to release weekly update logs to the community, as silence is the worst possible thing. With that being said, here is this week’s update log:
Android App. This release was mostly about Android. It got the biggest batch of fixes this round, from faster and more reliable notifications to more dependable sending, on top of the long list of smaller fixes below. Update as soon as you can to pick them all up. Get it on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.astermail.android or grab the APK directly from our download page here: https://astermail.org/download. F-Droid is still pending, we have submitted and are waiting on their approval.
iOS App. Our iOS TestFlight build is ready, and we will start sending invites out to beta testers later this week. If you signed up to test, keep an eye on your inbox.
Folder Auto-Clean. You can set a folder to clear out old mail on its own after a set amount of time. Good for the folders you never want to deal with by hand.
Mail Rule Templates. For most people, building filters from scratch can be annoying and a pain, so we added ready-made templates that you can start from.
Password-Protected Expiring Messages (Android). You can now send a message that is password protected and quantum safe on Android now.
Reply tracking protection. When you reply to or forward a message, the images in it will now load through our privacy proxy, so a sender is unable to slip a tracking pixel in and watch whenever you open it. We actively block these pixels with our privacy and tracker protection, and remote images load cleanly without ruining the email.
Family Kids Addresses. You are now able to reserve email addresses for your kids on Duo and Family plans so they have an address when they grow up.
Everything else. This is where most of the work went this week. We closed a long list of bugs and rolled them out everywhere at once:
This is just some of the biggest bug fixes we have done. We have done lots of minor changes, and the full list is a lot longer.
Like always, our whole codebase is on GitHub under AGPLv3 at github.com/Aster-Privacy if you want to read through the changes or contribute.
You can see every commit on one page in the changelog here: https://astermail.org/changelog/
Thanks again to everyone here who reports issues and helps make Aster better. 💙
Go try it out at https://app.astermail.org / https://astermail.org
This week was all about you! We have put an entire week's worth of work into making your account harder to attack and your identity harder to fake, with security and user protection improvements rolled out across every platform. In this post, we will outline everything that has been completed.
Bridge is now fully released on every platform. We have officially rolled out Aster Bridge everywhere, which means you can connect Aster to any IMAP or POP3 client you love. This includes Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Outlook, K-9, or another one of your choosing. Your mail runs through the same encryption and will seamlessly sync with the web UI. It is worth noting that this is available on the Star plan and up. https://astermail.org/bridge
Send-only SMTP tokens. We have added send-only SMTP tokens so your scripts, servers, and third-party apps can send mail from your address without ever needing to hold the keys to the rest of your account. Each token is a dedicated credential that can only send and can never read. It is locked to one of your verified custom domain addresses. You can generate one under the Bridge tab in settings and use it with any standard SMTP client or library. You can also revoke it at any time. You no longer need to worry about handing it to an outside service, because every token is send-only and scoped to a single address. This will never expose your inbox, your other addresses, or your password. If a token were to ever be leaked, you can remotely revoke it while everything else is not touched. It's worth noting that this is available on the Star Plan and up.
Verification badges. People impersonating another person is a classic way to phish somebody. This is why we built verification badges. Official Aster accounts now carry a verification badge, so when you see it, you know the account on the other end is not an attacker.
Lockdown mode for Vanguard. We have also rolled out Lockdown Mode for Aster Vanguard, our Advanced Protection Mode for users operating under a high-risk security model. With one tap, it blocks all external content, hides your notification previews, and stops your screen from being captured on the Aster apps, and it cannot be turned off by accident. Available on Nova and up. You can find more information here: https://astermail.org/blog/lockdown-mode/
Security fixes and account protection across every platform. Alongside the main updates, we have rolled out a large batch of security changes this week. We have also closed some bugs and tightened protection around your account. These have all been rolled out to all platforms at once to help protect you and your account.
As always, you can find and audit our codebase on GitHub under AGPLv3 here github.com/Aster-Privacy if you would like to read through the changes or contribute, we are actively looking for contributors.
We have also rolled out a change log, which shows you all of our commits on one page and can be located here: https://astermail.org/changelog/
We have rolled out a ton of bug fixes for Android, please update to receive these fixes.
Thank you again to everybody in this community who reports issues and helps us make Aster Mail better! 💙
Go try it out at https://app.astermail.org / https://astermail.org
We get asked a ton about what is coming next for Aster. This is why we decided we should make a public roadmap. We have officially made our roadmap public so you are able to see what we are planning and what we are actively working on.
Everything is grouped by the quarter that we are aiming to finish it under. Please note that these are targets and not promises, so things are able to shift around as our priorities change. This will give you a real look at where Aster is headed.
Here is a preview of some of the things that are on it:
- iOS app
- An encrypted authenticator
- An encrypted calendar
- Breach monitoring so you get alerted if your address shows up in a known breach
- Crypto and cash payments
- Rewards for security researchers who responsibly report bugs
- F-Droid release, a public changelog, and more
If there is a feature that you would like to see, the roadmap is the best place to point you to. Your feedback will help us decide what to prioritize.
You can view it here: https://github.com/orgs/Aster-Privacy/projects/2
This video covers contacts and addresses.
You'll learn how to add and manage your contacts, keep your address book organized so it's easy to pull people up when you're writing mail, and create and use additional addresses on your account so you can send and receive from more than one address without juggling separate logins.
More tutorials and informal videos are on the way to the official channel! (Weekly uploads)
Give it a watch, or send it to a friend who wants more than one address on a single inbox: https://youtu.be/EOC56uRgrmc
