r/fastmail

I checked under Admin -> Domain today and found that all my domains are listed as inactive. I haven't done any changes in DNS and still received e-mails. Could this have caused any problems? Why I am not informed when the status changes? After a quick "Recheck DNS" two of three domains turned active again. For the third domain I use only "eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com" as MX. Could this cause permanent delivery issues? When are the EU MX servers officially supported?

FM is great but can't stand the way replies are nested and quoted, with the garish green / red / blue colours

Is there any way to easily customise this?

Since Google announced that they're discontinuing the "Send as" option, I'm basically left with two choices: upgrade to Google Workspace or look for another email provider. I'd prefer the latter.

I came across Fastmail during my search, and it seems to cover pretty much everything I'm looking for. Setting up the trial was easy, and I really like how straightforward the settings are. In some areas, especially custom domains, aliases and overall account setup, I actually prefer Fastmail to Gmail.

I'm just surprised by a few rough edges I really didn't expect. For example, oversized images aren't handled particularly well in either the web app or the mobile app. I receive some emails with ridiculously large images, which can mess up the entire message view in Fastmail. Zooming and scrolling do work on mobile, but having to do that manually just to read the message properly doesn't feel very user-friendly.

The same goes for 'pinned messages' (replacing Gmail's starred messages). On desktop I can use the 'Pinned' tab, but on mobile there doesn't seem to be an equivalent. I've created a saved search for 'is:pinned', which works, but it ends up all the way at the bottom of the navigation. Having a 'Pinned' item right below 'Inbox' would make so much sense to me.

I've opened a few support tickets about these things, and I should add that support has been very responsive, which is definitely a positive.

Are there any other Gmail users here who miss little things like these after switching? I'm almost certain I'm not the only one looking for Gmail alternatives after Google's announcement.

Disclaimer: I understand this post might not be a popular one in this subreddit, but I feel that, in a community largely comprising of long time, established users, the experience of new members is often eclipsed when in my case, several red flags have occurred that I think everyone should know about, not least for the sake of platform sustainability and business support.

I'm prospective migrant to Fastmail here for the sake of degoogling whilst expanding my small business. Really though, 'prospective' should be downgraded to 'unlikely' at this point. Why? Well because the free trial has been nothing short of full of headaches from the first second and FM's Australia-based support team have been more or less useless throughout.

First things first: I appreciate FM has to take some steps to prevent trial abuse when no credit card is required, but honestly, I'd much rather put in CC details (of something like a one-use virtual card) in the sign up stage just to be able to actually access the BASIC features of email, rather than piss about waiting for days for a phone number verification page to be unblocked.

So, it's been three days since my 'trial' started... and I'm yet to be able to give the platform a real try. Still can't send an email. I instantly made a ticket within minutes of encountering the verification error, assuming they had an automated protocol or keyword catch that could remove the block... nope. Close to four (4!) days later and all I have received is a pledge that my ticket has been upgraded to Tier 2?! Wow, tier 2, lucky me. I don't think I'm asking for anything too extravagant here, guys.

It's a real kick in the teeth to have such slow support so early on and it's incredibly disappointing that FastMail, as good as its platform, mission statement, and feedback from a great community may be, can't offer the most basic support necessary. From a business perspective, how could you continue with this? Why offer a free trial, 3 days of which I have effectively lost now, when there is apparent staff bottlenecks making it functionally not-fit-for-purpose? You can't.

From a sales angle it's particularly nonsensical for the system to be broken like this considering I have actively been trying to continue to push myself down the pipeline! Days of research on which email service to move to based on all my concerns and needs, and I can't even force a way to trial the apparent best 'option'? A cynic might think that the trial period is deliberately, or at least knowingly, left opaque and dysfunctional so users jump the gun and commit to the paid service off the bat...but I don't expect this from a company with a seemingly community-first mission over profit.

FastMail team, I didn't sign up for the trial to experience the colour palette of the inbox or the font size of the menus. I signed up to check that the platform works. It doesn't.

Rant over. It would be great to hear if any of the aforementioned long-time users of FM have noticed a drop off in support recently? Or, if you have heard similar stories from anyone they have recommended FM to, who have actually had to start from scratch like me?

TLDR: How can you tell me 'free trial'.... but you can't send any emails or try any other fundamental features until someone on the undersized support team who are operating from the least convenient timezone in the world, apparently not 24/7, bothers to click on your ticket and provide a fix that should be well automated and closed by 2026. And guess what the only self-fix that works is in the meantime... buying the said product upfront, despite its poor support.

I'm thinking about moving my custom domain email from Google Workspace to Fastmail. I don't use any other Google products, just the Gmail, and it will be the same with Fastmail...only the email as I am 100% in the Apple ecosystem and use their address book and calendar.

If you've migrated from Google Workspace to Fastmail and don't mind sharing your thoughts, I have a few of questions before I do this.

1. I realize nothing (including Fastmail) can best Gmail's spam filtering, but the reason it's so good is one of the reasons I want out — privacy. Has the spam been intolerable? Between Fastmail's own spam filtering and the Junk Filtering in Apple Mail apps, I'm hoping it won't be too painful.

2. Anyone using Fastmail with Apple Mail app — is PUSH full functional? No other mail service is with the Apple Mail app, but supposedly Fastmail's is.

3. My other consideration is Apple iCloud Custom Domain Email, but then I know I'd be bombarded with spam.

4. Any regrets, moving from Google Workspace?

Thanks!

​

Hey former Gmail users:

I'm having trouble getting comfortable with way Fastmail does Compose. In Gmail, it's an overlay that sits at the bottom of your inbox and can be minimized/restored as needed. This is nice because I can keep everything in one browser window and reference other emails, search inbox, etc as I'm composing.

In Fastmail, Compose either takes up the whole window or you have to pop it out into its own window and jump between windows to reference things, which isn't always easy when multitasking with other tasks open on your PC.

So I'm just curious how former Gmail folks deal with this. Any tips? Or will I just need to get used to it?

I have to say, first and foremost, I never thought I would spend money on an email provider besides a Google workspace account for a business. If you are curious or on the fence, keep reading below. I had some of these questions and couldn't find exact answers so I'm hoping my journey helps someone.

I decided to try FM last year and honestly within days I decided to upgrade to a paid account. Initially, I didn't migrate all of my Gmail emails. I then decided to migrate my emails but I had a concern that I was going to bog down FM so I deleted the imported emails as what you do in FM won't affect Gmail, with an exception. (This is mentioned below.) I decided to just clean Gmail myself. Well, cleaning Gmail can be a complete pain, plus, I'm really trying to get rid of Gmail all together. This brings me to now and why I consider FM the ULTIMATE email provider and would and will CONTINUE to pay them!

Here are my reasons. This is my use case so you may need more technical reasons, but I'm just average and simplistic. I need to say I do have a custom domain that I use in FM and also utilize Simple Login via Proton with a lifetime subscription that I was using before FM but this still works perfectly and I'm glad I have my setup. Without getting too far off track, I have some catch-all emails from SL forwarded to FM, in addition to the ones that are in FM with my custom domain. I have more that one custom domain.

Present day - First, I started about 2 weeks ago having FM fetch all new emails from Gmail as some accounts I can't change the email address. Also, I set FM up to automatically delete the email from Gmail. So that I can tell exactly what is being forwarded to Gmail, I created a label called Gmail Importing 📬. Literally with this emoji and have directly FM to put all incoming emails into that folder. I can now either delete the email, change the address from Gmail if I can or unsubscribe.

While this works, beautifully, I have to check spam because I'm finding some emails are going directly to spam even though they are expected emails I want. The great news is I can reply to emails in FM with my Gmail account and it looks like it's coming from Gmail and not FM. Then, I imported ALL my emails from Gmail. I had about 30k emails dating back to 2018. The really old ones are some that are very personal from a deceased parent and others are receipt purchases for items still under warranty, proof of purchase for lifetime subscriptions that are still going strong and other very important information. The migration was super quick and I did a random check and everything was there. Once I confirmed the emails were in FM, I mass deleted all my Gmail emails to ZERO!

The imported emails created tags to mimic the folders I have in Gmail so it was easy to identify what was in Gmail. I then moved the imported Gmail folders out of the Imported parent folder to a non-parent folder so it looks like it was a part of FM to begin with. The emails that were in the Imported folder I retitled to Inbox Gmail. You can't rename the FM Inbox name but you can rename the imported folders. Now I can delete and move as needed.

In FM, there are labels and folders. Trust me, labels are your friend. I learned the hard way when I first started. I'm glad because this process would not have worked the way I wanted if I hadn't started using labels.

I added emojis to my label names and at a glance it makes sorting easier.

Tips:

1. In case you aren't aware, you can open an email, click on the 3 dots and select Show details. Where you see the senders address, click on it and you will see a another set of options, one of which is Search email. Click that and you will new shown EVERY email sent by that sender with all the tags given. You can now with mass delete, change the tags as needed and generally take control of your emails.

2. Sort your labels and move you Gmail Imports to the top for ease.

3. Go into the labels and select Advanced preferences and click Discard duplicate messages on delivery to help clean things up.

I hope what I provided helps you. I still have some clean up to do, but I FINALLY feel like I'm in control and can clean up Gmail emails so much easier in FM than in Gmail and don't have to go back to Gmail to accomplish things. Gmail made it so hard to do certain things on the app and you were forced to go to their website. I'm not always on a computer and want to do some things will I'm sitting down watching TV, etc. I appreciate the fact I can do the same things on the FM app that I can on the app. I know some have complained about this, but personally, I'm appreciative. I can do anything I need to do on the go!

This post was not meant to address privacy, but is directed at those thinking about joining FM and/or are trying to decide why a paid plan is good.

Curious to know your thoughts and if you discovered something new or if this helps you make a better decision?

Hi all,

When I open newsletters that contain images, the iOS app loads images very slowly, meaning they are created from
top to bottom piece by piece, like in the slow internet days.

This is however not a device or internet connection issue as the same emails load in Apple Mail without an issue.

Anybody else seeing this?
My data location is in the EU

If you're using Fastmail with custom DNS and want to point supported services at their EU infrastructure, this is the generic setup I ended up with.

Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain.

MX — ROOT DOMAIN
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
yourdomain.com                   10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
yourdomain.com                   20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

Allows you to receive email at standard addresses, e.g. user@yourdomain.com


MX — WILDCARD SUBDOMAINS
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
*.yourdomain.com                 10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
*.yourdomain.com                 20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

Allows you to receive email at subdomain addresses, e.g. foo@user.yourdomain.com


A — MAIL
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
mail.yourdomain.com              204.75.18.65

Allows you to use http://mail.yourdomain.com as a Fastmail login redirect.
At the time of testing, this IP hit Fastmail's Amsterdam frontend.


MX — MAIL
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
mail.yourdomain.com              10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
mail.yourdomain.com              20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

The A record for mail.yourdomain.com overrides the wildcard MX lookup.
These MX records preserve mail delivery to addresses such as:
foo@mail.yourdomain.com


SRV — MAIL CLIENT DISCOVERY
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
_submission._tcp.yourdomain.com  0 0 0 .
_imap._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 0 0 .
_pop3._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 0 0 .

_submissions._tcp.yourdomain.com 0 1 465 eu-smtp.fastmail.com
_imaps._tcp.yourdomain.com       0 1 993 eu-imap.fastmail.com
_pop3s._tcp.yourdomain.com       10 1 995 eu-pop.fastmail.com
_jmap._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 1 443 eu-api.fastmail.com
_autodiscover._tcp.yourdomain.com
                                 0 1 443 eu-autodiscover.fastmail.com

Allows compatible email clients to automatically discover the EU Fastmail endpoints.


SRV — CARDDAV
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
_carddav._tcp.yourdomain.com     0 0 0 .
_carddavs._tcp.yourdomain.com    0 1 443 eu-carddav.fastmail.com

Allows CardDAV clients to automatically discover the EU CardDAV endpoint.MX — ROOT DOMAIN
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
yourdomain.com                   10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
yourdomain.com                   20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

Allows you to receive email at standard addresses, e.g. user@yourdomain.com


MX — WILDCARD SUBDOMAINS
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
*.yourdomain.com                 10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
*.yourdomain.com                 20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

Allows you to receive email at subdomain addresses, e.g. foo@user.yourdomain.com


A — MAIL
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
mail.yourdomain.com              204.75.18.65

Allows you to use http://mail.yourdomain.com as a Fastmail login redirect.

At the time of testing, this IP hit Fastmail's Amsterdam frontend.


MX — MAIL
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
mail.yourdomain.com              10 eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com
mail.yourdomain.com              20 eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com

The A record for mail.yourdomain.com overrides the wildcard MX lookup.
These MX records preserve mail delivery to addresses such as:
foo@mail.yourdomain.com


SRV — MAIL CLIENT DISCOVERY
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
_submission._tcp.yourdomain.com  0 0 0 .
_imap._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 0 0 .
_pop3._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 0 0 .

_submissions._tcp.yourdomain.com 0 1 465 eu-smtp.fastmail.com
_imaps._tcp.yourdomain.com       0 1 993 eu-imap.fastmail.com
_pop3s._tcp.yourdomain.com       10 1 995 eu-pop.fastmail.com
_jmap._tcp.yourdomain.com        0 1 443 eu-api.fastmail.com
_autodiscover._tcp.yourdomain.com
                                 0 1 443 eu-autodiscover.fastmail.com

Allows compatible email clients to automatically discover the EU Fastmail endpoints.


SRV — CARDDAV
Domain                           Data
-------------------------------  -------------------------------------------
_carddav._tcp.yourdomain.com     0 0 0 .
_carddavs._tcp.yourdomain.com    0 1 443 eu-carddav.fastmail.com

Allows CardDAV clients to automatically discover the EU CardDAV endpoint.

A few notes:

• eu1-smtp.messagingengine.com and eu2-smtp.messagingengine.com are used for inbound MX.
• eu-smtp.fastmail.com, eu-imap.fastmail.com, eu-pop.fastmail.com, etc. are the regional client endpoints.
• 204.75.18.65 is Fastmail's EU redirect frontend; in my testing it returned X-Frontend: ams-frontend-01.
• The records with target . intentionally disable the non-TLS discovery service.
• I would still keep Fastmail's normal SPF and DKIM records unless Fastmail explicitly documents EU-specific replacements, since those are authentication records rather than client-routing records.

I tested the regional endpoints with DNS lookups, openssl s_client, and curl, and they were terminating on Fastmail infrastructure in Amsterdam.

Coming from Thunderbird and Outlook, there is an ability to mark emails as completed/done/etc. I know I could give these a different label or folder, but I want to keep them where they are, but show that they have been dealt with.

Is this possible? If not, is there anywhere to put in a feature request?

Anyone have experience moving from Proton to Fastmail? I have my custom domain setup in Fastmail and downloaded my email from Proton using their CLI export tool. How can I import them onto Fastmail?

Anyone else have this issue? The :15 :30 :45 minute selections don't show up when creating an event on Fastmail calendar. I have to choose the hour then manually type in the minutes...

MS Edge Browser

EDIT: Actually, the numbers are there! You just cannot see them. You can click in the area and get the :15 :30 :45 -- so it's something with the color choices or theme...

https://preview.redd.it/hb9hzqz5v4jh1.png?width=553&format=png&auto=webp&s=8317f81de562bf92422bc1fa193dcffe805f6cde

I’ve noticed I’ve been getting a lot more emails with no inline images displaying lately. I’ve noticed all my emails from BofA are not showing. I forwarded the email to Gmail and it showed fine. I’m having these issues on FM website and iOS app. Anyone else notice more emails are not displaying inline images?

Edit: FM support got back to me and its a proxy issue. Work around is using a 3rd party mail app to access my emails. Oh well.

With email covered by Fastmail, what apps for vpn, password manager, and notes do you recommend?

I'm experiencing my emails being delivered to recipients spam folders, it's happened for two separate people I have emailed. It happens both were Gmail users, so is Gmail marking Fastmail as spam? Is there anything I can do to get around this as it's obviously not good. Fastmail is my primary email provider and I can't have emails not being received.

I've been using Tuta, but Fastmail is really tempting.

What makes me want to choose Fastmail:

- features (especially the ability to use anything@john.fastmail.com after creating john@fastmail.com alias),
- hundrets of aliases,
- webmail session safety - Tuta is actually blind to session hijacking and does not force you to log in again if an anomaly is detected, because Tuta simply does not detect login anomalies,
- so good Fastmail UX/UI,
- much better app for Android.

What makes me want to stay with Tuta:

- Fastmail offers no encryption (only email body at-rest and they can decrypt that any time if they want),
- Fastmail is australian service with servers in the US (Europe protects your personal data better),
- Tuta is cheaper and more private.

What do you think guys?
Please, don't advertise the other providers - I tried almost all of them, and the choice is between Tuta and Fastmail - nothing else.

Gmail announced a couple of days ago that they're sunsetting their "Send as" feature for externally hosted email addresses. See thread in r/GMail.

This change completely cripples my workflow, so I immediately started looking for alternatives. I hadn't heard about Fastmail before, but it came up in my search. So I started a free trial yesterday.

And I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly I came to love Fastmail! I'm amazed that it feels like a seamless drop-in replacement for Gmail. It has every feature I need for my workflows, such as "Send as" and "Schedule send". The web and Android app experience feels modern and polished.

I completed my account setup and data migration within a day. And already I'm up and running with all my workflows on Fastmail, and everything already feels so natural.

I know it must have taken a lot of hard work to build such a polished product. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the Fastmail team for your great work! You may see other Gmail refugees come to your shores in the coming weeks, haha.

I'm considering the family plan for up to 6 users which i believe are considered seats. How does that limitation work in terms of domains? What about aliases ie site specific email addresses or disposable one offs? Can domains be mixed between seats, can a seat have unlimited alias@domain.com addresses? I like the feature list but thinking Migadu might better serve.

Join the Fastmail support team and help make email better for people all over the world. If you love solving tricky technical problems, writing, and helping others, we'd love to hear from you.