I’ve moved away from Chrome and Google Search. But I’m struggling to move away from Gmail, especially since this email is linked to so many critical official accounts (bank, government agencies)
Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere?
Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own ___domain name?
There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time
Visit each site in your password manager and knock over a couple a day.
You'll never get anything that fully automates this because every site does the change differently. Even LastPass's automated password changer could only ever do a handful of sites fully automatically.
I've seen everything from full self service, to manual approval, to begging their privacy/legal department, to sites claiming allowing me to change my email address would represent an unacceptable security risk. I ask those sites that make up reasons like that to delete my personal information and move to someone who understands why email addresses are bad primary keys.
If you use your own ___domain, you'll never have to do this ever again, no matter how many times you change your email provider.
You need to start today, if you wait it's only a matter of time before Google does it for you by locking you out of your account for reasons they won't explain. Browse the GMail subreddit and observe the sea of hundreds of people locked out each week.
And until the transfer is over, mail forwarding rules to the new (custom ___domain) email address would be a nice idea to not miss anything in the meantime without manually logging into Gmail.
Moving away from Gmail was easy for me. Get a new address at a reliable provider or self host. And then you can use Gmail's own Mail-forwarding functionality to forward everything to your new mail address, and theres also an option to delete the copy at gmail.
Whenever you have time, set the new address at your accounts. And after a year or two you have changed all accounts and can delete your gmail address.
A slow change is better than no change.
Fastmail will support your ___domain name and has a very good importer from Gmail. You don’t have to transition everything all at once. One thing that helps is to use different apps to access Gmail (like the official app) and Fastmail (your phone’s built-in Mail app), and if anything arrives @gmail.com, either unsubscribe or update the address.
I think you kinda have to update it manually everywhere, but that's why you get your own ___domain, so you only do it once. Personally, I discovered just how much spam/marketing email I was getting when I only migrated the "important" things to my own so I'm currently running with two emails.
As for alternatives, I have iCloud+ with my Apple One subscription I already pay for. That lets you setup five custom domains, with up to three emails each[1].
I think even if you don't switch yet, it's a good idea to change your ___domain name while you still can because most services ask for confirmation on the old email and we've all heard the horror stories with Gmail locking you out of nowhere
Another vote for Fastmail. I set up my own ___domain on there about a year ago, and have been happy. Fastmail has wildcard inboxes, so I canary trap[0] the email addresses I give to people and websites.
I like Zoho for mail handling, the free tier covers up to 5 user with a custom ___domain, the small letters is that they don't provide IMAP/POP under the free tier, but it's pretty easy to set up.
If you're concerned about privacy I would evaluate fastmail.com
Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere?
Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own ___domain name?