Moving from Hey to Fastmail
blog.francocorrea.comWas looking for a Gmail alternative, several months ago, and had to pick between these two.
I went with Fastmail and am very happy.
Tons of aliases that are easy to use, the UX is actually _much better_ than Gmail.
Same here. I switched to Fastmail from Gmail a few years ago and it’s absolutely fantastic. The app is great, no AI magic, things just all work exactly as they should.
About the only thing I dislike about Fastmail is there's no equivalent to gmail's "unread-first" view. IE show unread messages first, in reverse-chronological order, then all read messages, in reverse-chronological order.
I miss that somewhat too, but settled for adding a saved search for is:unread, which is good enough for when I want to clear out older unread mail.
Two tabs, one with the unread filter selected?
Not exactly the same, but close enough for my use. I usually run 2-3 tabs 1.inbox, 2.lists, 3.someothercriteria
Seconded about Fastmail. I use it to host mail on my own domain. I’m almost done migrating from Gmail to Fastmail.
I recently discovered their alias feature. It’s super useful for all those subscription things.
Same. I have a wildcard alias, and all my logins use different email addresses. Super useful to tell if some service gets hacked or otherwise leaks email addresses.
I use Fastmail as well. I'm totally fine with the web version but the app really needs some more love and improvements.
I agree. I really wish they had a native app instead of a wrapper of the web app.
I don’t get Hey.
I feel like it does too much magic with my inbox.
Much like social media, I don’t want some algorithm to selectively decide what messages I see and what I don’t. I want to be able to see All messages, in a chronological order.
Having concert tickets not arrive in my inbox that I need because some magic is happening due to the sender being a first time sender to me is just frustrating.
I get what you’re feeling, but the magic is you. You decide where things route. After that it’s magic.
Unlike social media and opaque algos, you decide what goes to the feed, to the paper trail, who gets screened in and out, etc…
I’ve found it super useful, my email was a nightmare before.
Not sure why you’re getting down voted because you’re right. There is no magic to Hey, you explicitly tell it which “folder” a sender’s email should go to. It’s not perfect because some senders use the same address for different types of emails (receipts versus offers), but there’s no magic about where an email from them will go.
Hey's biggest fail is missing notifications for first time senders. It seems to assume people are constantly using email. But for me days can sometimes go by until I am active rather than reactive on a particular account. With Hey, I only then realized that there were two emails stuck waiting for me screening them.
This is why I'm cancelling my hey subscription as well. I get that they are upfront about it being a feature, and it sounds great at first, but it's made me paranoid about missing mails now - a feeling I never got with any other service provider. It's a shame, as I got in pretty early and bagged a great account name (firstname @ hey.com). But it's not worth sacrificing my sanity for vanity.
There’s no magic in Hey. No algorithms or AI. You literally filter everything manually.
It’s the complete opposite of what you’re describing.
Yeah, I can relate. The ephemeral and mercurial character of those things really bugs me. I stopped using Facebook because it's useless - once I scrolled past something I could never find it again. Infuriating.
On a funny note, I seem to recall a Dilbert strip with a spam filter that became sentient and started controlling the company by controlling the flow of email but I'm unable to find it at the moment ;)
I love how a bunch of the "headline features" of Hey are effectively replicated with taking the time to make a few rules in another platform. I tried Hey at the peak of it's pre-release hype, but just like Basecamp, it's just a really mediocre experience in a sea of options.
I had the same thought, but made the opposite conclusion. I setup gmail and outlook to work like hey and tried them for a week each. While it technically worked, their UIs are not optimized for that type of work flow so it was a lot more clicks to achieve the same ends.
After my experiment I paid for Hey, and have been really happy with it.
Would you mind sharing tips/examples of Hey-esque rules to port to other platforms?
I tried briefly to replicate some of Hey's features with gmail but with limited success. I think the key workflows are:
1. Unknown senders go to a bucket for categorization
2. Easily categorize which senders are "important"/"unimportant"/"ignore,spam"
IMHO, services like Hey is for people who don't know how, or don't want to bother, to set proper inbox rules (it has many other features for sure but organizing emails is one of the biggest selling point as far as I see).
But for me, I just want a reliable, dumb, boring email service without any "smart" features. I will decide what to do with every type of incoming emails myself. Fastmail gives me exactly that.
I could see this being a view for some. I’d say most users on hacker news know how to set up complex rules for email. A guess, but a safe one.
The magic of Hey is the user interface. The “opinionated” nature of their design choices.
To me, their workflows mostly made sense. For me it really really smooths out my email workflow into a logical set of steps.
Other people may not like that flow, and Hey wouldn’t be for them.
So I’d counter and say Hey is for 2 groups. 1. Those who don’t know how to set up complex rules 2. Those who don’t want to, and Hey’s flow works with their own.
For me, Hey isn't just about filtering emails, although it does that well out of the box. It's the collaboration features and the small things like the Files page and Reply Later that I would miss if I went back to a traditional service like FastMail/Gmail/Proton/etc.
Isn't "Reply Later" just another folder/tag/label? And I personally just mark an email as unread if I need to take another look at it later for any reason.
Oh sure, most of Hey is totally reproducible. The combination of beautiful interface, logical workflow, and thoughtful touches are what set it apart. For some people that matters, others, not as much.
I've also been using HEY for a year of personal email, and just renewed my subscription.
I spend a lot of time organizing and managing email at work. I have multiple inboxes, hundreds of tags, filter rules etc.
When I tried HEY for my personal gmail, it just felt like a breath of fresh air. They were wrapping friendly UX around the realities of modern email. It wasn't "work" to manage my email.
I recognize their system is limited if you want to do that stuff - not sure I'd use HEY for work yet - but if you're inundated with email (as I was, having a gmail address dating back to beta), they do a great job of making it manageable without any effort on your part.
I use HEY for work (we're a two people company) and I love the collab features!
I also implemented a vaguely Hey-inspired system in Fastmail a year ago and it's been good.
One tweak that's really helped me: when I filter things to "The Feed", I also use the filter to snooze them until 6pm, so I only get mailing list emails once at a day.
Just this week I started looking into Gmail alternatives (as well as de-Googling myself as much as possible) and while I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet, Fastmail is looking like the top contender at the moment.
Hey was on the table for a bit, but no matter how much I read about their alternative workflow, I just don't understand how it would be an improvement over my typical method of archiving emails as I get through them. My email is essentially just a to-do list. Once I've dealt with something, into the archive it goes, and I don't think about it again unless it shows up in a search result when I'm looking for something later.
I've just never had a problem with it so I don't see a need to reinvent the wheel and learn a new method of using email.
Yeah, gmail hit the nail on the head. No folders (originally), liberal use of archive, and you can still delete for true garbage.
Spam controls work really well too. I would like to de-google (already use ddg mostly), but tbh Google ain't that bad in the sense that although they have alot about me they don't seem to sell it as nakedly as FB.
I mainly just want out of Gmail because all of my internet accounts are tied to that address and it's known that your account could just be terminated by a bot for no reason and the only way to get it back is to make a stink on social media until a Google employee with connections sees it and takes the time to bang on some doors during their lunch break.
I'll probably switch to Fastmail and get an address set up with my personal domain so I'm not tied to any service. But yeah, as a service I don't really have any issues with Gmail.
Every time I read this type of post I get amazed at how primitive my use of personal email is.
No folders, no tags, no rules. Just inbox and read status.
Ditched gmail for iCloud a few years ago. Simple, cheap, well integrated.
Same. I pretty much scan it, anything interesting I open(which isn't a ton). Then, about once every few months, I get tired of seeing 20k unread emails, so delete all unread emails older than x.
Perhaps I'm not a power user, or constant marketing emails have just made me numb to it all.
I basically never receive an email to my personal account that I care about, unless it's a transactional email I just caused to be sent (password reset, email confirmation, shipping notice, that sort of thing) or I'm job-hunting. I go weeks sometimes without opening my personal email. I tried for quite a while to keep the inbox manageable with filters and aggressive application of the "mark as spam" button for anything from a sender I didn't care to ever hear from again, but at some point realized that I damn near never care about an email that I didn't expect to find, usually received within the last few minutes, so there's no point.
Same. My workflow is as follows:
About once a month, I unsubscribe in bulk, and delete in bulk. Other than that, I scan my inbox once every day or two and read anything that seems relevant (maybe a handful of emails per week).
I still pay for Fastmail, yet I route all messages over to HEY. There's just no replicating the UX (Fastmail's web UI is…suboptimal…and I'm thoroughly over using Apple Mail). And there are a ton of neat little touches throughout HEY beyond just the immediate filtering of incoming messages. It's simplistic to think you can just add a few rules on some other system and you're done.
I seriously thought about quitting after the Basecamp fiasco, but ultimately realized my entire email workflow is now centered around HEY and it's greatly improved my quality of life. So I use it like I use any other online service from a company I don't particularly like. _shrug_
What's wrong with Fastmail's UI? It's the fastest web app I've used (not just fastest mail app, fastest web app overall).
I cannot say the same for their Android app. After all, it's basically a wrapper of the web app.
Gmail is much faster, I guess because it's native.
> ... fiasco
Not sure if you had the chance to hear the "other side" of the "fiasco" already. I found it here and it was interesting: https://samharris.org/podcasts/253-corporate-courage/
Thanks, I hadn't heard that. I'll be surprised if it sways my opinion but will listen regardless.
Wow, that was way worse than I feared. Had to shut it off after 20 minutes. I'm diametrically opposed to their worldview.
you're free to have another worldview; it doesn't hurt listening to people who have a different worldview though, especially when it's a viewpoint relevant to the topic (i.e. the founder of basecamp speaking on his point of view).
I had a distinct impression from what you wrote that you wish you didn't waste your time listening to his point of view though, which I find a bit sad if true, but you're free to have your worldview after all.
I really think that the speed at which some people reach judgement and conclusions is astonishing. It's all so easy; the world is split into two groups "us" and "them", right? the right thinkers and the wrong thinkers.
Listen, think, don't jump to conclusions, let things simmer, think again, object to concrete things, ask questions, express your point of view, hold your opinions. I can't make all of that in 20m; lucky you if you have that skill.
One of the most interesting parts of the interview (honestly I don't remember if it's before or after your 20m mark), was when Jason mentioned that there were several employees who felt attacked for not speaking up on some political topics at work; "consent by silence", while people just didn't chime in because they just didn't feel like talking about that stuff, yet suddenly they were treated as if they were racists; or others who felt attacked because they didn't use the right words when discussing about these topics. The whole thing easily backfires: imagine all you want is to promote inclusion and non-toxic environment and you end up fuelling the very same problems from the other side.
I'm not sure I can reach you and actually have a conversation about that; I have the feeling you'll dismiss me and just because you think you already know what I mean and what I stand for; perhaps just labeled me like "them", whatever that means.
Jason could have stepped up and actually be a leader to ensure that political discussions don't lead to a toxic work environment. Instead he centered himself, had a knee-jerk reaction to a point of view that really didn't have anything to do with him personally, and then decided to lob a missile at his own company. That's not courage, that's cowardice.
I'm pretty sure there are many ways to deal with such a situation and many ways to get it wrong. I'm not even arguing that what he did was right; given the amount of grief basecamp is getting, it's clearly possible to imagine a world where Jason had handled it better.
I don't understand though what "being a leader" means here, and why you're calling him a coward for trying out something, even if that something was wrong. What should a leader do if not try out things? Courage doesn't mean "do the right thing"; it just means don't be afraid. One can be a courageous asshole and a coward saint.
That said, you clearly have some ideas one how should one handle such a situation, and how to ensure political discussion don't lead to a toxic environment? Clearly justing saying "don't proselytise your political topics at work" is off the table for some reason.
What is exactly at stakes here? Is it about freedom of bring one's whole self at work? Is it about the urgency of solving the real and pressing problem of american society that requires everybody's attention everywhre? Is it a knee jerk reaction to the toxicity of the former presidential mandate that left a deep scar in american society? What are we talking about exactly here? Why can't I just feel free to mind my own business and do my javascript and whatnot at work and talk about politics at the pub?
I'm really curious, honest.
That's disappointing. Haven't listened yet, but can you sum up what their (I assume Jason Fried's) worldview is?
Why don't you like Basecamp? They seem like a really good company in lots of ways.
Hey itself is a bit lackluster though.
Probably related to this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192
For everyone who likes HEY’s workflow and wants to use it with Fastmail, Big Mail just launched this week and looks promising. I haven’t tried it yet (and no connection), but planning to give that combination a whirl when I have some time. Very curious if anyone else already has.
> I researched several different services that could provide a good enough service for a reasonable price and ended up settling on Fastmail.com.
The author also talks about saving a lot of money every year. There are cheaper alternatives to Fastmail that support custom domains and have a focus on privacy. Mailbox.org and Runbox.com are a couple of them. There are more.
This was not the main reason though, I mentioned that as an well appreciated side-effect. The fact that Fastmail was a well known provider with a ton of flexibility, and a fast client helped a lot.
I signed my wife and I up for Hey as soon as they offered a business plan, and although it's kind of expensive we've been very happy with it. But it's good to know that someone has tried the off-ramp.
Besides the simple routing, I just like the Hey app interface across macOS/iOS/web. The Gmail app never played nice with sending from my custom domain, and I will never subject myself to Apple's buggy mail app again. So I'm curious if there are other mail apps Fastmail users like on iOS/macOS.
Hey is an awesome email client on a terrible email server and Fastmail is an awesome server with a terrible client. I only wish there was a standard protocol we could use to mix and match!
I know it's pretty subjective, but I'd personally rate Fastmail's UI as one of the best I've used. The only real issue I have with it is that uncached searches could be faster.
Same - Fastmail's web UI is my primary MUA, with my phone being the secondary.
I agree. It would be amazing if we had something that allowed that. Maybe we could call it the “Internet Message Access Protocol” or IMAP...
I’ve been very happy using Helm home email server and it’s made me a bit of a snob about hosted Gmail alternatives - these companies still have access to all your email and while I am not a big fan of Google’s business model I’m personally not comfortable having my email on any corporate server.
(No affiliation with Helm just a happy customer for more than a year and hoping they succeed.)
Helm sounds interesting. But is there still no web interface to access your mails from a browser? Unfortunately that would be a no-go for me. Do you know if Helm also works in other countries than the US?
I love Hey. Completely revolutionized email for me. I hated it before, now it’s a joy to use. It’s really cool this guy documented and shared all His steps to switch over to fast mail.
My takeaway -- I can replicate some of Hey features in GMail, sweet!
I found the process of VIP'ing my contacts in Fastmail beyond tedious.