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by chias 149 days ago
My gmail address was also almost exactly 20 years old when I migrated two years ago. Here's how I did it:

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1. Register your domain (if you're doing that) and get fastmail set up -- I remember feeling a physical discomfort clicking "register" on fastmail, it felt like such an insanely impossible thing to do.

2. Set up the IMAP link so that anything sent to your gmail gets delivered to fastmail. Doing so also allows you to send email from your gmail address (with valid spf/dkim) if you want to.

3. Import all your old mail using fastmail's import tool, which Just Works.

4. Set up a vacation autoresponder in gmail that responds only to people in your contacts with a note telling them your new address.

5. Set up a label and filter in fastmail for anything that was addressed to your gmail, so you can easily see what is still sending you email on your old address to assist with migrating services.

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It worked a charm. I was completely convinced of it within a week, long before the 30 day free trial ran out. I have been an immensely happy customer since then. Could not imagine going back.

1 comments

this is the way ! thanks for that, still on my list also, even though I know all the steps, it's just .. daunting
Yeah, I feel that. But I promise you, within one week I had one single regret: that I had not done this years ago.

Also, I very much recommend using your own domain. It greatly eases the feeling of having to commit, because your email address is not tied to your provider. That is, if you ever decide fastmail is not for you, next time the switch will be invisible to everyone else.