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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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_
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.
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.
agambrahma|4 years ago
I went with Fastmail and am very happy.
Tons of aliases that are easy to use, the UX is actually _much better_ than Gmail.
bobsomers|4 years ago
SAI_Peregrinus|4 years ago
vishnugupta|4 years ago
I recently discovered their alias feature. It’s super useful for all those subscription things.
kilroy123|4 years ago
alberth|4 years ago
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.
imwillofficial|4 years ago
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.
agd|4 years ago
It’s the complete opposite of what you’re describing.
mszcz|4 years ago
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 ;)
crsv|4 years ago
jshen|4 years ago
After my experiment I paid for Hey, and have been really happy with it.
counternotions|4 years ago
bryan0|4 years ago
1. Unknown senders go to a bucket for categorization
2. Easily categorize which senders are "important"/"unimportant"/"ignore,spam"
zzyzxd|4 years ago
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.
imwillofficial|4 years ago
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.
minton|4 years ago
willidiots|4 years ago
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.
shafyy|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
jvns|4 years ago
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.
Ashanmaril|4 years ago
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.
AdamN|4 years ago
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.
mhfs|4 years ago
No folders, no tags, no rules. Just inbox and read status.
Ditched gmail for iCloud a few years ago. Simple, cheap, well integrated.
axaxs|4 years ago
Perhaps I'm not a power user, or constant marketing emails have just made me numb to it all.
christophilus|4 years ago
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).
jaredcwhite|4 years ago
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_
stavros|4 years ago
ithkuil|4 years ago
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/
darthrupert|4 years ago
Hey itself is a bit lackluster though.
guptaneil|4 years ago
https://getbigmail.com/
AnonC|4 years ago
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.
0xfacfac|4 years ago
velcrovan|4 years ago
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.
pitched|4 years ago
weavejester|4 years ago
sebmellen|4 years ago
mapgrep|4 years ago
(No affiliation with Helm just a happy customer for more than a year and hoping they succeed.)
jacques-noris|4 years ago
imwillofficial|4 years ago
vladgur|4 years ago
wodenokoto|4 years ago