Looking for a cheap and reputable inbox from a company with a decent privacy policy. Don't mind paying, but it's gotta be less than 30 USD a year; I do not need anything but the ability to send and receive emails for accounts and correspondence.

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[–] 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Mailbox.org is good. Decent pricing and features. Been using it for two years

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    I've also used mailbox.org for a couple years and have found it works great for me. I'm just on their lowest pricing tier and it has all the features I need including aliases.

    I also find that the domain 'mailbox.org' sounds super normal and doesn't raise eyebrows when I have to say it out loud to a customer service person or whatever.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 months ago (10 children)

    Posteo is affordable and, at least to my liking, private enough.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

    I see a combination of issues with Posteo, mailbox.org, fastmail, and many other commonly suggested providers that made me steer away from them: 1) they don't have a free tier, and 2) they recycle your email address if you stop paying. Using a custom domain for email is not generally considered a best practice for privacy, so I avoid that too. This greatly reduces the number of options available to me.

    Edit: my issue is not with 1 alone. The problem is the combination of 1 and 2. It means that if you're unable to pay for the service for any reason in the future, your old email address can be taken over by someone else.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Well personally, I don't consider 1 to be a red flag, if you dont pay for the product you are the product. I understand wanting a free tier though. 2 is 100% valid, 3 (the point on custom domains) is also valid, although I already use Addy.Io as an aliasing service so I've given up blending in with the crowd there.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    It's not just 1 alone. It's the combination of 1 and 2 that's the issue. It means that if for any reason you're unable to continue paying for the service in the future, your old email address could be taken over by someone else.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I use posteo and I prepay for a year at a time. Credit usage varies since I'm always adding/removing aliases which cost like .10/ea/mo (you do get 3 free ones). I also know from experience that they don't just delete all your emails if you are late paying. It's honestly not something I've been concerned with personally.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 months ago

    Proton's free tier gives you 1 GB storage, 25 MB attachments,50 emails per hour, 150 per day. Plenty for most personal uses.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    For less than $30/year, you could buy your own domain and use it with any number of reliable paid email providers giving you a level of control that isn't possible with the usual suspects. You don't need a vps or have to host anything yourself if you don't want to.

    I've used Purelymail for a few years and have no issues adding them to the recommendations from others here.

    One thing to consider is whether you want IMAP to be able to set up your preferred clients instead of using the providers webmail/apps.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    Speaking of domains, I can highly recommend getting one and setting up a catch all email box. Then just set up sorting rules based on the to address and you’ve got an email address for every purpose. It’s incredible!

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Migadu at 19USD/year is pretty good. I've had my domain with them for two years and it works really good.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    Seconded, been with migadu for 2 years now with multiple custom domains, it's flawless!

    If I had to nitpick, I'd point to the outdated UI, but even that screams 'solid' to me, as compared to the modern JS front-ends.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    I’ve been with Purelymail for years on several domains I look after. Not had a single issue. I went to them for pricing and simplicity but their privacy looks fine to me too.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Mailo, 1€/20GB.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

    The cheapest Infomaniak tier is about 25€ per year. The sign up process is a bit confusing because by the end you have like 3 passwords or something but once you get it going it's a decent service. I don't use it myself but I set it up for my parents and after initial setup it has been working without issues.

    https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/service-mail

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Keep away from Infomaniak. Trust me

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    They have a free tier as well, or at least did in my country at the time I signed up. This is the service I settled on. I haven't even started to transition all my email over there though.

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  • [+] -15 points 3 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 30 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    That's a pretty bad advice for a guy that mentioned he wants a "reputable inbox". Don't host your own. You'll be sending emails and wondering why they're not received because your IP was blacklisted / marked as spam.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    If you have a VPS with a company that's not super shady, and you don't mind jumping through hoops for a few of the bigger providers (Microsoft + Google are the worst) and running around getting off any blocklists once when you start using the IP, it is not actually that hard to host your own.

    That said, this advice probably applies more to people who, for example, already know what ssh is and already know or don't mind learning what DMARC is, for example. Someone who isn't technical and doesn't want to become technical probably is better off with paying someone else to host a mailserver for them.

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