Mailbox.org is good. Decent pricing and features. Been using it for two years
post
Posteo is affordable and, at least to my liking, private enough.
That's what I was going to suggest, I've tried proton mail and tuta, currently settled on Posteo
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.
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.
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.
Fair enough. I wasn't trying to scare everyone off of those providers, but outlining this criteria I use myself and pointing it out to others so they add it to their considerations for email providers, if they wish.
ProtonMail has a free tier
I have been extremely satisfied with Posteo, and it's so affordable too!
I actually have an alias specificay for my fediverse/matrix shenanigans :3
Proton's free tier gives you 1 GB storage, 25 MB attachments,50 emails per hour, 150 per day. Plenty for most personal uses.
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.
Migadu at 19USD/year is pretty good. I've had my domain with them for two years and it works really good.
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.
Tutanota
Runbox works well for me.
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.
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.
Keep away from Infomaniak. Trust me
Explain what's wrong with them. I'm just curious about your opinion.
I'm curious too. Please let us know what is/are the issue(s) with Infomaniak. I had been leaning towards switching to them.
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.
host your own
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.
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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