Although I’m moving on, HEY was a great reminder of what good email experience is like—spam-free, auto-filing and customized workflow, and the power to block senders and never hear from them.
In the second part, I’ll introduce my new choice of email provider—Fastmail. For US$50 a year, Fastmail provides me a comprehensive email service package at half of the price I paid HEY.
Part I: HEY sucks
Part II: Switching to Fastmail
Part III: My Fastmail workflow
Fastmail Overview
Fastmail comes with three tiers and I’m happy with the Professional plan at US$50 a year. And it’s the whole package—
- A yourname@fastmail.com address.
- 30 GB of storage. It’s smaller than HEY’s 100 GB offer but I’ve only used 350 MB in the past 8 months, not having deleted a single email I received. 30 GB makes no difference to me than 100.
- Aliases. Fastmail comes with 600 aliases—virtually unlimited for personal use. Unlike many other email providers, you can receive and send emails using the aliases you create.
- Custom domain names. I’m able to link my app websites’ domains and create addresses like support@domain.com and help@domain.com aliases. I have since switched all my email hosting from Hover to Fastmail. Each mailbox with Hover costs $20 a year. The solution from Fastmail is a sweet deal if you have your own domains.
- The option to use any email client. I’m just glad to be rid of HEY’s app. Now I’m using iOS and macOS Mail for everything personal and professional. My eyes thanked me.
- Custom workflow. You are no longer tied to HEY’s workflow, which may or may not work for you. I can virtually do anything for incoming emails using rules and filters. You can also get nerdy with Sieve Script to create your own rules using complex business logics based on email headers and content.
Migrating to Fastmail
Migration to Fastmail was quick and easy. HEY provided me the export of mail in the format of MBOX, and I was able to import everything using macOS Mail app. Contacts are exported in standard VCard format, and can be imported into Fastmail directly.
Switching every account over to a new email address is no easy task, but the experience has been OK. I switched over from an old Gmail account a few years ago. I did the same switching over to HEY. I am not afraid to do it a third time.
Migration for my professional email accounts were easy, too. I just had to edit the MX record and CNAME for my domains, and Fastmail started to work within 15 minutes. I just needed to set up the aliases on each iOS and macOS devices I have so that I can send and receive emails on them.
My Fastmail Setup
Here’s a visual hierarchy of my mailboxes:
- Inbox: Emails from people or entities I screened in and care about.
- hi@thiswebsite.com: containing emails addressed to my professional email accounts.
- help@thatwebsite.net: same as above.
- The Screener: containing emails from senders I have not screened before.
- News Feed: my one place for all subscribed newsletters, such as Morning Brew, promos from stores like MEC or garden centres, etc. Emails in here are permanently removed after 90 days.
- Updates: order confirmations, updates, shipping information, etc. Emails in here are retained indefinitely.
- Screened Out: emails from senders I specifically screened out. Emails here are removed after 90 days. I might just use the Trash to contain those in the future—I’m not sure yet.
I’m a month in using Fastmail and I like it so far. I’ll use the final post to explain my automation with it.