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.

host your own

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

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

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.

Yeah this is the only answer for that price

Runbox works well for me.

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

Mailo, 1€/20GB.

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.

Tutanota

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

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If I had to nitpick, I'd point to the outdated UI, but even that screams 'solid' to me, as compared to the modern JS front-ends.

Yep, but I prefer Thunderbird on desktop and mobile, so no problem.

IMO it’s definitely worth the price (36 €/a), but that might be more than what OP is willing to pay.

Happy with them too. Standards compliant (use a real mail client). Secondary accounts are ultra cheap if you add family and such.

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.

Mailbox; it's also recommended by PrivacyGuides. Privacy Policy.

Disroot could be an option. Free and privacy-friendly, from what I know.

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

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

Same, I only use the webmail on my work laptop when really needed.

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.

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.

That's what I was going to suggest, I've tried proton mail and tuta, currently settled on Posteo

What's wrong with 1) ?

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.

It's not just 1) alone, but the combination of 1) and 2) that's the issue. If you're unable to pay for the service for any reason in the future, someone else can take over your old email address. If either 1) or 2) doesn't apply, then it should be fine.

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.

Mailbox isn't just good for email. It's great for getting rid of so many Google services for me. Email, calendar, contacts, TODO lists, online storage, WebDAV sync storage.

Does that not apply to your own Email TLD aswell. I never thought about it, since it doesn't make sense to a provider to block a prefix forever and everever. Everything comes to an end and if someone takes over your old teenager pseudonym darkl0rd666 in twenty years - so what? Even phone numbers are reassigned after some time. And guess what. Death is around the corner to end it all.

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.

Keep away from Infomaniak. Trust me

Sure, that's a valid perspective too. Yes, if you use your own domain for email and fail to renew the domain for any reason, someone can take it over your email address too. One more reason not to use custom email domains.

I just figure that if I have a choice between an email provider that will let me keep my email address for the rest of my life and never give it to someone else or one that will give my email away not very long after I stop paying, I'm going to go with the longer-term, more stable solution. Like you said, there are no guarantees in life and life is short, but why make things more risky and complicated for myself?

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.

Did you find that kind of provider that will supply eternal prefixes? The provider would have to be some kind of non-profit, that can not be sold. And maybe in a jurisdiction that covers this use case. Best would be a prohibition on email or domain reassignment, because that would be respected for hundreds of years to come, even if the law was changed again after the prefix assignment. What a thought, thank you for making me think about all that.

ProtonMail has a free tier

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.

Explain what's wrong with them. I'm just curious about your opinion.

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!

Correct, they're one of the ones that do.

I'm not sure what you mean by prefixes. I'm just talking about regular email addresses at the provider's domain(s), like YourEmailName@TheirDomain.com. If you were asking about whether I have found providers that satisfy this requirement (either "lifetime" free email or no recycling of addresses), aside from the big ones that we're trying to avoid, like Google and Microsoft, the only ones I've found so far are Proton (free tier), Runbox (no recycling), and Infomaniak (free tier). I didn't check Tuta since I'm not interested in fully encrypted email providers.

I don't think that we would ever get a provider that would satisfy those stringent requirements you listed, but I figure that anything is better than nothing. No problem, you're welcome, but sorry to bring your attention to that thought.

Edit: added missing word ("free tier" instead of just "free" after Infomaniak)

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.

For sure. Everyone has to weigh the options for themselves.

I'm curious too. Please let us know what is/are the issue(s) with Infomaniak. I had been leaning towards switching to them.

YourEmailName is the prefix, anything before the @ . Thanks for the list, i'll check them out. And I wasn't being sarcastic. Really, thanks for the input, never thought about all that.

Thanks for confirming. I knew you weren't being sarcastic. I was thinking more like idealistic instead. You're welcome!

https://lemmy.world/comment/23839992

https://lemmy.world/comment/23839992