Re: Making GNUS continue to work with Gmail

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com> writes:

> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> On Tuesday, 11 Aug 2020 at 18:11, Robert Pluim wrote:
>>> Iʼm starting to agree with Stefan here: maybe itʼs time to start using
>>> a different email provider.
>
>> The long term solution is your own domain etc.
> Domain itself is maybe not enought, you probably think of running own
> mailserver/website etc?

For Gmail users, one potential "intermediate step" could look like:

- Get your own domain
- Start a Google Apps account as part of your google account, using your
  new custom domain.
- Use this new domain as a new Gmail account
- Start the long process of "external migration": getting people to stop
  using your @gmail.com account, and start using your @custom.me
  account. Set up automatic forwarding from gmail to custom, etc.
- Set up a local sync of your @custom.me mail
- When you're ready, switch your @custom.me MX records to your new mail
  provider, and sync mail up to it.

This way you can take as long as you like to do the social work of
migrating to a new email address. Another bonus is that, since Google
once saw @custom.me as a gmail-backed address, it will have whitelisted
it for deliverability. My understanding is that that whitelist doesn't
go away after you switch your MX records, solving (one part of) your
potential deliverability problem.

I have no insight into how Google works, this is just what I've heard. I
did this with two different email addresses (luckily I never used
@gmail.com, they were custom from the start) and I have had nearly no
gmail-related deliverability problems since switching to self-hosting my
email.

YMMV, in a big way.

Eric