Years ago, when I first set up the domain for MacSparky, I made the decision to forego Gmail in exchange for my own IMAP email service. So I trudged along with Hover’s reliable, yet basic, IMAP service for over ten years. For some time now, I’ve been meaning to upgrade to something with more features so last month I got serious and started a research project that eventually led me to Fastmail. Moreover, less than a week after I decided to switch to Fastmail, they announced a collaboration with 1Password which allows you to create 1-time emails for web sign-ups (called masked email) right inside 1Password further sealing the deal.

Once the decision was made, I waited for the initial hubbub over the DEVONthink Field Guide to die down before making the switch, and last night at midnight I went into the Hover DNS records to point the necessary bits to Fastmail. The transition took an hour, and now I’ve got all of my email along with the other team member emails set up in Fastmail, along with all the alias emails and other bits. Once everything was connected, I also initiated moving archives and sent messages from the Hover account to the new Fastmail account in Apple Mail and I went to bed. I woke up this morning to find everything working. It’s funny how you can put off projects that seem overwhelming, but when you finally get down to it, take less time than it takes to go out to lunch.

I haven’t dug in yet on Fastmail’s power features. The server-based rule system is impressive, though not as powerful as Google server rules, and getting it working with my team was trivial. After I get more time under the hood, I’ll report in.