posteo is what i am using. Upsides - reasonably cheap (12 euros per year), downsides - no custom domains
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
32 points (94.4% liked)
Privacy
2731 readers
272 users here now
Welcome! This is a community for all those who are interested in protecting their privacy.
Rules
PS: Don't be a smartass and try to game the system, we'll know if you're breaking the rules when we see it!
- Be civil and no prejudice
- Don't promote big-tech software
- No apathy and defeatism for privacy (i.e. "They already have my data, why bother?")
- No reposting of news that was already posted
- No crypto, blockchain, NFTs
- No Xitter links (if absolutely necessary, use xcancel)
Related communities:
Some of these are only vaguely related, but great communities.
- !opensource@programming.dev
- !selfhosting@slrpnk.net / !selfhosted@lemmy.world
- !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- !drm@lemmy.dbzer0.com
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
I'm gonna add in Mailfence. I've recently switched to them (was thinking of Mailbox but had the same problems with them) and I've been pretty happy. I also use custom domains and it's very easy to set it up. They also allow you to generate custom aliases with their domain (e.g. "throwaway3661@mailfence.com").
The only kinda downside in my mind is the fact that you need the 42€/year tier to have access to POP/IMAP/SMTP and custom domains, which is more than on some other providers.
Another one I was looking at that looked quite good as well was Runbox, but if I remember correctly they don't have calendar and contacts which was a deal breaker for me.
Mailfence looks super interesting, but yeah, a bit more expensive. I'll definitely look into it.
+1 mailfence
Runbox had contacts and calendar when I used them a couple of years ago, so I would assume it still has them.
I'm not an expert but I remember reading good things about Posteo, StartMail, and Runbox. Check their pricing page for features.
Infomaniak is dead since they explicitly support spying on people.
Source on Infomaniak?
Mailbox.org is also a good option AFAIK.
Hmm I mentioned them in my post as I've been apprehensive about them, maybe it's unfounded though..
I've been with them for years and they've been awesome. Customer support was good when I was having trouble setting up my custom domain. Their web interface dose look a bit retro, but I never use that anyway (email in Thunderbird and online drive accessed with WebDAV, calendar and contact access in phone apps).
MailBox has been great as a single solution to get rid of all Google services from my phone (including contact/calendar sync). Highly recommended.
I decided on Mailbox.org!
Cool. It's a good service.
Yeah kinda just leaning towards them in the end now after much back and forth. I also get 6 months free.
Unfortunately Posteo doesn't support custom domains, StartMail is a bit too expensive but Runbox seems interesting...
Disroot.org may have what you're looking for.
I'm building a nextlcloud server. Just got the document server itself working a couple hours ago. My email back end will apparently be Mail-in-a-Box, although I've not gotten that far yet. That's about as private and in control as you can get. Run your own mail server.
Thoughts? Hmm. Well this is somewhat tangential, but you mentioned your email forwarding needs. I've used this ImprovMX forwarding service for years. Free tier really is free. https://improvmx.com/
I've been linked this review of email service privacy previously. Obviously everyone has their own threat model and you may not agree with theirs but I think it's worth a read for services you may be interested in (or just the summary).
I've used Mailbox.org and don't care for their interface at all, but it also matters not one bit as I use Thunderbird exclusively to interact with my mailbox, as you plan to. I haven't had any problem with spam but I am very picky who I give that address to.
My personal opinion is that the provider should not matter - your address should be a privately registered domain and your emails should be end-to-end encrypted. Then your mail provider is little more than a forwarding server and the most crap one is not much worse than the best.
I decided on Mailbox.org!
Regarding having your own custom domain for all emails. I have one with my name which I use for professional communication but I'd like the rest, like mails from Lemmy, to go to an address which can't be identified with me. Is it better trusting a domain name registrar and WHOIS to not give out info than e.g. Mailbox.org? Like yeah, sure, I could register another custom domain but this is what I'm worried about.
I would recommend looking into an aliasing service such as Addy or SimpleLogin to use a different address for every service, which then gets forwarded to your main email address. This way when you get spam emails, you know who sold your data or had a breach, and you only need to create a new alias and change your email at one place instead of everywhere.
Interesting! Thanks for this
If you find an answer to that please let me know