Hey there,
Just a quick question: Great post and it made me think about switching to Fastmail as well. I've been asking them questions via email since last night (since reading your post) and they seem very good. Are there any obvious advantages from going from Gmail to Fastmail in terms of using mu4e? I was using mu4e for a while, but I stopped because it wasn't always working 100% with Gmail. Recently, I fired it back up (after about 2 months of not using it and a big Mac update) and it had completely stopped working. I rebuilt the mu database, but it won't pull mail, giving me all sorts of weird errors. I'll have to reinstall it, but it was such a pain to get working with Gmail last time that I was thinking perhaps it's time I moved anyway. So I'm just looking for an excuse, I suppose. Any input would be valuable.
Also, I followed you and joined the dev.to site. Thanks! :D
Now to figure out if there is RSS because I use Elfeed in Emacs flawlessly since months...with everything worked that way.....
It's been awhile since I explored this aspect. I apologise if my answers lack specifics. It has actually been years since I composed email in Gmail. :) Check out this article > maxmasnick.com/2013/07/19/fastmail/, which is old, but probably answers your questions a bit.
Before using fastmail, I was using mu4e for multiple gmail accounts. I think I did get it working satisfactorily via some 'context' approach in mu4e, (if I remember correctly), but then I wanted to cover my 'live.in' account as well. There also were some other limitations that I don't recall.
Additionally, the .mbsyncrc file would be complex for multiple accounts, then add to that maintaining multiple passwords, and email signatures, and then configuring which email address to reply from etc.
IMO - mu4e's strength/purpose is in searching, and setting up custom pre-set search filters. The email sync itself is via mbsync / offlineimap. If you see my .mbsyncrc above, you'll see it is possible to search and sync specific folders with a search pattern. I'm not sure if that can be done with Gmail, since there are no folders at all (?).
Fastmail uses the conventional folder based IMAP approach, as against the tag based approach of Gmail. This makes it easier w.r.t mbsync/offlineimap, and all other tools designed around IMAP, which is the actual gateway, rather than mu, which is an indexer, and mu4e which is an interface for mu in emacs.
As such - all my emails are forwarded to fastmail, but copies are still retained in the gmail/live.in mailboxes today. I'll probably wipe out those inboxes sometime in the future. For the money you pay with fastmail, you can setup different 'aliases' - which is a lot better than different email accounts. Overall - I instantly liked fastmail's 'no-unnecessary-frills' interface and of course the absence of ads.
Thanks for the reply! I'm going to be moving my mail in the coming weeks to test it. I have a few things to do first to set up as it's a pretty big undertaking for me. I was one of the first Gmail users as a friend of mine was working for them when they opened beta, so I've been with them since well over 15 years now. I just need time to organize how to do it all with my various gmail accounts - something which I shall organize in an org-mode list of course. :)
I got fastmail but I ran into all kinds of problems with mu4e. I added it to my mbsync and msmtp config and my mu4e config, but it broke everything. Now, I can't send with gmail or fastmail :/ It's a mess. Not sure what to do. mu4e is essentially broken. I may just revert back to the gmail config for now until I figure it out, but I tried everything for a full 7 hours and it drove me nuts.
If you have any advice (I'm on a Macbook) it would be gratefully appreciated. I'd love to keep both configs but if I can't, maybe I should just go with fastmail. The thing is, I tried just mbsync and it won't even log in properly with mbsync -a. It gives me a locked out thing. I set up the password properly via their web site for mbsync, emacs, and msmtp (each with its own password), and still no go. :/
I'm not sure what exactly the error is.
AFAIK : only a single app-specific password is required from fastmail, and I used that with mbsync as well as postfix. I consolidated my notes into this public gist. It is an org file - and so you should be able to execute many of the code blocks directly in Emacs. gist.github.com/shrysr/8c239fcbf1d...
I would also suggest using the org file as a starting point to store your configuration steps and notes. Somewhere along the line, i made this - and used it to setup my email on a new mac pretty quickly.
Also - if you have forwarded all your past gmail stuff into fastmail - you need not hold on to the gmail mbsync config, because you will have all your email available already.
If you want both configs - i think how I did it was to use separate .mbsyncrc files for each gmail account to sync mail. like .mbsyncrc1 and .mbsyncrc2, which need to refer to their corresponding password files. These were synced to say gmail1 and gmail2 folders locally. THen I used a single mu index for both gmail1 and gmail2. Further setup probably requires the context thingy in mu4e.
Aha! NEVER MIND! IT WORKS! :D I got it to work. YES! It was a combination of stupid things. Authinfo was set up incorrectly, too little info was set up in contexts in mu4e, and a bunch of other niggling stuff. But I got it to work. YES! Woohoo! YES! Lol. After 3 days of tearing out my hair, it works beautifully. Now I can test it out and see if I want to buy the plan. Thanks for post again - it ended up helping tremendously with all the links and your post btw. I couldn't have done it without that.
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Hey there,
Just a quick question: Great post and it made me think about switching to Fastmail as well. I've been asking them questions via email since last night (since reading your post) and they seem very good. Are there any obvious advantages from going from Gmail to Fastmail in terms of using mu4e? I was using mu4e for a while, but I stopped because it wasn't always working 100% with Gmail. Recently, I fired it back up (after about 2 months of not using it and a big Mac update) and it had completely stopped working. I rebuilt the mu database, but it won't pull mail, giving me all sorts of weird errors. I'll have to reinstall it, but it was such a pain to get working with Gmail last time that I was thinking perhaps it's time I moved anyway. So I'm just looking for an excuse, I suppose. Any input would be valuable.
Also, I followed you and joined the dev.to site. Thanks! :D
Now to figure out if there is RSS because I use Elfeed in Emacs flawlessly since months...with everything worked that way.....
It's been awhile since I explored this aspect. I apologise if my answers lack specifics. It has actually been years since I composed email in Gmail. :) Check out this article > maxmasnick.com/2013/07/19/fastmail/, which is old, but probably answers your questions a bit.
Before using fastmail, I was using mu4e for multiple gmail accounts. I think I did get it working satisfactorily via some 'context' approach in mu4e, (if I remember correctly), but then I wanted to cover my 'live.in' account as well. There also were some other limitations that I don't recall.
Additionally, the .mbsyncrc file would be complex for multiple accounts, then add to that maintaining multiple passwords, and email signatures, and then configuring which email address to reply from etc.
IMO - mu4e's strength/purpose is in searching, and setting up custom pre-set search filters. The email sync itself is via mbsync / offlineimap. If you see my .mbsyncrc above, you'll see it is possible to search and sync specific folders with a search pattern. I'm not sure if that can be done with Gmail, since there are no folders at all (?).
Fastmail uses the conventional folder based IMAP approach, as against the tag based approach of Gmail. This makes it easier w.r.t mbsync/offlineimap, and all other tools designed around IMAP, which is the actual gateway, rather than mu, which is an indexer, and mu4e which is an interface for mu in emacs.
As such - all my emails are forwarded to fastmail, but copies are still retained in the gmail/live.in mailboxes today. I'll probably wipe out those inboxes sometime in the future. For the money you pay with fastmail, you can setup different 'aliases' - which is a lot better than different email accounts. Overall - I instantly liked fastmail's 'no-unnecessary-frills' interface and of course the absence of ads.
Thanks for the reply! I'm going to be moving my mail in the coming weeks to test it. I have a few things to do first to set up as it's a pretty big undertaking for me. I was one of the first Gmail users as a friend of mine was working for them when they opened beta, so I've been with them since well over 15 years now. I just need time to organize how to do it all with my various gmail accounts - something which I shall organize in an org-mode list of course. :)
Hey there,
I got fastmail but I ran into all kinds of problems with mu4e. I added it to my mbsync and msmtp config and my mu4e config, but it broke everything. Now, I can't send with gmail or fastmail :/ It's a mess. Not sure what to do. mu4e is essentially broken. I may just revert back to the gmail config for now until I figure it out, but I tried everything for a full 7 hours and it drove me nuts.
If you have any advice (I'm on a Macbook) it would be gratefully appreciated. I'd love to keep both configs but if I can't, maybe I should just go with fastmail. The thing is, I tried just mbsync and it won't even log in properly with mbsync -a. It gives me a locked out thing. I set up the password properly via their web site for mbsync, emacs, and msmtp (each with its own password), and still no go. :/
I'm not sure what exactly the error is.
AFAIK : only a single app-specific password is required from fastmail, and I used that with mbsync as well as postfix. I consolidated my notes into this public gist. It is an org file - and so you should be able to execute many of the code blocks directly in Emacs.
gist.github.com/shrysr/8c239fcbf1d...
I would also suggest using the org file as a starting point to store your configuration steps and notes. Somewhere along the line, i made this - and used it to setup my email on a new mac pretty quickly.
Also - if you have forwarded all your past gmail stuff into fastmail - you need not hold on to the gmail mbsync config, because you will have all your email available already.
If you want both configs - i think how I did it was to use separate .mbsyncrc files for each gmail account to sync mail. like .mbsyncrc1 and .mbsyncrc2, which need to refer to their corresponding password files. These were synced to say gmail1 and gmail2 folders locally. THen I used a single mu index for both gmail1 and gmail2. Further setup probably requires the context thingy in mu4e.
Aha! NEVER MIND! IT WORKS! :D I got it to work. YES! It was a combination of stupid things. Authinfo was set up incorrectly, too little info was set up in contexts in mu4e, and a bunch of other niggling stuff. But I got it to work. YES! Woohoo! YES! Lol. After 3 days of tearing out my hair, it works beautifully. Now I can test it out and see if I want to buy the plan. Thanks for post again - it ended up helping tremendously with all the links and your post btw. I couldn't have done it without that.