Quiet Email

It’s early morning and you open your [ENTER-FREE-PROVIDER] email. Then you begin to scroll past the marketing emails, the sale emails, and maybe, if you are lucky, a short number of emails below you see an email from a friend.

Buried in the noise, your friend was inviting you to his 50th birthday party. He had an RSVP link in that email.

And you almost missed that invitation because it was so buried in a sea of useless and never ending assault on your inbox.

Yeah. Been there.

But ten years ago I switched to Fastmail, a paid and private email provider, and I never missed an email again.

I like quiet: quiet devices, quiet software, and quiet online experiences.

Having a way to quiet email was awesome. It’s simple, and relatively inexpensive. You pay a yearly (or monthly if you want) fee for the service and in return, you get a fantastic service. You can use your local email client to get to the email or, you use Fastmail’s webmail if you prefer. It’s lightweight, easy, and quiet.

Create an account, then use it only with friends and family.

Yes, simple.

Of course, if they still use their free email providers, then they will get this email address and potentially sell it, but there are ways around it (hint: create an alias).

So, leave your own free webmail open and use it for the crap online. Let it collect all the spam, phish, and marketing stuff. Use a private, simple, and quiet service for the real stuff.

Note: Fastmail is one of the companies that provide good email services, there are a few others out there you can check. I use Fastmail, and if you'd want to use it, here's a link to a 10% discount for you and for me - if you sign up, I get a discount as well.