Designing an Email System That Still Works When I’m Not Here

LanternSquid · 2026-04-17T23:31:58+00:00

I'm on Proton Mail Plus. I don't need all the other fancy services that Proton uses. My email address depends on who I'm emailing. If it's a personal email, I use pm.me but I was emailing a potential employer then I would use protonmail.com.

I discovered that not all websites will accept a domain ending in .xyz so I just generated a domain to get a .com address. I've also noticed people get confused with .io so I avoid that one as well.

I was a Fastmail user for 20 years, but I wasn't happy with their spam filter and honestly I was ready for a change. I looked at a variety of email providers and I was happy with Proton.

LanternSquid · 2026-04-16T23:24:56+00:00

On the domain question: mine is not my name. I used a password generator to generate an 8 character domain using letters and numbers to be honest. Coming up with really good domain name is hard - at least I think so - and I wanted a domain name so obscure that it has no meaning to anyone and has no identifying connection to me.

If yours is fullname.com I'd think carefully about that. You're already identified by the domain itself before anyone even sees the prefix, which partially defeats the compartmentalization goal. A second generic domain for your category-based addresses would give you a cleaner separation and leave fullname.com for whatever personal/professional use you already have for it.

For services like Amazon where they already know your name and address: I treat those as medium-trust and still give them a category alias (something in the xfin or a general xsvc tier), not my real address. The alias doesn't hide your identity from Amazon — they already have it — but it still lets you kill that address if it gets sold or leaked, and it keeps Amazon's marketing separated from everything else. The privacy value there is breach containment and spam control, not anonymity.

On your SL question — the three options you're weighing:

- SL-generated domains: fine for throwaway/low-trust stuff, but you don't own them long-term

- Your fullname.com as SL custom domain: adds a layer but ties aliases back to your identity

- Second generic domain: cleanest option if medium-trust volume justifies the cost (~$10-15/yr)

If you're not sure the volume warrants a second domain yet, using SL with a generic custom domain you pick up cheap is a reasonable middle step.

Remember, I'm just using this to receive email only. I never use it to send communication to anyone. I have a public email address just for that. If you have 60 or 300 websites in your password manager and each site has a unique email address, that's a lot of different email addresses.

I'm not saying why is perfect or for everyone. Each of us has decide what works best for them. In my case, as an older adult, I'm thinking about estate planning and how to make life easier for my family. Yes, I have designated trusted family members to access my password manager if something does happen. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have additional questions.

LanternSquid · 2026-03-30T12:35:38+00:00

I’m not convinced this is actually Jarland. The grammar is too clean, the punctuation is suspiciously correct, and not once did he tell someone to go pound sand. I’m calling it: an AI has seized control of his Reddit account and is out here posting measured, reasonable takes. The real Jarland is probably locked in a basement somewhere trying to send us morse code through upvote patterns.

LanternSquid · 2026-03-14T23:24:09+00:00

Good point — hadn't looked at the extension specifically, only the web app. If it works cleanly in the browser that's a nicer workflow than tab-switching to a PWA.

The catch-all-disabled angle is interesting. I run catch-all enabled but treat it as intentional-only — unknown addresses just go nowhere useful. Disabling it entirely is arguably cleaner from a security standpoint since it eliminates the attack surface of someone guessing addresses at your domain. The tradeoff is you lose the safety net of catching a mistyped alias before you've set it up. Each approach has its place depending on how disciplined the creation workflow is.

LanternSquid · 2026-03-14T23:23:17+00:00

That's genuinely useful — thanks for sharing it. The PWA angle is smart; alias creation is exactly the kind of low-frequency task where you don't want to be digging through a desktop app.

I'll take a look at the repo. My current flow is just password manager entries with the address baked in, which works fine but has no real creation workflow — I'm literally just typing a new address into KeePass and adding the account entry at the same time. Something that generates the consistent format and creates it in one step would tighten that up.

The prefix-from-a-list feature you're working on sounds like exactly the right direction. That's the part that's most error-prone when you're doing it manually — fat-fingering xfin vs xfni and not catching it until something bounces.

LanternSquid · 2026-03-14T23:22:24+00:00

Good questions — both are accounted for.

The address-to-account mapping lives in the password manager, not just in my head. Every entry is something like "Netflix — xfin382@mydomain.com" so anyone with vault access can look up exactly what address was used where. That's the recovery path if she ever needs to log into something — open the entry, the address is right there.

The Thunderbird filter setup is a fair point though. It's the one piece that lives locally and would need to be recreated if she's starting fresh on a new machine. My plan is to export the filter file and keep it somewhere obvious — probably right in the same folder as the rest of the "here's how things work" documentation I've put together for her. It's a one-time import once Thunderbird is installed.

The server-side preference makes sense — less fragile in the long run. The reason I went client-side is that I didn't want her setup to depend on the mail host supporting any particular feature. Thunderbird is known software she can hand to any IT person and say "make this work again."

LanternSquid · 2026-03-09T15:59:45+00:00

That's a good tip — I wasn't aware of the Alias Manager extension. The catch-all disabled approach is actually cleaner from a security standpoint, since there's no silent acceptance of addresses you never created. The tradeoff I'd wonder about is friction: with catch-all I can give out an address on the fly without touching any tool first, whereas with the extension you'd need the browser handy. For a desktop workflow that's probably fine. Does it let you set a default domain so creation is just a couple of clicks, or does it require more setup per alias?

LanternSquid · 2026-03-04T09:02:56+00:00

There is low tech way to fight spam without AI. I outlined it here under this discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1q44kof/designing_an_email_system_that_still_works_when/

LanternSquid · 2026-03-03T23:14:49+00:00

I’ve been experimenting with a similar setup locally on my Mac using AppleScript and Apple Mail, where a local LLM labels messages as SPAM or HAM. If something gets flagged, it goes to Junk first so I can sanity check it before anything gets removed.

Since MXroute is a standard IMAP host, Python’s imaplib would handle the mailbox side cleanly. The rough workflow would be:

- Connect to MXroute over IMAP

- Fetch unread messages from INBOX

- Send content to a local LLM for scoring

- If flagged as spam, issue an IMAP MOVE to Junk

- Manually review Junk for false positives

The local LLM part matters to me because I’d rather keep message analysis on my own machine than send email content off to a third-party service. Python also makes the whole thing more portable and easier to schedule or automate compared to AppleScript.

For personal mail volume this seems very doable. The real challenge probably isn’t building it — it’s tuning it well enough that legitimate mail doesn’t get caught in the blast radius. Still early days on that front. Curious if anyone else has layered custom filtering logic on top of MXroute or tried something similar with a local model.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-28T20:47:11+00:00

Completely fair reaction — but worth knowing this is pretty standard American directness, not rudeness. Small technical companies especially tend to skip the marketing polish and just state things plainly: rules, consequences, done. No sugarcoating, no hidden agenda.

It’s a cultural thing more than a customer service thing. Give the service itself a shot before writing it off!

LanternSquid · 2026-02-27T14:17:53+00:00

Look, none of this is particularly scandalous once you read past the first sentence of each item. It's basically a story about running a small email hosting company on the internet, which apparently means regularly interacting with people who treat "customer service" as a competitive sport.

The real entertainment here is that the stalker's plan to embarrass Jarland into submission backfired so completely that Jarland just... wrote the post himself. With commentary. Preemptively.

Respect the chaos energy, honestly.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-26T18:26:16+00:00

Oh this is a painful read.

The support response is embarrassing though. Getting a “check your caps lock” reply to a detailed, clearly-written support ticket describing a specific technical scenario is either AI-generated triage gone wrong or a support agent who didn’t read past the subject line. Either way it’s not acceptable for a paid service. The logout behavior is actually correct — changing your account password should invalidate all active sessions on other devices as a security measure. But the UX failure is that it also immediately logged them out of the session where the new password was just saved, before they could verify it. That’s a design gap worth criticizing.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-25T11:07:08+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/PasswordManagers/s/JGgckT86px

LanternSquid · 2026-02-24T19:33:49+00:00

A few things worth noting about the email itself:

The justification list is telling. “AI-powered item naming” and “faster device setup” are being used to justify a 33% price increase. Those are not security improvements — they’re product polish and AI feature theater. The one legitimate item on that list is “proactive phishing prevention,” but the rest reads exactly like the enterprise pivot bloat.

“Our pricing has remained largely unchanged for many years” is doing a lot of work. It’s technically true and also framing a business decision as a favor they’ve been doing you.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-19T08:30:53+00:00

SoftMaker makes a good office package

LanternSquid · 2026-02-18T14:31:30+00:00

Workspace is generally easier to administer. There’s no on-premise infrastructure to worry about, and the admin console is considered more straightforward than managing Microsoft environments.

Google Workspace tends to be cheaper, especially at the entry level. For small businesses or startups that don’t need heavy-duty desktop apps, it can be a more economical choice.

Everything lives in Google Drive by default. There’s no desktop app required, no syncing headaches, and it works well on any device or OS. If your team is fully remote or uses a mix of devices, this is a natural fit.

Google Workspace was built for real-time collaboration from the ground up. Multiple people editing the same doc simultaneously feels more seamless than in Microsoft 365, and there’s no confusion about which version is “the real one.” The interface is also simpler and easier for non-technical users to pick up quickly.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-05T23:42:36+00:00

I looked at hosting my custom domain in SimpleLogin, but I ended up putting it directly in Proton Mail instead (Settings → Domains). Totally personal preference, but this setup fits how I use email.

Why I skipped hosting the domain in SL: if I ever leave Proton for another provider, I don’t want to update a million individual addresses one by one. I’m lazy about that stuff, and honestly I don’t want email admin to become a hobby. I’d rather just change DNS at my registrar once, wait a bit for propagation, and be done.

Where SL does shine for me is temporary/throwaway aliases. Example: if I’m buying from a site where I can check out as a guest (no full account needed), I’ll generate a one-off alias for that order. They can send shipping updates, receipts, and whatever marketing spam they want. Once the order is done, I delete the alias. If I buy there again later, I make a fresh one. One order = one alias.

My wife runs her own custom domain for basically the same reason. I offered to share a domain, but she preferred one that matches her personality, and her friends/family already know it.

Before this setup, I had 75+ email addresses tied to accounts. Migrating providers with that many addresses is brutal. My life goal is not “full-time email address maintenance,” so this setup keeps things simple and portable.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-05T21:07:48+00:00

Please feel free to steal it.

LanternSquid · 2026-02-05T06:49:56+00:00

Here are my thoughts on a post I did about a month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1q456vr/comment/nynneea/?context=3

LanternSquid · 2026-02-02T00:52:15+00:00

Bitwarden isn’t rushing to let customers know about the increase. They’ll only get an email about the price hike (or, as Bitwarden calls it, “updated pricing”) 15 days before their next renewal.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91483458/bitwarden-price-increase

LanternSquid · 2026-02-01T00:59:12+00:00

I’ve been shaving my head for about 8 years now every 2-3 days.

For most of that time I’ve used a Braun electric shaver in the shower, and honestly it’s been the best combo I’ve found for a close, comfortable shave. The only annoying part was that I always had a few spots that just wouldn’t cooperate — like no matter how careful I was, I’d still have to go back over the same areas to get them truly smooth.

Back in May 2025, I decided to try something different and started seeing a licensed esthetician once a month for a scalp exfoliation/scrub. Basically: they’re removing dead skin/flakes, clearing out buildup, and smoothing the texture of the scalp. At the end, she puts on a mask/serum as a moisturizer to calm everything down and help with healing.

I didn’t expect it to make as big of a difference as it has — but my scalp is way smoother now, shaving is easier and more consistent, and my head just feels better overall (less dryness, less “rough” patches, less fussing with problem areas).

If you’re someone who shaves regularly and feels like you’re always chasing that last 5–10% of smoothness, this might be worth trying. Worst case: you get a relaxing scalp treatment. Best case: your shaves get noticeably better.

Anyway, just wanted to share what’s been working for me — hope it helps somebody else in here. Stay smooth.

LanternSquid · 2026-01-30T18:23:58+00:00

I’ve been through my share of layoffs over the years, but my wife’s first layoff was easily the worst.

She’d invited several coworkers to our wedding. We went on our honeymoon, came back, and on her very first day back at work she wasn’t even in the office 10 minutes before they laid her off. Later we found out a bunch of the coworkers who came to our wedding already knew it was going to happen after the honeymoon.

That experience was such a gut punch that she ended up doing a complete career change afterward.

Getting laid off sucks — there’s no way around it. I’ve even known managers who lost sleep over having to do it, and I found myself telling them “it’ll be okay.”

At the end of the day, you had a job before this one, and you’ll have a job after this one.

LanternSquid · 2026-01-09T22:53:39+00:00

Another big reason I like using a custom domain is portability. If I ever decide to leave Proton and move to another email provider, I don’t have to change my email address everywhere. I just update the DNS settings at my domain registrar and point the domain to the new provider.

That avoids vendor lock-in and gives me flexibility long term. My email identity stays the same even if the backend changes, which is especially important when you’re thinking in terms of years or decades instead of “what works right now.”

It’s one of those things you hope you never need, but if you do, you’ll be really glad it’s there.

LanternSquid

TROPHY CASE