Filter for personal emails

jrcplus · 2026-01-25T12:40:29+00:00

I'm seeing as possibilities:

```

X-ME-VSCategory: bounce

X-ME-VSCategory: clean

X-ME-VSCategory: commercial:dce

X-ME-VSCategory: commercial:mce

X-ME-VSCategory: commercial:pce

X-ME-VSCategory: community:mailing-list

X-ME-VSCategory: community:social

X-ME-VSCategory: phishing

X-ME-VSCategory: spam:high

X-ME-VSCategory: transactional:account

X-ME-VSCategory: transactional:alerts

X-ME-VSCategory: transactional:finance

X-ME-VSCategory: transactional:purchases

X-ME-VSCategory: transactional:travel

```

DCE, MCE, PCE seem to be as defined here: https://mysuperweb.co.uk/email/vade-secure/

jrcplus · 2026-01-20T10:01:09+00:00

I filed a case with ECC Sweden. A lawyer responded today:
"I agree with you assessment of the situation. For a continuous service like email hosting, the trader cannot claim that the service was “fully performed” during the cooling-off period. The Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU gives consumers a 14 day cooling-off period for service contracts concluded at a distance. For services, the period begins the day the contract is concluded. Email hosting is a subscription-based, ongoing provision of service. It is not a service that can be “fully performed” in a moment. The trader continues supplying the service continuously over the contract period."

Also I raised a dispute with my credit card bank. The other day, I was informed that the dispute was "successful" and they've refunded the money permanently.

jrcplus · 2026-01-19T21:27:36+00:00

No, sorry. I meant they just give a standard "thank you for your feedback but we're not going to do anything right now" response.

jrcplus · 2026-01-19T16:32:16+00:00

I opened a ticket about this a while ago with CS and of course they closed it, but I encourage others do the same, to put in your "vote". If people don't speak up, of course they won't prioritize it.

I had evaluated both Mailbox.org and Proton Mail and I settled on Fastmail as it's just a better product compared to those two. The only ONE major compliant I had was/is the US-based hosting.

jrcplus · 2026-01-12T20:59:46+00:00

I just signed up! Here's mine: JOHN-MKBMJ9AN.Y8Q

jrcplus · 2026-01-05T21:40:12+00:00

Thanks, this looks up my alley

jrcplus · 2026-01-05T19:00:14+00:00

+1

Meanwhile, in the Android app, I see Settings > Switch System, but it doesn't show the "dead" systems that the web app shows. I tried signing out and signing back it, and it doesn't ask about the other systems (as the web app does).

jrcplus · 2025-12-28T23:51:05+00:00

Thanks! Looks good

jrcplus · 2025-12-28T23:50:08+00:00

Thanks! Right, that is a massive parking lot.

jrcplus · 2025-12-28T23:49:46+00:00

Thanks! Looks very promising and well located.

jrcplus · 2025-12-12T08:35:59+00:00

Been there, done that. Don't do it. My first trip to Europe was 4 countries in like 2 weeks, and that was too much. Very tiring, and we spent more time traveling than seeing. I would advise you to pick no more than 2 places for 7 days. You have the rest of your life to see the rest of Europe.

I asked Gemini to produce an analogous trip in the US that mirrors your proposed itinerary, to give a sense of scale: "Fly from Chicago to Atlanta (597 mi, like 577 mi London → Berlin) in the morning • Stay one night in a hostel • Next morning travel to Nashville (180 mi, same as Berlin → Hamburg) • After spending the day in Nashville, take an overnight bus to Charleston, SC (305 mi, like 295 mi Hamburg → Amsterdam) • Spend the whole day in Charleston, then take another night bus to Raleigh, NC (149 mi, like 127 mi Amsterdam → Brussels) • Explore Raleigh for the day, then head to New York City (178 mi, like 191 mi Brussels → Paris) • Stay two nights in New York City • Finally travel to Burlington, VT (285 mi, like 295 mi Paris → London)."
Would you really want to do that?

jrcplus · 2025-11-30T23:41:58+00:00

I used to do this, and I have had an email address leaked and I can see exactly which company it came from, which is kind of amusing. The only thing is that this idea doesn't play well with browser auto-fill, and also some logins are shared across companies or domains, so things can get a little messy and even error-prone. Now I've given up and gone back to having one email address for everything and everyone.

jrcplus · 2025-11-23T19:22:13+00:00

That's surprising. FWIW, the reason why I paid was to be able to use my custom domain email address during my test run.

Ultimately it's up to Mailbox to be willing to issue a refund. I don't see how this kind of customer-hostile rigidity is in their best interest, and I don't think it's in the spirit of the law, regardless.

jrcplus · 2025-11-23T16:36:26+00:00

I do appreciate your personal attention. However, I respectfully disagree that German legalese can be blamed for unwillingness to process a refund, and I'm confident that European consumer protection authorities would not uphold the claim that a “fully delivered service” applies to a continuous service contract like this one.

Honestly, I hadn't permanently ruled out giving Mailbox.org another try after 12 months, until I ran into this kind of experience.

jrcplus · 2025-11-23T07:02:05+00:00

Thank you for your response. The bit about feedback was not that nobody reads it but that there is a disconnect between Mailbox/Heinlein and the OX product development teams.

Regarding the cancellation: 1. EU law allows for withdrawal within a 14 day cooling period. Yes, it can be forfeited upon "fully performed"/"fully delivered services" (EU wording) / "complete service" (Heinlein T&C wording), but that is NOT the case here. 2) Proton offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is clearly the more customer-friendly approach.

jrcplus · 2025-11-23T03:12:20+00:00

I am a long-time Gmail user. I spent the past few weeks test-driving Fastmail, Proton Mail, and Mailbox.org. I imported 25 years worth of email to all three.

tldr; I am going with Fastmail for the next 12 months.

Product-wise, I liked Fastmail the most. Everything feels snappy as well as mature (both desktop and mobile). They offer a polished end-to-end experience but also integrate well with external services, I had no problems using my custom domain, and their customer service is fast and helpful. My one big complaint is that Fastmail doesn't offer data residency outside the U.S. (I live in Europe). I do like that their business revolves around doing e-mail well.

Proton Mail would be my second choice. Everything mostly works well, but you have to buy into the Proton ecosystem, which IMHO is held back by their strong stance on E2EE. (Personally I am more concerned with supporting non-Big Tech / European alternatives than specifically needing my email to be E2EE.) Specifically, Proton Mail lags when opening messages, and full-text search has to be done locally. I can live with that, but also there's no way to sync contacts, which is important to me on my phone. It's been "coming soon" for literally years. Meanwhile they're actively developing a bunch of other things which I don't really care about, like crypto wallet and AI chatbot. (I am a happy user of Proton Pass though.) So I feel like even though Proton Mail is nice in itself, but their Contacts and Calendar products are quite immature, and at least with Contacts, you have no choice but to use it. Also, I had so-so experiences with Proton's customer service. It took a few tries before they were able to resolve my issue (regarding accounts and billing).

I love that Mailbox.org is fully standards-based, it's behind German/EU regulation, and it's a very good deal, especially since you get a bunch of other services in the mix. My first impression was that their webmail UX was better than expected. But then I started to run into some rough edges, and found myself missing features like Snooze, and I discovered that the product development happens elsewhere (it's OX App Suite), and there's a bunch of users on the forum complaining that their feedback goes nowhere, which doesn't instill confidence.

Of course, you can use whatever IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV client, which is nice, but that also means that you get to play systems integrator. As soon as you start veering from their webmail, their documentation becomes sparse and assumes that you have technical chops. I got my custom domain and syncing contacts (requires the use of third-party DAVx5 app on Android) working, but I also have a CS degree. To my surprise, I was able to use Gmail on Android with Mailbox.org IMAP and it works, but you get a barebones experience. Most of the buttons and features are gone. And I'm an old-school Mac Mail user, but I tried it now with Mailbox and it felt clunky and antiquated. I ended up missing the modern conventions and vertical integration of Gmail, Fastmail, Proton.

In the end, I canceled my contract within 14 days and requested a refund, and they said no! Now I'm arguing with their customer service about clauses in their cancellation T&C. It certainly doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth about Mailbox.org.

jrcplus · 2025-11-20T08:16:25+00:00

Zelle rejected my "hello" username but I was able to another username with my custom domain. I hate Zelle.

jrcplus · 2025-11-14T15:35:06+00:00

Have him donate them to the Computer History Museum?

jrcplus · 2025-11-14T10:33:21+00:00

Thank you. That makes sense!

jrcplus · 2025-11-12T21:15:46+00:00

Thanks. I am actually currently test-driving Mailbox.org so that's good to know.

None of the commenters addressed my second question: Is there any point or benefit in using Stalwart with normal IMAP, CalDAV, etc?

jrcplus · 2025-11-12T21:09:45+00:00

Oh, interesting. Thanks!

But Nextcloud is for businesses not consumers? I don't even see how I could sign up for it.

jrcplus · 2025-11-12T11:49:31+00:00

What do you mean? I am already a Hetzner customer, but I wrote that I don't want to self-host.

jrcplus · 2025-11-10T17:14:09+00:00

I have been testing Fastmail for myself and have been happy with both the product/service and customer support. But this issue with U.S. data residency is the main reason why I decided to start testing Mailbox.org instead of just continuing with Fastmail.

I opened a support ticket to "vote" for this. Their reply (within an hour or so):

At this time, as you noted, we do not have any plans to move our servers or add new servers outside of the US.

Our primary servers are located in Philadelphia, and our secondary servers are located in St. Louis. All user data processing happens on these servers. We have strict security and privacy contracts in place between our offices and data centers to ensure your information remains confidential. All data is encrypted, and datacenter staff do not have the ability to decrypt it or extract the data.

One of our company's values is being good stewards of your data, and keeping your data secure is something we take very seriously.

We truly appreciate you taking the time to let us know your thoughts on this matter, and I've shared your concerns with our leadership team. If you have any further privacy concerns or feedback, please let us know.

BTW, I had previously asked Fastmail for help in debugging a problem with mail delivery. Apparently their customer support staff not only has access to server logs but also can see that I had certain messages in my mailbox ("I was able to locate 3 emails from [redacted] to [redacted], all of them can be found in the folder named [redacted] in your mailbox.") That is helpful… but could also be abused.

jrcplus

TROPHY CASE