Founded over 20 years ago, Fastmail is a popular e-mail service that also lets you manage your calendar and contacts. Today, we will do an in-depth Fastmail review and see what this service exactly has to offer.
Fastmail has many strengths and puts a lot of emphasis on user privacy and security:
You can rely on Fastmail for service and support, and trust that your personal information is protected. You come first, and you can bank on it.
However, their views on privacy and security are rather different than those of products such as Tutanota and ProtonMail (or those we hold here at RestorePrivacy). If you are serious about improving your email privacy, you will definitely want to continue reading before investing in a Fastmail account.
Here is a brief overview of our findings in this Fastmail review:
| Based in | Australia |
| Storage | 100 GB |
| Price | $3.00/mo. |
| Free Tier | No |
| Website | Fastmail.com |
+ Pros
- Account includes email, calendar, and contacts
- Can import messages from other email services and export to them
- 30-day free trial with no credit card required
- Desktop, mobile, and browser-based clients
- Can restore account if password is lost
- Integrated Notes and File storage
- Custom domains supported
– Cons
- Does not offer end-to-end encryption
- Requires a valid telephone number to create an account
- Does not support PGP
- No free subscription tier
- Company is based in Australia (Five Eyes) with servers located in the US
- No cryptocurrency payment options
- Only a portion of code is open source
Now, I’ll dive right in and give you a complete rundown of the service.
Fastmail features overview
Fastmail is comprised of 5 distinct sections: email, contacts, notes, files, and calendar. The company recently redesigned its interface and went with a more minimalistic style. It works smoothly and looks good, as you can see in our screenshot below:
If you are experienced with using virtually any modern email app, you won’t have any problems with figuring out Fastmail. Besides being user-friendly, Fastmail is also brimming with useful features, such as:
- Web interface and support for mobile apps (Android and iOS)
- Easy integration with many email services and clients
- POP3, IMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV support
- Threaded conversations
- Full-text search of messages
- Support for custom domain names
- Account recovery without a password
- Prioritize contacts and improve your productivity
- Data protection tools
- Easy import/export of messages, contacts, and calendar data
- Business-specific features
- Easily restore deleted files
- An extensive archive of support files
New features since our last review include:
- Custom themes
- Send later
- Spam filtering
- Masked email
- Squire 2.0 text editor
Fastmail was carefully refined over two decades, which is evident from the number of tools in its arsenal. For now, let’s take a step back and see how Fastmail started and talk about the values that the company promotes.
Fastmail’s core values
Fastmail launched in 1999 and is based in Australia. Your data is stored on servers in New York, USA. The company claims to operate under four core values:
- You are our customer, not our product
- Your data belongs to you
- We are good stewards of your data
- We are good Internet citizens
These are all great values. From the perspective of privacy and security, numbers 2 and 3 are particularly important, so let’s look at them in more detail.
“Your data belongs to you”
Fastmail states, “You have a story and a footprint that deserves respect. You get complete ownership and control of your data, which is seen by no one else but you.”
This is exactly what we want from a privacy perspective. We should have complete control over our data, with no one else able to see it without our permission.
“We are good stewards of your data”
Fastmail states, “You’ve entrusted us to take care of your data and we take that seriously. Your data is always available to you, intact, and away from the wrong hands.”
This sounds good, too. I know I want my email provider to keep my data secure from being viewed by anyone I don’t want to see it.
Keep these two core values in mind. I’ll return to them in a little while.
Fastmail technical specifications
From our perspective, Fastmail’s technical specifications are pretty simple.
- They use SSL/TLS to encrypt data flowing between their servers and each user’s computer or mobile device.
- Data stored on Fastmail servers is encrypted with LUKS or directly on the server hardware for those servers that support this capability.
If you are familiar with private email services, you may have noticed what is not specified. Fastmail doesn’t do message-level or end-to-end encryption.
In a service like ProtonMail, your messages are encrypted before they ever leave your device, and remain that way until decrypted by the recipient. The service in the middle cannot read your messages since they don’t control the encryption keys, you do.
In Fastmail, your messages are protected by SSL/TLS while in transit, and by the server’s encryption when stored on a Fastmail server. But the messages themselves are not encrypted. That means when the messages arrive at Fastmail’s servers, they can be read by Fastmail. Once the messages are stored on Fastmail servers, outsiders can’t read them, but Fastmail personnel can.
In a world where even top cybersecurity firms like FireEye get hacked, counting on Fastmail’s security to protect your unencrypted email from hackers is asking an awful lot.
It is possible to send encrypted messages with Fastmail. You can use an external program to encrypt your messages, then send them through the Fastmail system. Or you can install a browser extension like Mailvelope that will allow you to apply PGP encryption to messages in the browser-based Fastmail client.
Fastmail hands-on testing
I’ve based this part of the review on the browser-based Fastmail client. Although Fastmail mentions desktop clients in their literature, there is no Fastmail desktop client. Instead, they offer the ability to connect someone else’s desktop client to Fastmail’s servers. Since this gets complicated, I’ll stick with the browser-based client.
Signing up for Fastmail
Signing up for Fastmail only takes a few moments. If you want to test it out without committing, you can activate their 30-day free trial which requires no credit card. All you’ll have to do is create an email address and a password, accept the Terms of Service, and you are good to go. This is all standard stuff.
Now, this is where things get problematic. To complete the registration, you must give Fastmail a mobile phone number they can use to verify your account. Unfortunately, telephone verification is among the least private methods available. More privacy-conscious services allow you to complete verification via an email address.
Once you verify your account over the phone you can immediately begin using Fastmail. At least I haven’t seen any evidence of mandatory waiting periods like I experienced with Tutanota.
The look and feel of Fastmail
As previously mentioned, Fastmail sports a minimalistic modern interface and lets you switch between a light and dark theme. You navigate between the sections of the client using the Main Menu, which is located in the top left corner. You can also use Shift + G keyboard shortcut to quickly open the Main Menu.
Composing Messages
Click Mail in the Main Menu, to open the Mail component of Fastmail. Then select the Compose icon at the top of the left-hand column to create a new message.
As you can see, all the formatting options you’ll need are readily available, making it fast and easy to create your messages.
Sending and receiving messages
This is one place where Fastmail’s lack of message-level encryption is a benefit. Since there is no end-to-end encryption, you won’t have to worry about things like which email service either of you are using, or about exchanging encryption keys outside of the email system.
Searching messages and more
Fastmail’s Search feature is powerful. You can search for specific words or phrases, as well as construct complex searches that include characteristics like the message size or date. You can also sort the results in various ways and save searches for later use.
The Calendar, Contacts, and other components of Fastmail also have similar search capabilities.
Filters and Rules
Fastmail allows you to create rules that help automate the processing of messages. To do so, open the Main Menu, select Settings then Filters & Rules.
Both of these systems seem to work well based on the tests I’ve done.
Contacts
The Contacts component of Fastmail allows you to keep track of the people you exchange messages with. You can add a person by clicking the New Contact button in the Contacts section, or by clicking their name in an email message and selecting Add to Contacts.
You can create Groups of contacts, but the process is a bit clumsy. You’ll need to click More, then Groups, and enter the group name. Once you do that, the group will appear in the Groups list, and you can start creating contacts within that group.
The Calendar, Notes, and Files
While Mail and Contacts are our main interest here, the fact that Fastmail includes Calendars, Notes, and File storage is a definite plus.
Fastmail Calendar
Fastmail lets you create multiple calendars, so you can keep professional and personal appointments separate. You’re also able to invite your contacts to these events and set up multiple reminders so you don’t forget about them.
Notes
Similar to Microsoft Outlook’s Notes feature, you can use this tool to create a searchable record of personal information that might otherwise get lost. Because the Notes are stored on the Fastmail servers, you can have access to them from your mobile devices as well as any web browser. You can also easily restore them in case of accidental deletion.
That said, Fastmail Notes are not encrypted, so this is not the best place to store passwords, bank account numbers, and other sensitive details. Instead, you should use a good password manager.
Files
Fastmail’s Files serves as a modest cloud storage where you can upload files that are up to 250 MB in size. Your limit will depend on whether you have a Basic (1 GB), Standard (10 GB), or Professional (50 GB) subscription.
Again, unless you have complete confidence in Fastmail, don’t upload any files you want to keep private.
As an alternative, check out our roundup guide on secure cloud storage providers. There are some excellent options I have personally tested and reviewed over the years. For example, see our recent NordLocker review.
Note: Depending on your needs, all of these features may make Fastmail a good alternative to Gmail.
Fastmail mobile apps
Fastmail offers apps for both iOS and Android. I tested the Android app and found it to be perfectly acceptable. Here’s a screenshot of the Fastmail Android app:
The one drawback I saw was that the app does not function offline. If you need the ability to at least read your email when in an airplane for example, you won’t be able to do it with Fastmail.
Note: We also have a guide on VPNs for Android if you want more privacy on your device.
Is Fastmail really private and secure?
When I visualize a private, secure email service, it looks something like this:
- Every message I create is encrypted at my device, using encryption keys that I control. The encryption technology used cannot have any back doors or methods that bypass the encryption. Only I, or the intended recipient, have the capability to decrypt them.
- The messages are protected by SSL/TLS encryption while traveling between my device and the email service’s servers.
- While any messages are stored on the service’s servers, the service applies an additional layer of encryption that they control. This can not compromise the original encryption in any way.
This is basically how secure email services like ProtonMail and Tutanota work.
A major strike against Fastmail appears in the portion of their Privacy Policy covering the global transfer of your data. It states that:
“Your personal information may be disclosed, transferred to or processed outside of your country of residence. This includes to Australia, the United States of America, India, and the Netherlands, where it will be subject to the laws of the country to which it is transferred. These jurisdictions may not have an equivalent level of data protection laws as those in your country.”
If I am reading this correctly (I am not a lawyer), the privacy of your personal data is subject to the whims of the politicians in any of the countries listed.
Remember those two core Fastmail values, “Your data belongs to you,” and “We are good stewards of your data”? They stated in part that,
- “You get complete ownership and control of your data, which is seen by no one else but you.”
- “Your data is always available to you, intact, and away from the wrong hands.”
If your personal information can be disclosed and processed in any of several countries, and be subject to the data protection laws of those countries, you clearly don’t have complete ownership and control of your data.
It can be seen, collected, and shared with many other parties – and you may not even be alerted if/when your data falls into the “wrong hands”.
Australia is a bad location for secure email
The biggest strike against Fastmail is that it is based in Australia. That may sound strange, with Australia being a modern Western Democracy and all that. But in reality, Australia is a horrible place for online privacy. Here’s why:
The Five Eyes connection
Australia is a member of the Five Eyes Intelligence organization. This means, among other things, that they share intelligence with the other Five Eyes countries. Reportedly, this even extends to monitoring each other’s citizens and passing along the information. This allows the members to skirt laws against spying on their own citizens. This realization sets the stage.
Your metadata does not belong to you (in Australia)
In 2017, a federal court ruled that your metadata is actually data about your devices, not about you. This cleared the way for telecoms and other companies to record that data, and hand it over to the government on demand, while at the same time denying you access to the same data.
However, metadata can reveal a lot about your online activities even if it isn’t defined as user data. So, it became vital for people to use a quality VPN in Australia if they wanted to protect their privacy.
As mentioned before, it’s always a good idea to use one of the best VPN services at all times, since they will conceal your IP address and location. This provides you with online anonymity while letting you control your data, regardless of the laws in Australia.
Australia leads the way for the world to spy on users
In 2018, the Australian government passed a draconian law called the Assistance and Access Bill.
As the name suggests, this law requires technology companies to assist authorities in gaining access to user data. This can include direct access as well as adding backdoors or removing access bearers, to including breaking encryption.
According to human rights lawyer Lizzie O’Shea in a New York Times editorial:
Australia, which has no bill of rights, is a logical place to test new strategies for collecting intelligence that can later be adopted elsewhere. Among other things, the proposed law would create a process for “designated communications providers” — defined so expansively that it covers any business hosting a website — to assist intelligence and law enforcement agencies to do almost anything to give them access to encrypted communications. For example, providers may have to build tools, install software or keep agencies up-to-date with developments. In essence, state agencies will be able to circumvent encryption, either with the cooperation of tech companies or by compulsion.
Things have not improved. As Josh Taylor of the Guardian pointed out in his April 30, 2021 article,
Australians’ personal information could be accessed by government agencies and researchers without their consent under proposed data-sharing legislation…
We also discuss the privacy drawbacks of Australia in our Session messenger review, as well as our roundup guide on the best VPNs for Australia.
You don’t control your content, Fastmail does
The privacy developments in Australia are horrible, but in a way, it doesn’t even matter. That’s because you don’t control access to your messages and other information – Fastmail does. Let’s go back to my vision of a secure, private email service for a moment. The first step in my model is:
- Every message I create is encrypted, at my device, using encryption keys that I control. The encryption technology used cannot have any back doors or methods that bypass the encryption. Only I, or the intended recipient, have the capability to decrypt them.
Fastmail doesn’t bother with that step. They go directly to step 2, where my (unencrypted) messages are protected while in transit by the standard SSL/TLS encryption that virtually every business website uses these days. Once the messages arrive at the Fastmail servers, that encryption is removed, leaving my messages in plain text for anyone who happens to have access to the server to read.
On their site, Fastmail explains their rationale for taking this approach. As they put it,
To provide the services we offer, it is necessary for our computer systems to process unencrypted and unobfuscated data (for example: to build the search indexes which allow fast message retrieval, or to push alarm notifications for calendar events).
This approach does have advantages such as those described here. It also makes it possible for Fastmail to recover your account for you if you lose your password, and so on. What it doesn’t do is give you privacy or security in the same league as other services.
Data stored on servers in the United States
As we noted above, Fastmail stores user data on servers in the United States. From their support page:
Our main servers are located at New York Internet (NYI) in Bridgewater, New Jersey, USA. Their facility is a high security, video monitored location; with backup power, air conditioning, fire systems, 24x7x365 monitoring, and onsite technical support.
Our secondary sites at NYI’s Seattle location has equivalent physical security.
Storing data in the United States is somewhat risky. US laws permit authorities to demand access to user data while also giving them authority to serve companies with gag orders that prohibit them from disclosing what happened. This has happened on at least two occasions with Lavabit and also Riseup.
Fastmail business features
When you choose the Fastmail Professional plan, you get a few business-specific capabilities. In addition to the ability to use your own domain name (instead of a pre-existing Fastmail domain), you get:
- Administrator controls and archiving
- Topicbox for team sharing
Topicbox is a sister product of Fastmail that works as a group email app for teams. It gives you a shared archive, where you (the Administrator) can create controlled-access groups to manage the messages and knowledge of your teams. Instead of forwarding and CC’ing messages, you can send them to the relevant group on Topicbox to streamline communications and keep information organized.
Support
The Fastmail Support area includes lots of useful information. This is good since they don’t offer live chat and the only way to contact their support personnel is via email. Responses may take several hours.
Fastmail plans and pricing
Fastmail has three plans: Basic, Standard, and Professional. As you can see in the image below, the prices for each plan seem reasonable for the amount of storage and capabilities that they provide. You can find a full list of features here.
Note that there isn’t separate business pricing. The Professional plan’s support for up to 100 domains and 600 aliases along with various administrative controls, gives it the power to handle small businesses.
Should you consider Fastmail?
As always, whether an email service is right for you depends on your threat model. Here is a summary of specific factors to consider:
- Jurisdiction – Fastmail is based in Australia and your data is stored in New York City. Neither Australia nor the United States are privacy-friendly jurisdictions.
- PGP support – This app does not support PGP. However, it can be added via browser extensions.
- Import feature – Fastmail has the ability to import mail from most other email services and can export messages as well.
- Email apps – This is a web-based client that offers integration with 3rd party desktop clients. It is also available on iOS and Android.
- Encryption – Emails and attachments don’t have end-to-end encryption. Servers are encrypted and protect at-rest data, but Fastmail can access all your data.
- Features – Includes a built-in calendar, contacts, notes, and file storage along with a full-text search of all the above.
From this list, we can see that Fastmail is not a good choice from a privacy perspective. The service does not provide end-to-end encryption, which means that employees (as well as local governments) may access your unencrypted data. Finally, neither Australia nor the United States are very supportive of online privacy.
Fastmail alternatives
I find that suggesting alternatives to Fastmail is a little bit awkward. That’s because I don’t really see a practical niche for the product.
Now, don’t get me wrong, keeping your data out of the hands of mega-corporations like Microsoft or Google is a great idea. But if you are going to switch from Gmail, Outlook.com, or similar services, why would you switch to Fastmail since it doesn’t provide real privacy?
On the other hand, services like Tutanota and Proton Mail are continuously adding features like Calendars and the ability to search your data, while also eliminating the need to trust them not to read your stuff themselves.
Fastmail review conclusion
Is Fastmail a good choice for readers of RestorePrivacy.com? That depends on your threat model. If your only concern is that a mega-corporation like Google or Microsoft doesn’t mine your email messages for advertising purposes, then Fastmail could be a good choice.
If you are looking for a secure and private email service that doesn’t rely on trusting the company’s employees, you might want to start your search elsewhere. A good first step is by checking out this ProtonMail review of this Tutanota review. We think you’ll like what you see.
Lastly, here is our complete list of secure email reviews, should you wish to explore other options:
ProtonMail Review
Tutanota Review
Mailfence Review
Mailbox.org Review
Hushmail Review
Posteo Review
Runbox Review
Fastmail FAQ
What is Fastmail used for?
Fastmail is an e-mail service that also lets you manage your calendar and contacts, and serves as cloud storage.
Is Fastmail more secure than Gmail?
Fastmail uses TLS encryption which makes it a safer alternative to Gmail, especially since Google has an invasive data-mining policy.
Can I trust Fastmail?
We wouldn’t put complete trust in Fastmail, as it doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption. This means that Fastmail has the option to read your messages. Whether they will do so is left at their discretion.
This review was last updated on April 27, 2024.
One of the missing aspecs of the review is Fastmail’s folder storage system. It is particularly useful for users who need to organize their stored mail in folders, like lawyers and consultants and other personal service providers. To round out the system, it archives very well with huge quantities of all emails separate from the current folders. This means that unlike GMail which does that job with its search engine, Fastmail allows for a quick browse of the emails for a specific file,regardless of by recipient. It has worked superbly for me for over 20 years. As to concerns about its appearance, I have learned that every component of the U.I. is based on a functional aspect. It just works easily and well. And its customer service has been excellent for me for years – real people, no AI, within one day and often the same day. As long as you are not worried about bitcom and hiding your email from government, this is one great product.
FASTMAIL has gradually turned into a scummy service. They take your phone number during sign up for a trial and don’t even let you send a single email. When confronted they said that Trail accounts may have certain restrictions. Their document clearly states that every trial account can send upto 120 messages, I was unable to even send one!
Their representative named ‘Tyler’ kept insisting how this https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277442-Trial-accounts meant that trials accounts are limited to NOT having the ability to send emails and that I will need to pay to enable it. DO NOT USE FASTMAIL. They don’t even support email encryption (PGP, GPG etc). Stay away from these scammers.
Been using Fastmail for many years, generally pleased with it, especially the polished look, both online and mobile app. Currently pay the equivalent of about £24 pa. Looked at my wife migrating to Fastmail, new individual prices start at £54 pa! Will be looking elsewhere!
In response to the title of this article, I would like to stand up for Fastmail and emphasize the positive aspects. I often read that Fastmail is considered to have limited security in terms of privacy. If you are a law-abiding citizen, my question is what reason could a government have to request your data? And if I’m correct, then the email services that send encrypted are only more secure if the receiving side replies encrypted. So to what extent do you have all your contacts on Proton or Tutanota? Personally, I think Fastmail is a very well put together product. I have all my contacts in there. If I change or lose a phone, I install Fastmail and I am operational again. With Davx5 I synchronize my agenda with my local agenda on my Android phone. Integration with 1Password or Bitwarden is also a useful feature. And for online privacy, I think that we as users should be much more wary of criminal hackers who make off with your private data. Fastmail offers 600 aliases and on top of that Masked email, a randomly generated email address. This gives you the option to create a unique email address for each online store or online application. If that company is hacked, only that one email address has been leaked, and you can easily close it if you receive spam. Speaking of spam, I rarely receive it, but the spam filter with the default setting works excellently. So much for the praise of Fastmail. I understand that offline use is a drawback for some people and in some areas and countries. Fortunately, there is always coverage where I live, so this doesn’t matter to me. All in all, I can highly recommend Fastmail. Since April 8, 2024, there have been subscriptions for multiple people (1, 2 or family up to 6 people). All plans have the same features. Price has increased slightly. There is a discount for a longer subscription period. I am on a Basic plan myself, and unfortunately I do not yet have access to Snooze and the delayed sending function. But I don’t really need that for personal email. By default, Fastmail delays your sending for 15 seconds. If you have forgotten anything in your message, you can click undo. Also very useful, it irritates me in Outlook (for work) that this can be set to the lowest setting of 1 minute, because I then have to wait too long before the message is sent. I have been using Fastmail for 15 years now and am very satisfied. The support is also very good, although rarely necessary in my case.
The government is not that much an issue. Governments get what they want in the end anyways. There is little chance to escape globally.
The issue is that the provider, their employees have access to the content. They say user trusts the server not the individual but individuals run the servers and we do not know who they are. Would you take your shower naked on the street during rush hour and ask a stranger for the towel when you are done ?
I have used FM for several months in order to migrate away from the (horrible!) G-Mail! Frankly have no issues with it, the security doesn’t really bother me that much because of the nature of my email requirements, and while I use the app on my Android phone (which works REALLY well and looks good), I use Mozilla Thunderbird on the laptop, a bit of a pain to set up but now works beautifully. Preferable (IMHO) to using the browser based app, and with Thunderbird you have the option of easily setting up PGP encryption if required.
I have found the support service to be fast and helpful and the ‘standard’ price point gives me what I want in storage and facilities.
I agree with the annoying lack of off-line support on the mobile app, I live in an area with occasionally flaky 4G support, and hate the ”rotating dots” when there is no signal!
All in all, it’s “Horses for courses”, it’s a good email system and a fair price but if nuclear level security is your choice, then expect to pay for it!
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that FastMail uses Cloudflare. (https://www.cloudflare.com/case-studies/fastmail/) While they say they just use Cloudflare for DNS, if you look more into the DNS of FastMail you’ll see Fastmail is in front of their website, DNS, and email.
There are people who trust Cloudflare, and there are many who don’t.
New user here; testing Fastmail, Proton and Tuta simultaneously to identify which one is better for me so I can start my migration from gmail.
I have found that, for my needs – and focusing on usability not security – Fastmail is by far the best alternative; it is fast, it was quite easy to configure my custom domain, it has a good set of features and the pricing is ok; again, it is based on my own needs.
And I need to talk about the support – it is great! Even during the trial period, all of my questions and bug reports were promptly answered by real people; an Android app UI bug, specific to my idiom, was fixed within days and I could not be happier.
The ability to use “masked email” is a big pro in my opinion. It’s a fancy name for email aliases.
I grant that all the deficits you mentioned are present. It’s par for the course. If I want something secure I would send a GPGP encrypted attachment. F*** the built in encryption (if any).
I left Fastmailer, after a decade of use. Why ? It appeared that their tech department
replies has become slower and slower. The first contact may or not be able to helf you
and then they pass you up the ranks. It has an excellent interface and uploading
images works well. To the best of my knowledge, their website was never down, unless for
scheduled maintenance.
The problems I began to experience, was returning to a misspelled word, only to have the
font size change when returning to where I left off. I do not use the small default size. Another madding issue,
was the incoming email column, which always returned to its bloated size, interfering with
reading some emails. The support department could never find a fix. :<((
Once or twice a year, users will have a tech issue with their email, of some sort. The response
time [tech department] was extending to twenty-four hours before there was a reply and to
often the First Responder was of little helf.
The final end came when I lost three important emails and I could not retrieve them; either could
the Second Responder. I had even starred these emails, but they still disappeared !! :<((
Fastmail, was promptly cashiered.
Fabulous website and well written reviews ! My Frau has also axe to have her privacyrestored. :<))
Also, I would rather use a mail provider in a semi-privacy-friendly jurisdiction like Belgium or Norway, than an Australian provider at all costs. The difference is between all your metadata and maybe your full emails being collected ALL the time in Australia, or relying on a hard-to-get court order specifically for a single user in Belgium or Norway, which rarely happens unless you are involved in something dodgy. Take your pick.
Fastmail support USED to be responsive and accurate but these days you go around in circles or wait long times for a reply from someone that is a halfwit not understanding your question, so you spend days back and forth.
Secondly, they have no concern for your privacy, as that is different to security. As Australia’s repressive data laws were coming, metadata and others, Fastmail had plenty of time to relocate their company and servers to a more friendly jurisdication, but instead went the other way, to the USA and other 9 eyes.
When queries about it, they had no qualms in “complying” with those draconian Australian laws. It was a small nuisance to them but a big blow to their customers. I gather many savvy customers left elsewhere, but most didn’t. Stay away from this email provider, it has no redeeming properties. Their founder went on to another startup and basically just left Fastmail cruise through those Oz metadata laws, not worrying to much about them. Why would he, when it was collecting steady income from ignorant customers?
Stay away from this fraud company. They will take your money and lock your account. Worst service ever!!!
silly comment
Agreed. Personal experience. Stay away from them. Scammers in sheep’s clothing.
Fastmail is GREEDY
I registered for 30 day trial. Added custom domain. Email alias with my custom domain.
Everything went smooth. No errors, alerts or hints.
Tried deleting an email alias. This is when things started to go south. I got the error, “You cannot delete aliases on trail account”. Tried deleting my domain “You cannot delete your domain when there are aliases attached to it”. Basically, they are saying, “Pay me money to remove or releaae your domain or your aliases”. They basically trick you into registering and then block you.
Hahaha.. I registered an account and they asked for my phone number to verify it. I gave it. Verified the code. Now they are not letting me test it. I am unable to send a single email, why? They are asking me to pay the full amount to test it.
Being a retired Sr. IBM iSeries programmer and consultant, I have used Fastmail for more than 15 years and have found it dependable and superior to virtually all other Email providers. Email is all they do and it shows in so many ways with their continuous improvements. How and why Gmail is so highly rated is beyond me. Google/Alpha One is nothing more than a devouring leech in the high technology landscape!
I completely agree. I’ve been using it for years too and have never had an issue. The iPhone app has been flawless for me as well. Nothing to not love about Fastmail including the Cloud Storage that is included and so easy to use.
agree 100%
Fastmail is reliable, but I’m paying $84 for 3 years, and they give me only 2GB of space. Really, in todays junk email world? I’m cancelling this month and going with skiff mail. 10gb for the free account.
Same here. I dunno where the author got his 100GB from. Fastmail is only giving me 2GB and Ive been with them 20 years. They are stingy. And their privacy is NON-EXISTENT, they are based in Australia, look it up yourself.
The Professional plan gives you “100 GB of storage per user”
https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/
That’s something I also would like to know. Can space (for example 100GB) be used 100% only for e-mails or is there a restriction?
Paying Fastmail customer here since 2014…
Great that the product is still being improved upon, but the support / billing issues are less satisfactory.
Support: Opened a ticket last week and waited 48h for a reply. Ehhkm. They did it better few years ago.
Billing: I scanned my billing history and it runs every year from April until April the following year. So in April 2020 they charged me until April 2021. So far so good. However in October 2020 they migrated my account to the newer plan (Standard) and charged me for 6 months… I don’t remember I was informed about this charge at the time, also seems a little bit excessive. So this is how business losses a trusted customer: unexpected $25. Greedy.
Hi.
You’re wrong in one part of the review.
Fastmail does NOT store your data in Amsterdam. They did long time ago but stopped it and went back to US only. (I think because of European law).
Best
Thanks, I got that sentenced fixed now.
I’ve been with Fastmail for almost 20 years from the onset. During this time, I have found them to be secure and helpful. The only problem is a breakdown of their original customer service from the old days.
This review indicates the reviewer has a fundamental misunderstanding of security.
This claim is false: “The Fastmail model requires you to trust the employees of the company since they have the ability to read your messages. With a service like ProtonMail or Tutanota, it is literally impossible for them to read your messages.”
It implies ProtonMail is better but in reality, if you use the ProtonMail over the web (that is anytime you access your account with a browser) you trust the employees of the company because it gives them the ability to read all your messages, INCLUDING your PGP-encrypted messages. I just looked and this is explained in the paper that is linked to from the ProtonMail review on this very site, by reviewer Heinrich Long (who is not the author of this review – that’s Sven Taylor). The paper is ‘An Analysis of the ProtonMail
Cryptographic Architecture’, by Nadim Kobeissi. In brief, when you log into ProtonMail in Chrome, Firefox or whatever, you are trusting the underlying OpenPGP implementation, also written in JavaScript, and that Javascript can be replaced on a per-browser basis. FastMail documents how it limits employee access, and presumably ProtonMail does too, but again, this requires trust. ProtonMail has responded to a the first (2018) version of the paper, but the current version is dated 2021. ProtonMail’s ‘response’ is dated January 20, 2019, and claims, falsely that “This is always true”:“sending an email to a malicious email service can lead to the malicious service reading your emails.” But this is false if PGP is used only the way it was intended – with a locally installed email client. IIRC, Fastmail has said it intentionally doesn’t support web-based PGP precisely because it would reduce security compared to a user using a PGP client, and thus likely provide a false sense of security.
Fastmail isn’t perfect. (I lost my sent mail once because I deleted it accidentally, and though they were able to restore it, I didn’t realize I then needed to move the restored email from the restored folders into my normal folders in order to retain it.) But like the aptly named PGP, it’s Pretty Good at Privacy.
I have been a customer for over 10 years (Proof: I’m providing a FastMail DEA in the email field as I leave this message). In my extensive experience, the product and support are very good – both are unparalleled, IMNSHO.
They also provide the best IMAP (and JMAP) support around so PGP, the standard in email privacy, is very well supported. I use it with Thunderbird (open source, from Mozilla, the folks who make Firefox) app when I want to use PGP.
Yes, we have seen that paper and agree with its points.
https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/1121.pdf
I deleted that sentence from the review as I believe any “secure email” can have flaws and can be compromised in a number of ways, contrary to what was originally written when this review was first published a while back.
you posted on 2020-12-07, and a recent tests i’ve done among mailfence / protonmail / fastmail around 2022-09-21 found the same problem is still true.
subfolder can be created in protonmail, but limited only to 3 nested folder max, which is an annoying limitation when i was trying to import emails from other accounts like you did.
fastmail is definitely still the best in GUI design, performance and robustness among other competitors, the difference is huge to the extend that, at least at the meantime, i’d rather compromise to use a much better product in a daily basis than having to tolerate the many glitches for privacy.
the major upgrade on protonmail earlier has just put too much focus on the GUI rather than other essential functions, and did not really worth their effort.
I used Fastmail.fm back in college. Didn’t access my account for a time (life has a way of keeping you busy) and when I went to try it again during some free time I found my account was gone. NO warning, in fact NO communication from them at all (back then you had to supply a back-up email address). Tried to resolve the issue via Technical Support to no avail. Finally I just gave up.
I suggest that it would be better to state that Fastmail can be equally as secure as other option if used with the proper tools. In addition the alias and now masked email options offered by Fastmail are superior to the suggested alternatives.
Something that would make Fastmail more privacy friendly would be if it provided a Web Key Directory or Service for those of us that want to use openPGP with Fastmail. This is possible with a custom domain, but it is not currently possible with Fastmail’s domains.
are there instructions anywhere on how to set this up (WKD) with custom domains in fastmail? – I’d like to read about it/test it out. Thanks
Is it really a “con” if FM doesn’t offer a crypto payment option? Seems something that the review can point out, but it seems extreme to call it con, IMHO.
I have used Fastmail for almost 9 years. Tried different e-mail services but find myself always go back to Fastmail. I think it’s the most developed e-mail service that can be found. Everything is flawless going between e-mail, notes, calendar, address book.
There is just one thing I miss from a security view, and that is being able to send self destructive mail. The reason is that security for me is about the receiver of the message. If I send a message to someone that uses gmail or any other e-mail service for that matter, my sent mail is saved forever.
The receiver can just screenshot the email anyway. There’s no such thing as receiver-based security.
The support for FASTMAIL is insanely BAD. Borderline rude in action. You’d be a fool to go with this service. I know / I AM, I’m a paying customer. 🙁 Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…………………..
I’ve had Fastmail for years. Sure, privacy and security are important, but as the review says, your threat model is important. If any government is reading my emails, then the bad guys are getting away. If any Fastmail employees are reading my emails, then they must be pretty bored, and it will only get worse.
There’s no reason to believe Fastmail is going out of business. It has a solid product; I assume it’s a solid business. Plus if you set up a virtual email address, you can change providers if you ever decide to do that without changing your email address (as long as the provider you go to has that functionality).
Finally, I’ve had no problems with customer service. They’re always gotten back to me quickly. I may not always get what I want, but they take me seriously and respond.