coaching newsletter contact

Leaving Gmail for ProtonMail

There's a trend. It's a typical trend. It's one you see in many sectors. It's a trend that comes from one of two sources. One, people need a break. Two, people know and understand more about their sector than the general population. But the question is, what do you do about it once you know?

This is a trend that I've seen developing in myself and a handful of friends over the last year. People tend to exercise increasing moderation with the products they develop or work with in their career. And in my case, I see my moderation of technology growing as the time I spend with it and building it increases.

And for the most part, that moderation has been in the amount of time I devote to screens. That's the typical response we see today as exposed by Cal Newport and his awesome book Digital Minimalism. And the core motivator behind the screen time limitation is a dedication to a life outside the screens and a knowledge of the detriments a screen-filled life causes. It's that knowledge of the negatives that eventually leads to a choice to leave the norm.

These negatives also become a conversation point when discussing screen moderation with those outside the practice. And like all harmful actions, they can lead the individual to research and understand the "why" behind their practice at deeper and deeper levels so that they have better arguments for their actions. Thus, confirmation bias. But sometimes that research can lead to knowledge of tangential issues.

It's becoming common knowledge that too much time with screens can lead users to increased levels of loneliness. That is primarily due to countless studies on the long-term effects of screens. And as people try to understand why this happens, we've uncovered a difficult truth about the companies that develop the core apps that we find on most phones: they're in it for the money. And that means collecting ridiculous amounts of data about their users and fine-tuning their products to convince you to use them even more.

Again, these reports on user data collection continue to surface and are slowly becoming common knowledge. But does it matter if tech companies collect this data on us? I think you have to decide on that yourself. Some people care and others couldn't care less. In my case, I care. And that means I decided to start taking action to protect my privacy. I also decided that the next step to take in that process is to move my main email account away from Google.

And if I leave Gmail, it only made sense to me to move it to ProtonMail. I first became aware of ProtonMail while watching Mr. Robot. The lead character has an email address despite being crazy particular about where is online data lives. That piqued my interest and I did some research. It turned out that ProtonMail was the provider of choice for the show. And after digging into the company behind the tool, I realized it was perfect for what I needed.

It turns out that moving to ProtonMail is pretty straightforward. I set up my account with them (Plus account), pointed my domain, and then set about migrating all my archives. That last point turned out to be pretty easy. They have a tool, ProtonMail Import-Export, that does all the migration steps for you. It made the transfer easy for me.

Side note: There's an entire knowledgeable article for moving from Gmail to ProtonMail.

Readers of my newsletter know that I made this move a while back now. And since then I've learned some of the great things and not-so-great things about it.

First off, I love the feeling of knowing no one reads my emails without asking. My data is my data. But that only goes as far as the recipient of the email. If they're on Gmail, Google is still reading the email. But I have peace of mind knowing that I'm doing my part in the battle.

It has become easy to send passwords to people. I didn't expect this to be something I do, but I occasionally need to send temporary passwords to others and ProtonMail makes it easy. I can set up a message that expires in an hour and send that to the recipient. They'll get an email with a link to the message that will then self-destruct an hour after I sent it. That means that if I send a password to someone, the record of it only exists for an hour. And if I want to secure that encrypted email even more, I can add a password to it and require the recipient to type in the password to decrypt the message.

Amid this move, I wanted to transition this email account (my main account) to the Apple Mail client. Again, this was pretty simple with the Bridge application. ProtonMail doesn't allow direct SMTP with any client because it can sacrifice privacy in the process. So they have the Bridge application to make sure your emails are encrypted when passing in and out of the client.

But the Bridge app also makes it easy to set up in Apple Mail. One click in the settings was all I needed to set it up. Now I will say that it took a long time to get my messages to sync the first time. It was roughly two weeks before it completed. That was a nuisance, but worth it.

One aspect of this transition that is a big sacrifice is the move away from not only Gmail but the entire Suite. I no longer have Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and more. Leaving Google Calendar wasn't an issue. I had already moved those to iCloud. And I already have a personal NextCloud instance that has been slowly replacing Drive and such.

I could see this being a pain in the future, but for now, I haven't had an issue without these. But that's also because I keep a junk Google account for things like a YouTube account, Google Analytics, and a few miscellaneous pieces. Anything I need Google for I can use under that account until I can transition each piece away.

Overall, I'm happy with this move. It has brought a TON of mental peace that I didn't know was weighing me down. So I highly recommend moving to ProtonMail.

Sun, Sep 22, 2019 07:00pm CDT https://bhlg.us/52g1
#email #protonmail

Other mentions

medium.com
someone posted '' linking to https://joebuhlig.com/leaving-gmail-for-protonmail/
Joe Buhlig

For a couple of years now, I have been weaning myself off of Google’s services. I am simply tired of volunteering my information for their algorithms and seeing it used to create a confirmation bias that is unhealthy in the long-term. Yes, there are other companies doing the same, but for the sake of this article, let’s focus on Google. Here’s a look at the services I’m using to avoid them.

Brave Browser

I recommend Brave all the time. You get the Chrome engine without all the trackers. And on top of that, they have a new way of supporting publishers through the Basic Attention Token. There are a lot of details to this, but the overview is that it makes it possible to support the sites you visit without the need for ads on the website. This is why I have set up joebuhlig.com as a Brave Verified Creator. By joining Brave Rewards and reading my articles, you can support my writing.

DuckDuckGo

This is an easy one. Replace Google search on all your devices. I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for almost two years now and I can say that it does an excellent job at finding what I need. I can only think of a few scenarios when I’ve used Google and those were for a reverse image search.

Visit the DuckDuckGo homepage on each device for links to install DuckDuckGo as your default.

NextDNS

It’s one thing to avoid Chrome and Google Search, but to avoid Google Analytics is a completely different ballgame. And it’s one that isn’t easily accomplished successfully. But the best way I’ve found to avoid the Google trackers (and many others) is to use NextDNS to filter the network information that goes to and from your browser. You can install ad blockers and such, but websites can bypass those if they work at it. If you use a tool like NextDNS, it stops the problem at the domain level.

Matomo Analytics

I am trying to do my part in eliminating the cross-site tracking nightmare we find ourselves in. I have eliminated ads here on my blog. I have also switched away from Google Analytics to a self-hosted Matomo Analytics instance. That way the only tracking happening here is on a server that doesn’t talk to a central organization. In other words, when you visit joebuhlig.com, your data is only visible to me. And the data captured is only for determining which articles and pages are the most popular.

ProtonMail

GSuite is the default answer for most folks in the tech space. And it seems Gmail is by far the most common email provider out there. So it’s not a simple task to get away from it. In my case, I have been using ProtonMail to do it. You can read about my move here, but the gist of it is that ProtonMail is a Swiss company that takes email privacy very seriously.

iCloud Calendar

When you leave GSuite, you also lose Google Calendar. I had some issues with calendaring that I have learned came from the use of Google Calendar. Basically, sharing calendars took too long to sync. So I switched to iCloud calendaring and haven’t had any issues since. I’m not convinced this is the best way to protect my calendar data, but at the moment it works. So I’m not likely to keep looking for an alternative.

Nextcloud

Google Drive is a tough one to pass when so many others assume you have it available. But about a year ago I set up a self-hosted Nextcloud instance and have been using it to share files almost weekly. I have been amazed by how well this works. The only qualm I have with this move is that you have to work with other people to make their Google Docs public or maintain a dummy Google account for collaborating on their work.

Outliers

One aspect of Google that I haven’t been able to avoid is YouTube. I have a handful of channels that I like to keep up with and thus, I need a Google account to keep track of those. I could get by with skipping on this, but it is nice.

At the same time, Bookworm has a YouTube channel for posting new episode videos. It’s impossible to run a YouTube channel without a Google account. So that needs to stick around.

As for my own personal videos, I post those to Vimeo instead of YouTube.

The other outlier is Google Maps. The only real alternative I have found is Apple Maps and Apple has let me down many times here. So, for now, Google Maps remains.

« MacSparky Has A New Field Guide On Fantastical Joe Buhlig

an analog mind in a digital world

Want to see my August 2020 Bullet Journal setup?

Join 1,514 subscribers!

I'll send you the link to a six-minute overview video of my August 2020 spreads when you sign up for my newsletter, The Weekly Impulse.

Site Analytics

I use Fathom Analytics on this site because I care about your privacy. And if you ever want to see the stats collected and the data I see, check out the live analytics here.

Amazon Affiliate

joebuhlig.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees when linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above might be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

an analog mind in a digital world

👋 I'm Joe Buhlig. I strive to build productivity systems that stand the test of time and help me do more than check boxes. I'm here to help you do the same.

🎙 I read a lot of books and talk about it.

🐿 I can't focus on one thing for long, so I write a lot of code for an eclectic grouping of projects.

📓 And I'm a bit obsessed with finding non-proprietary solutions to digital problems. Thus, text files for the win! 🎉

MN U.S.A 1986-09-30
  • all
  • articles
  • code
  • likes
  • notes
  • photos
  • replies
  • reposts
  • steps
  • videos
coaching newsletter contact
© 2014-2025 by Joe Buhlig