Operamail future?
-
string last edited by
Just in case someone might be intersested (fat chance!) I thought I would expose myself to what I just did.
Ike most here I bewail the passing of operamail, for all the reasons that have come up ranging from nostalgia to the pure hassle of changing. Plus the irritation of being forced to do something.
Becasue of a misunderstanding of how long I actually had to do something, I thought that all had to be sorted this month because I had downloaded part of the on-cloud email archive to see what arrived in my computer. Well, I don't know it that was actually correct but the result wwas that looked at “solutions” and came to the conclusion that I couldn't come to a conclusion and so started to look at what I had to do it the end of the moth was a real deadline.
Enter Panic, left, right and centre!
In the course of that I discovered that Fastmail actually make it rather easy to recover the basics (emails you want to keep, email addresses etc, although copying / resending / printing as {Dfs email is a genuine hassle. What was difficult was deciding who needed to be told what the new email would be, with the inevitable conclusion being that one transfer being enough, one would have to get it right first time if one left precipitously.
support@fastmail.com were very useful and pointed me towards a solution which has turned out to be very simple to achieve. It took me 5 to 10 minutes to set it up and more r than 10 I think. There are several domains to choose from.
My email address was xyz@operamail.com (not xyz of course but my 3 initials – a conceit I know, but why not!?)
I renamed my identity, changing the domain at the same time, to xyz@fastmail.co.uk), using a very natty facility in Fastmail, which, at the same time automatically added xyz@operamail as an alias meaning that this would be transparent to people wanting to send me emails, or replying to them). One can add a footer which advise on any new email address one might chose, including the renamed one.I'm pleased with that choice, even though it is but step 1 of the process because:
o It takes the time pressure hassle away and I can chose the transfer date when I'm ready
o It thereby increases the time pressure of making a decision on what comes next
o I can prepare in parallel some of the transfer work
o I can spread the change announcement over a controlled period; first the top priority and second, because the incoming will still reach me as I would plan an overlap between loosing opera-mail and the new one becoming functional.
o In principle I won't have to move twice
o It uses the existing subscription
o I get to keep the front end of my IDAl the a pretty obvious but added up I think it's a good choice.
One thing to come out of it so far ia that Fastmail is pretty good and finding a Mail client as good as that will be tricky. By now I'm comfortable using Fastmail and might stay there. The above process protects that as a choice, rather the leaving becoming a fait accomplit.
I looked at Google – clunky I would say
also at Outlook – also a bit clunky but in a more sophisticated way
Of course that may be lack of familiarity particularly with Outlook, but that's my impression so far.
I tried to look at Vivaldi Mail but having sort of registered my new ID it would not let me complete the process , so work in progress there.I've not looked at Thunderbird
Well there we are, not for everyone perhaps, but not a bad staging post which eases one into the migration.
-
-
iartman last edited by
@boonstra it's not cool. like some have said, they still use operamail through fastmail. i'm in the same boat. not just linked to a hundred places, my email,
I_ArtMan@operamail.comis handled by fastmail, which i liked the way it worked. gmail being so busy , business complicated. now in june 2022 i will be dumped. this is somehow unfair. when our blogs were threated we we able to one click the whole ten years into wordpress. that's the way things should be done. -
A Former User last edited by
@iartman It's unfortunate but that is reality so you're going to have to deal with it. Best to archive your mail and choose a new client while you have time. Complaining will not change anything and just waste time.
-
string last edited by
Well I have some further thoughts on this Email Migration conundrum and can say what my conclusions are.
The bottom line is that I am staying with Fastmail for a while and may well make that long term.
I set up a new Account on Fastmail which is of the type xyz@fastmail.co.uk (other countries are available) and that is working well. In the main I use as email just the now-alias identity xyz@operamail.com which Fastmail set up for you which is very easy to use and puts emails directly in your new Fastmail account. The Fastmail help people were great, even with my blundering.
At first I thought I would try out the process of migration to another account, transferring the emails as I went along, using my Gmail account as the target and copying emails out to there. It was a disaster because I was approaching it from a piecemeal viewpoint and saw myself collapsing in a welter of lost and/or duplicated emails.
So I decided to inform as priority those contacts whose emails I would like to know about first like Medical stuff, Banks, key shops and other financial things; in general those that I register with but do not normally write to but who send emails which MUST go to the right place.The rest can be worked through; for them operamail is still working, but they and even close friends can wait.
A necessary trick is to have a good checksheet and keep count. Memory only lasts to the next email.
I've taken the opportunity to reduce my inbox to manageable levels (Over 2000 to less than 10) and tidy up my folder logic. In this I was lucky to discover the Fastmail App (Which is very good indeed) so that I could sort out a lot of that while watching the latest version of my Netflix serial in the comfort of my sofa and a glass of wine
If I do decide to change to a different Email service I now know that a lot of the transfer work can be done very easily and the experience I'm getting in informing contacts will be invaluable.
But I've bought myself time to take that decision, and I have to say that Fastmail is actually rather good.
Cheers
-
boonstra last edited by
@iartman
Indeed, not cool, it's an understatement ! And it's not even Opera who pulls the plug on Operamail, it's that Chinese buyer of Opera. The last years, when giving my email, I referred to the "...action where a fat lady sings...", and not any more to the browser. This is well motivated, because i like classical music. Die Zauberflöte, or even better, Arminio,... anyone ?Nevertheless, I have a 2 digit operamail-account, and of course the fastmail-version is taken. That 2 digit operamail-account was a fight to keep, somewhere back in 2013, when a "short" name was more expensive to keep. Before that, there was a hacking attempt to take it away from me. Yes, I have defended my mail on several occasions.
So now I have about a year to replace all of my Operamail usage's by the new one. And I hate it, that I am forced to do this. Still I will cling onto my operamail to the very last.
@wayner46
Please, can you stop your demotivating comments ? We know the patient operamail is dying, but you have already declared it fully dead, even very dead. You really don't stand your ground do you ?? Whe're being pulled a leg, that's a good reason to complain and fight. Juridical it's a grey area, but unilaterally withdrawing a service is not common. Though daily business for Mark Zuckerberg.... -
A Former User last edited by leocg
@boonstra Seriouly? You are going to cling to the Titanic until it sinks... do I have this picture correct? And you tell me to stop my demotivating comments? What is demotivating about reminding you that the Titanic is sinking now and taking on water and whether you like it or not, it's Over. Don't blame me for moving on and being able to face reality.
-
string last edited by
Have you checked out the availability of a 2 digit user name on Fastmail, They reorganised their email structure recently and for a while at east there were some options of that type available - ask their support.
2 or so weeks ago I renamed my 3 digit account in Operamail to one in fastmail, under the domain fastmail.co.uk, so I'm happy in that respect.
See if you can do that, but soon - it is first come first served in this situation.
It's worth trying, although they may be out of 2 digit options now, but don't delay.
-
string last edited by
Yes you are right, the phrase "flogging a dead horse" does come to mind.
By the way I tried Outlook but discovered it was in some way incompatible with coexisting with fastmail security , so the change-over period would have been over-complex.
In the end I did a huge cleaning and have a good setup in a new account at Fastmail, for my same 3 digit person.
Whimsically, I thought I would have an alias called "me" so I could send test emails to myself (which one does sometimes to try out new things). It could not accept "me" as an alias (presumably already taken) so I created an alias called "myself" and that works,
In the end, the only way you can make sense of bad things is to have fun with them.
Cheers
-
alphaville last edited by
@string I haven't experienced the incompatibility issue between Fastmail and Outlook. I've added my Fastmail account to Outlook just fine. Once you've accepted Fastmail's requirement that you have a different password for Fastmail in Outlook or for alternative logins on other devices/platforms/ then it all seems to work.
-
-
string last edited by
@alphaville --- That was good info ---. many thanks. I shall examine if I transgressed there!
Actually I had ruled Outlook out because of what I thought was an incompatility which was partly a pity because I had hoped to use it having recently installed Office 360 and thought Outlook would be good to try. That choice is still tenuously hovering there although I have doubts about continuing with Office 360 because of their blocking tactics on other software I have tended to use like Open Office. But that's another story.
But chance, however, I became aware of an odd-ball alternative. Cambridge University supports a rather exclusive Mail System for ex postdocs. I qualify because I got doctored there many many years ago.. The domain is something like Cantab.net . At the moment I'm hung up ressurecting by alumni number in order to register It caught my eye since it is a "lifetime email address", although that is probably just for the free subscription part (100mb), not the subscription one at 4Gb storage.
Anyway, the reason for mentioning that is to suggest that alumni mail addresses are surely not just a Cambridge thing and if one has a sentimental fondness for one's Alma Mater, like I do, then it is worth looking at: A bit if "cachet" involved too.
This mail-change thing forces one to think out of the box - all part of the fun I suppose.
-
boonstra last edited by
@wayner46
Yes, seriously, let's through in some analogies as well... Perhaps I am as king Leonidas of Sparta knowing to loose, or as king Pyrrhus of Epirus who was victorious and defeated, or one of the pilots of the Battle of Britain winning a completely lost cause, or an outnumbered but triumphant tank commander of the Six-Day War... Anyway, you would likely drop your weapons before any battle.Back to titanic, your skeleton remains would be now on the seabed, still in a foetus position with your tumb-bones in jour jaw. How about repelling reality ?
As long there is life, there is hope. Yes, pick your battles, and true, I'm not going to expect much.
-
alphaville last edited by
@string The procedure for generating "app" specific passwords is not necessarily made as clear as it could be, and on occasions in the past I have known it not to work quite as Fastmail intends.
I get a required app password " by logging into fastmail.com via a webmail browser, then going to Mail / Settings / Account / Password & Security / App Passwords, then take it from there. It's probably a good idea to have a Password Manager handy! At all times! Fastmail does provide an auto-generated password for you to use for the app but of course you will need to remember it...
I admit to being a fan of Office 365, including the 1TB OneDrive cloud storage and the other apps I think it's good value for money. And there's a copy of Access thrown in - OK so it's not the most glamorous database app on the block and there are security issues but it's very handy for personal use.
I totally agree about the thinking outside of the box, and in this case a change is much better than a rest for me at least. I've been forced to revisit all my passwords / usernames etc, and have got rid of a tonne of dead wood.
-
A Former User last edited by
In the end, the only way you can make sense of bad things is to have fun with them.
Cheers
I like the way you think.
-
A Former User last edited by A Former User
@boonstra said in Operamail future?:
@wayner46
Perhaps I am as king Leonidas of Sparta knowing to loose, or as king Pyrrhus of Epirus who was victorious and defeated, or one of the pilots of the Battle of Britain winning a completely lost cause, or an outnumbered but triumphant tank commander of the Six-Day WarIf your analogies were valid, in each case you would lose. Period. I'm a realist. I don't fight battles that are already lost. It's a waste of time and energy.
-
A Former User last edited by
@alphaville You're a sensible man. As I said to another... I like your way of thinking. It resonates with me.
-
Locked by
leocg
