Fastmail Labels Beta

When I transitioned from Gmail to FastMail, I had to get used to using folders again instead of labels. While it was painful, I am glad I am no longer using labels, and I have no intention to start using them again. I vastly prefer being able to rely on the basic email client functionality in any given mail app, and using goofy nonstandard parts like snooze and labels makes that difficult.<p>I appreciate that with JMAP, FastMail has essentially become the first entity to do labels correctly, with a freaking standard behind it, but client support isn&#x27;t going to be there for many years so I will avoid it. The big upside for me is it&#x27;ll take away one reason people say they can&#x27;t leave Gmail.

It wasn&#x27;t super obvious to me, but you have to use beta.fastmail.com for this to work.<p>Confused me for a moment as you can complete the first step of enabling this (changing to New Rules) using the stable client.<p>---<p>Oh, no, it&#x27;s even more confusing than that. You enable the labels beta function on the beta website, but then it applies even on the main website.

Might as well put it here since Fastmail doesn’t come up often. Does anyone find Fastmail’s spam detection to be pretty mediocre? I usually get a few obviously spam emails a week in my inbox. The volume is low so I don’t mind it but that’s really the one thing I miss from Gmail.

One reason I switched to Fastmail is it&#x27;s just folders, not labels. I <i>HATED</i> labels in Gmail. It never works right with external clients, even if you use plugins in Thunderbird or try to use labels like they are folders.<p>I gave up and basically used the web interface until I switched to FastMail.<p>Will folders ever become mandatory? If so, maybe I should finally give in and host emails myself. It can&#x27;t be more painful than being forced to use labels.

It&#x27;s not quite clear to me: Can these rules be applied to already existing mails at creation time?<p>This is convenient in Gmail and when I last looked at fastmail in 2014 this wasn&#x27;t possible.<p>This was the support answer: &quot;I am sorry, but our filters only work at email delivery time. You can&#x27;t really use them on emails already delivered to your account.<p>However, to work on already delivered emails, I would suggest you use our &#x27;Search&#x27; feature. You can search for emails matching specific criteria, and then select them and move them en masse to a different folder, or even delete them.&quot;<p>This works but makes migration&#x2F;reorganizing a bit annoying

As a longtime Fastmail user, it&#x27;s taken a long time to get to this point -- a labels beta. At this point, I&#x27;d like to see some truly unique native analytics on my storage rather than somewhat late attempts at market feature parity. I&#x27;d like to see a unique suite of management tools, like, say, an intelligent bulk unsubscriber. But sure, I&#x27;ll test labels out.

This is quite a leap forward in organising emails. I believe emails need to be organised into concise groups in order for you to become your most productive.<p>One thing I would suggest is to allow the organisation of labels according to when the last email was received. Today, Yesterday, This week, Last week, This month, Last month etc.<p>I actually run a similar product called DarwinMail [1], which was built shortly after GoogleInbox announced it would shut down in 2018.<p>We have supported bundles (labels in Fastmail) for about 12 months now. Through consistent iterative updates (thanks to feedback from our users) we have made huge progress.<p>Apart from the core (built-in) bundles: travel, finance, purchases, forums, promotions, social, updates you can also create a bundle from any label you wish.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.darwinmail.app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.darwinmail.app</a>

Interesting. Is there an IMAP attribute similar to Gmail&#x27;s X-GM-LABELS?

While I sympathize with a company providing a good service and being paid accordingly, $5 a month still seems too high for email.

Is there a standards for labels in IMAP protocol? Or this another Gmail like proprietary protocol? Does this sync all emails multiple times if they have multiple labels in a regular email client?

I&#x27;ve been a Fastmail user for my personal email for several years now, however I still miss labels. Therefore I love seeing this.<p>It is unclear to me how this works with IMAP clients. Are these labels still exposed as folders over IMAP?<p>If so, I assume messages get duplicated, just as with Gmail, therefore the client will need special hacks to deal with it, just as with Gmail.

So it looks like labels are like “multi-folders”, and unlike gmail, there is no mix of labels and folders. It’s either or.

If you have a spouse and&#x2F;or kids, and you want them to use FastMail for the same reason you do, consider putting pressure on FastMail to offer a (reasonable) family plan. I’ve been a happy customer for a decade but they’ve raised their prices (which would affect new accounts) and do not offer a family plan so this year be my last year with them.<p>Edit: typo

Does it work with Spark?

So Mailmate should be compatible with those, can anyone confirm?

&gt;Add colors to your Labels ...<p>&gt;Switching back to Folders mode: ... Your labels will be converted into Folders.<p>Upon converting back to Folder mode, what happens to our painstakingly entered per-label color assignments?<p>As a Fastmail user, this worries me, as on its face suggesting a destructive bulk state change to all metadata of the account.

what about zoho? i use it for business but is it viable and friendly for non-tech literate families? I simply connect zoho to thunderbird.

Curious to hear how people use these!

How many users does fastmail have?

Too expensive.