Do not want to get locked out of my account. Heard too many scary stories recently.<p>There must be quick support available, in case of locked account.<p>Outlook, Gmail, Protonmail, Fastmail..?
There’s probably no provider, paid or otherwise that you can be guaranteed to be safe with because they all rely on automated systems that can make mistakes. I would say you have more chance for active support if you go with a paid service like Proton though.<p>Apart from that, redundancy makes sense - don’t rely on a single email provider/service but have several independent email identities with your mail synced across them. This goes for associated data too - the worst part of having your account locked is losing access to your cloud-stored contacts, files, etc.
My mail client is Gmail and my mail provider is Fastmail. Fastmail is great, especially if you have many email addresses.<p>I love Gmail/Cal but don't trust Google's long term offerings. Fastmail means I have my mail in two locations.
You could try mail.com or gmx.com. Same software on both.<p>mail.com is a bit heavy with the adware. gmx.com has more free options (like mail forwarding).<p>Dunno about support. I'm not recommending, just mentioning.
I would say that there is 3 important points to your question:<p>1: Use your own domain, this allows you to somewhat easily move providers.
2: Offline backup of your email. Keep a offline backup of you email, it could just be a desktop client checking email.
3: A paid provider with support, so you can get to talk to someone.<p>I personally think icloud is a option. Fastmail or hey.com could also be.