I have this bad feeling daily that for whatever reason I loose access to my gmail. Don’t think of anything shady but simply I just loose it. There is a very small chance to it but still. You can read the stories that people uploaded their family photos to google drive and the algorithm marks their kids photos CP and they loose their account. Or maybe your email is used to spam or anything similar. There is no way to talk to google support, it is an endless loop of help pages. I just can’t live with this. I know billions of people do, but I cannot. My email address is registered to hundreds of websites including government and banking sites. You could literally destroy me financially or other ways by just gaining login to my gmail. Google could cause me HUGE problems by locking me out. I decided to start transitioning to an email with my own domain. I have the doimain, I have the email client setup. So what do you do with your existing stuff? Most websites dont even let you change the email. I have to take appointment in government offices to change my email. It seems like a giant task.
Have anyone took this leap?
Start by changing your most important services to your new email, and set your gmail to forward everything to your new email. From then, sign up to new sites with your new email and change emails of old accounts if you have time, it’s not a huge rush.
As long as you set up the email forwarding, you’ve done most of the important work right there.
I transitioned e-mail address twice. What has worked for me is doing it slowly. Keep the old address around: from time to time you’ll get emails from services you did not even remember being subscribed to. Also, if you don’t use a password manager, now it’s the perfect time to start. I suggest Bitwaden
I found this easier than expected. I was already in the habit of not using my main personal account for online signups etc - just for friends and family. So i setup forwarding for the important contacts first. If I get a fwded mail i make sure I respond from the new one so they have it . There were still some services using gmail - utility companies etc. I switched each of those to other addresses using a redirector - at first simplelogin , now hide my email (but probably going to switch again). I left the gmail live for now. Downloaded everything using GoogleTakeaway. I havent yet closed it down so not sure what that involves yet, but Im not dependent on it now.
It might seem daunting at first, but get started and gradually move stuff to your new address. It does sound like you live in a place where this might be easier said than done saying that. Maybe the gmail address stays live only with a few final gov services (dont forget to filter and fwd them).
Consider getting your own domain. That way you own your own name, but you can swap email providers behind the scenes
Less of a leap and more of a careful crawl. Use nee email for new services, and deactivate old accounts if possible. I have yet to selfhost email, but for hosted options proton and tutanota are better than gmail for easily. The issue with selfhosting email is that it is easy to get blacklisted iirc.
