7 ms·

Gmail to end support for "Send as" for third-party addresses, such as @yahoo.com

193 points by sva_ 12d ago

xtiansimon 12d ago
> “…Gmail will no longer support the "Send as" feature for third-party email addresses […] If you own another email address, you can send mail as that address.” What?
ChrisArchitect 12d ago
It's weird that they are actively discouraging us from using external mail inside gmail. Like, you would think they want us sucking down all our scannable data into their system and staying inside the wall.
- ceejayoz 12d ago
  I'd imagine the adoption of DMARC, SPF, DKIM, etc. have just functionally killed the feature.
  - throooooo 12d ago
    Yes, that was my first thought. It's wild to me that GMail would support sending as yahoo.com, outlook.com, etc. in the first place. Google makes lots of questionable decisions and shuts down lots of products uncessarily, but this is not a strange or unwarranted move.
    - zootboy 12d ago
      It's not wild at all. It's just behaving like any other MUA but with an extra step. You have to give GMail your SMTP submission credentials for the sending server of the target domain, then prove ownership of the specific address you want to send as. SPF/DKIM/DMARC works fine, as GMail is just submitting your message on your behalf the way any MUA would.
      - throooooo 12d ago
        Oh, if they're sending via your provider's SMTP then that makes sense. Still, I can't imagine a lot of people use this feature.
        jayturley 12d ago
        We are a small web development company. I'd say that about 20% of our clients used this feature because gmail WAS their email client. They did't want to use a device-based mail client. I am happy we will no longer have to support this. Losing the POP access a couple years ago got about half of them to move, and this will kill it off.
        avsteele 12d ago
        I use it. It is useful for anyone who has a personal domain from which they'd like to send/receive without needing to migrate off Google entirely. My registrar gives a few email addresses with SMTP support. Then I use GMail's send-as to remain in gmail but still use my name@mydomain.com mailbox.
- treis 12d ago
  Looks like it's still allowed in app. Probably a way to cut down spam and push people to the app.
Calinterman 12d ago
This will probably grenade the plans for many small businesses, right now.
- Fergusonb 12d ago
  Certainly seems intended to drive Workspace subscriptions, but I wonder how many of those users will sign up for Office instead.
- HugoTea 12d ago
  This doesn't apply to Google Workspace addresses that most small businesses will be using.
  - Shank 12d ago
    A lot of small businesses actually have a free address for legacy purposes. Send as, even for paid users, won’t support third-party providers.
  - ericpauley 12d ago
    This is incorrect. The plan doesn't apply to workspace aliases, but it does apply to workspace users using Send-As via SMTP.
ericpauley 12d ago
This was the last straw for me. I'm migrating to Apple Mail and cancelling workspace ASAP. ETA: I said nothing about where I'm planning to host my SMTP server. Apple Mail is a provider-agnostic client-side application, like Thunderbird. ETA2: Those who read TFA carefully will know that, even though this doesn't affect Workspace aliases, it does affect this feature (Send-As SMTP) for workspace accounts.
- throooooo 12d ago
  With workspace you can add your own custom domains anyway... This seems unrelated.
- cptskippy 12d ago
  > This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own.
- Calinterman 12d ago
  Before you do that: Consider a more open and transparent email platform such as Proton, Fastmail, Runbox, Tuta, basically just reconsider moving from one evil, unaccountable platform to another. As you may find the evil, unaccountable platform may do evil and unaccountable things.
  - kstrauser 12d ago
    I'll say this for Apple Mail (the email service, not the email client): it's dirt cheap and works really well. You can bring up to 5 self-owned domains to it on the $1/mo iCloud+ plan. That price includes 6 users, and up to 3 aliases ("hackernews@example.com") per person. Even when Proton isn't helping the FBI identify protesters[0], their family plan is $24/mo if you pay annually. I ran my own server for about 25 years. I put in my time and got tired of doing it. I've migrated my own email to Apple's servers mainly because it's the only reasonably priced family host I could find. [0] https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/ https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonym...
  - evolve2k 12d ago
occz 12d ago
I have a domain and a contact email address for that domain that I have exclusively used through GMail, I guess this means I need to figure out a different path forward for that, then?
- raress96 10d ago
  Same, although I have multiple domains Are you looking at a real mailbox provider, or trying to keep Gmail somehow?
- dietr1ch 12d ago
  Good thing they are reminding you to get out of Gmail for real
  - LetMeLogin 12d ago
    It's not an easy task! I had mine account since gmail beta, so much stuff is going through it. Two years ago I moved to Fastmail(they're great), and pretty much setting up an alias per site/purpose. While I'm happy to see that gmail receives less & less, I still have about 150 entries in 1password that say @gmail.com... maybe one day...
    - Evidlo 12d ago
      Just do email forwarding and progressively update your accounts?
      - deleted 12d ago
        [deleted]
      - dietr1ch 12d ago
        Yeah, I'd say it's this easy, but it just takes a very long time to get confidence on it being ready enough.
    - goobatrooba 12d ago
      I switched to migadu which was not too painful for a single account (basically the advice was to put both accounts in thunderbird and then move everything over, thunderbird does the work). For email very happy with the provider, notably also as it allows infinite domains. But I miss a proper calendar which migadu is strangely mostly lacking (basic caldav only). Is fastmail better in this respect? And can you do wildcard emails and send/receive as whichever name you want with fastmail? E.g. I have it set so every email which comes to xyz@domain.com arrives in my single inbox (so not catchall but all with a certain letter combo) and use this to have custom emails for every site.
cptskippy 12d ago
Further clarification here: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 It seems like they're removing POP/IMAP support from the web client?
solfox 12d ago
Calling it now: they will reverse this decision by December after they realize how many gmail customers they are losing.
- netllama 12d ago
  Unless you have insider knowledge, this seems incredibly unlikely. Do you really think most GMail users even understand what this functionality is, much less use it? Google is many things, but they're not suicidal. I'm sure they did the math of the ongoing cost of supporting this functionality, versus whatever revenue people who care about it (and are still paying nothing) might bring in and realized its a cost savings for them. Losing 0.3% of all users is likely in their interests.
wnevets 12d ago
> we occasionally have the difficult choice to discontinue features that require disproportionate maintenance resources. Am I really expected to believe that the billions of dollars the company makes in pure profit can't sustain this feature? Am I really expected to believe the touted productively gains granted by Google's AI can't sustain this feature?
- anotherhue 12d ago
  Anyone still using Google for anything other than ads and YouTube post Reader has only themselves to blame. Maybe GCP. It's like saying the tiger had no prior history of violence.
  - dude250711 12d ago
    It is not possible to use Google for anything but ads, since otherwise you can only be a product for them hence be used by Google. Do not be used by Google.
- crossroadsguy 12d ago
  Keeping the good, bad, and evil aside for a moment, is it possible that the very reason this company makes billions consistently is because they ruthlessly (or stupidly as per "us") drop things they don't want to do, don't need to do, irrespective of whether we think those would have been profitable, or even very nice of them?
- staz 12d ago
  Sodas are no longer free. * Seem Google don't feel the need to market to hackers and early adopters anoymore.. * https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
- ericpauley 12d ago
  The flip side of this is that GMail's Send-As feature has seen virtually no maintenance whatsoever. It's buggy-as and I expect most people (like myself) have been putting up with it out of inertia because switching email clients is a pain.
YesThatTom2 12d ago
> This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own. I bet most people complaining about this change don’t even know this feature exists. Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership. Most of those emails will end up in a spam folder. This doesn’t affect email addresses that Google controls DMARC records for.
- tclancy 12d ago
  > Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership I find this sentence confusing. Do you mean “forge” in a technical sense of “this email came from a server unassociated with the domain”? I don’t really get it. I’ve know this feature existed in Gmail for 15+ years and have made regular use of it. Plus I’ve used it to help older relatives keep an old address alive.
- john_strinlai 12d ago
  >Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership. how can you "forge" something if you verify ownership? when you own something, it's not "forging" to use it. i think the point you're trying to get at is that the mail might fail dmarc requirements?
  - paxys 12d ago
    Because ownership can change. I can still use Gmail to send email from my old university address that I lost access to 15+ years ago. This should not be possible.
    - john_strinlai 12d ago
      if the mail from that address is being delivered to mailboxes, that's your universities fault. if it's not (i.e. spf & dkim is failing), that's just how email works and is not unique to gmail.
      - paxys 12d ago
petesergeant 12d ago
Moving to Fastmail was almost entirely painless, although you may end up with 1-2 pieces of spam a day.
- tomasphan 12d ago
  Fastmail seems great
  - advisedwang 12d ago
    Do you see a referral link or code in their comment? No? Then obviously they aren't making money off it.
  - deleted 12d ago
    [deleted]
  - petesergeant 12d ago
    [dead]
  - branon 12d ago
    This is against site rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
  - nosioptar 12d ago
    I've been searching for email provider that's not purelymail, fastmail really seems to be the best reputable option. (Looking to switch off purelymail because the new design blows and I'm really unsure about the new owner. Can't put my finger on it, but I just dont trust the guy.)
anticorporate 12d ago
I moved all my custom domains to Fastmail five or six years ago and couldn't be happier. My Gmail only exists to catch legacy messages and Google service notifications. I look forward to the day I can completely migrate out of all their products, but some organizations I work with who use Google for various things have made that a slow slog.
- baggachipz 12d ago
  The moment they turn off automatic forwarding (and I have no doubt they will), my gmail address dies. I'm trying to migrate accounts over whenever possible, but it's quite tedious.
- matheusmoreira 12d ago
  Me too. Moving mail to my own domain is one of the best things I've ever done. To anyone considering it: just do it. Doesn't matter what provider you pick, the important thing is to start receiving mail via your own domain as soon as humanly possible. Once mail is going to your own domain, switching is as easy as updating DNS MX records.
  - lisp2240 12d ago
    Apple is a good choice if someone doesn’t know which company to start with. A lot of Apple customers have iCloud+ but don’t realize email hosting on your own domain is included in the plan. If you’re already paying for it you might as well use it.
    - iamatworknow 12d ago
      I was totally unaware of this. I haven't quite been ready to pull the trigger on something like FastMail or ProtonMail, but I have a few domains kicking around and figure it's worth a shot to try it out. Thanks!
      - CharlesW 12d ago
        Apple's been a rock-solid email host for me. imapsync (https://imapsync.lamiral.info/ https://imapsync.lamiral.info/) made the migration very easy. https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces-to-icloud-custom-domain/ https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces...
ChrisArchitect 12d ago
Related from Oct 2025: Gmail will no longer support checking emails from third-party accounts via POP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45439670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45439670
j45 12d ago
Brutal. How are other platforms solving this without disproportionate resources?
BuckRogers 12d ago
This doesn’t affect me, but it certainly influences me. I’ve been holding off from leaving Gmail for years. They try to force you into their Gmail app on iOS, it’s the only way to get push emails from them. OK fine. So I switch from Apple Mail to Gmail. I write a relatively long email full of research to send to my great uncle who is a professor at a nearby university who I greatly respect. I type it up on the desktop, go to the app, add another sentence wishing him well and send it. Come to find out since my phone is in dark mode it changed the text from black to white. That’s Google‘s idea of dark mode. So I have to send it again removing that text formatting and apologizing. Dark mode is something that Apple and Microsoft and everyone else can get right. It’s a presentation layer problem, not text formatting. And they don’t let you change the app to light mode, it only tracks the phone. Their web dark mode is also terrible. Apple and Microsoft have no such issues. Even smaller players like Proton get these things right. Maybe focus on delivering quality and value instead of trying to extract more out of your existing customers. Google is pathetic and has been for a long time for anyone paying attention to all their quirks, terrible UIs, and canceled products. I have a Gmail beta account from the earliest days. That 1GB was nice 23 years ago but it’s time for me to finally do the work and get off of Gmail. I have email accounts at most providers; Microsoft, Proton, Apple etc, and no one else has these sorts of issues.
bognition 12d ago
Honestly i'd love to migrate off of google, but its been a pain. My family is a heavy user of google calendar so I either have to migrate them off or I have to keep my google calendar account. I tried fastmail but honestly its not as easy to use as gmail. Has anyone pulled off a migration like this? how did you do it?
- toast0 12d ago
  My family uses google calendar but has never used gmail for day to day stuff. Maybe a problem if you send calendar invites, I guess? Obviously, can't close your account and still use their calendar, but whatcha gonna do.
- conradfr 12d ago
  You can have a google account using a not-gmail email.
pgt 12d ago
This is suicide for Gmail.
- mbreese 12d ago
  Doubtful. It will reduce some user count, but most people won’t care. And they probably spend more supporting the feature than they gain from the Gmail users that actually use the feature.
- john_strinlai 12d ago
  that's pretty hyperbolic. i would guess some very large percent (80%? 90%?) of gmail users have never once even thought about the feature. it'll lose them some tech folk, but it's hardly "suicide".
- netllama 12d ago
  Their percentage of users who care about this feature is almost certainly fractions of a percentage.
happyopossum 12d ago
Current headline on HN is incorrect - it's not custom domains, it's third-party email addresses, such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com. Domains and other gmail addresses you own can still be used....
- chrisss395 12d ago
  I don't think folks read the source link. Most responses are a plug for Fastmail.
- striking 12d ago
  Where does it say that domains you own can be used? I'm looking around and nothing clearly states it afaict. > This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own. to me, implies that you need to set up Google Workspace for that domain before it'll work.
- lenova 12d ago
  This support article gives more details here, even though it's still clear as mud that they are dropping support for custom domains _unless_ that domain is hosted via Google Workspaces: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 Even more confusing, you _will_ be able to still send to a custom domain via the Gmail mobile app? This appears to be an anti-spam move I guess? Though personally, this is a big breakage for me...
- sandeepkd 12d ago
  The headline is not wrong, its intentionally worded that way to mellow down the message. Its for the people who use their own custom domains to send emails via google without paying for the workspace by verifying the domain ownership (its a extra cost that google bears now for free). The @yahoo.com or @outlook.com are just to give a face to what other custom domains look like. The whole point is if you have custom domains then pay for the google workspace if you still want to use it. Couldnt find it right away, from what I recollect it used to be $6 or $8 per email address
- ajross 12d ago
  Yeah, basically this is terminating the trick some people used where they host a domain elsewhere but want to use an free personal GMail address as the "mail client" for it. Google sells their own domain email product, they'd prefer you use that vs. paying someone else. And let's be honest here: GMail remains the preferred email client for almost everyone, for a lot of boring but very good reasons (mostly down to reliability and spam filtering). Basically: people who don't like Google and don't use Google won't be affected and won't care. People who pay for Workspace hosting won't be affected, as those domains still work via Send-As. The people complaining here are in category 1, there are a handful of people (I'm one) in category 2 trying to help explain, and unsurprisingly there are very, very few people here in the actually impacted category of "mail client for external domain" users.
nottorp 12d ago
Hmm I'm confused. I have my own domain that is totally not hosted on google. However, I use Google's SMTP to send mail as that domain (specifically the one email address that is enabled on my custom domain). For that I'm authenticating to the SMTP with my google account, and I somehow proved to google i own the email a couple billion years ago when we all had pet dinosaurs. Are they discontinuing that or something else? And Q2: if this is what they're discontinuing, are there any other email solutions that would support something like this? I.e. incoming email to my server I control 100% but offering smtp relay?
- dataflow 12d ago
  I'm similarly confused/upset, but it really does sound like they're discontinuing sending via SMTP: > The “Send as” feature will no longer be available. This feature allows you to send email from a third-party address, such as @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, and others, using your primary Gmail account. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=2314716165684459578-NA https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=2314716...
  - nottorp 12d ago
    Ah well. Google helps me degoogle. Can't complain much can I? Anyone has recommendations for send-only (or that allow being used only to send) email services? Not those that are used for commercial emails, even if legit.
roesel 12d ago
As someone who uses their personal Gmail account to forward emails from custom domains to (via MXRoute and other email providers), losing the ability to "Send as" from the given adresses from Gmail means I will have to find an entirely new "home base" for email (and paradoxically start forwarding my peronal Gmail emails these instead?), right? Similarly to losing Inbox many years ago, this really sucks.
- sixhobbits 12d ago
  Ha I totally forgot about inbox until right now. But yes enshittification has hit gmail and workspace in a huge way and seems to be accelerating. I'm also looking for a new home after being a heavy user since 2005
- raress96 10d ago
  Same problem here. Forwarding domains into Gmail and using Send as worked fine until it didn't. I ended up building my own solution (Mailyond) to have all my product domains under one place. What solution are you looking at?
evolve2k 12d ago
The multiple nudges just turned into a shove. I’ll now be actively enacting plans to move on and be sure to support family and friends, even non tech savvy ones, to do the same. When you think they can’t fall further, they do.
simon_weber 12d ago
Can anybody tell if this announcement affects a personal gmail account's ability to send as a workspace-hosted custom domain email?
- sandeepkd 12d ago
  That should not be impacted, in fact thats the whole point. tldr; Google is trying to monetize everything, if you have a use case for using personal custom domains then move to google workspace
cdrnsf 12d ago
So, when do they drop support for IMAP and SMTP altogether?
josefresco 12d ago
Regarding the outrage in this thread: Am I missing something? DMARC/SPF/DKIM enforcement makes third-party relaying fragile and likely to cause deliverability failures. Discontinuing it seems like progress towards reducing abuse. Where am I wrong on this?
- boredhedgehog 12d ago
  IF headline contains (Google OR Musk OR Israel) GOTO outrage. That's all.
- advisedwang 12d ago
  I bet you there's a lot of people on HN that 1. want their email on their own domain (for professionalism and portability) 2. Want to use Gmail (it is actually a pretty nice service to use) 3. Don't want to use Google Workspace (either because of how cobbled google features are on workspace, because they don't want to migrate google accounts, or because of it's cost) Google just killed the ability to meet those three requirements. There's lots of people facing either a) showing the world a gmail.com address, b) switching to a different mail solution or c) paying for workspace and accepting it's flaws. It's totally fair for people to be mad about that. If the "new" infrastructure doesn't support a common and reasonable use case, then perhaps it needs more work.
deleted 12d ago
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tobadzistsini 12d ago
I am not technical. What does this mean for one who migrated to Proton but has their old Gmail account forward to a new Proton address? I am guessing that's unaffected and it's just outbound from Gmail as a third-party email domain?
- advisedwang 12d ago
  Yes, that's unaffected
loloquwowndueo 12d ago
> third-party email addresses, such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com. Unfortunate choice of examples as it doesn’t make it clear whether it applies just to other free web email providers or also to e.g. my own custom domains.
- netllama 12d ago
  Custom domains are still 3rd party.
  - loloquwowndueo 11d ago
    There you go, was that so hard to include in the original document?
petilon 12d ago
This only impacts Gmail web interface, according to [1]. You can use a desktop email client and continue to receive and send email from your custom domain. "Web access changes: As previously announced, you can no longer add or sync your third-party email account in Gmail on the web. Alternative access: To access your third-party email account, you can use a dedicated mail app, a desktop mail client, or the Gmail mobile app." [1] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=9352980337468821062-NC https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=9352980...
- advisedwang 12d ago
  That is basically just saying "the gmail app can be a smtp/imap client for a 3rd party mail provider". It's not really using gmail as when the gmail app is operating in this mode there's a tone of gmail features you don't get.
  - petilon 12d ago
    I think mainly your mail won't go into the sent folder and be searchable. You can work around that by CCing your domain. What other features will you not get? The mail composer in Gmail is pretty sucky anyway. For example when you are replying on a long thread it is very hard to see the message you are replying to.
Throudin 12d ago
This is really frustrating along with them removing POP for external accounts. I have an old email account that I had configured to have my Gmail account pull in emails from, and I can reply from that email using this feature, and now their only suggestion is to set up forwarding on the old email account to Gmail but that is way less reliable, and even then I wouldn't be able to reply. It's confusing because like, I'd figure they'd want more data, not less.
tlhunter 12d ago
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kimos 12d ago
Whelp. I’ve been using Gmail since it was invite only. Sending as my personal domain was grandfathered in. This is going to be my push to leave for another service. I wonder if they understand or intend that?
- raress96 10d ago
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dataflow 12d ago
What alternative solutions would people who use a lot of aliases at their own domain name suggest?
cameldrv 12d ago
This is really obnoxious. I've used this feature for a couple of decades so that my email is not beholden to Google in case I decide to stop using them someday. I guess that day is coming sooner than I had thought.
jameshilliard 12d ago
> You can continue to use "Send as" for any Google-hosted identities, including other Gmail addresses or aliases associated with your Google Workspace account. The discontinuation will not impact these addresses, which only applies to third-party, non-Google email accounts. I have "Send as" accounts that have this configuration: Mail is sent through: smtp.gmail.com However the actual email addresses are often custom domains with say both google and cloudflare sfp records with cloudflare handling the incoming emails and forwarding them to gmail with gmail handling outgoing via google's own smtp server directly. They aren't remotely clear if this use case is considered a third-party, non-Google email account or a Google-hosted identity since the outgoing smtp server being used is still a google server. It's crazy that they don't actually explain what "any Google-hosted identities" means.
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193 points by sva_ 12d ago

> “…Gmail will no longer support the "Send as" feature for third-party email addresses […] If you own another email address, you can send mail as that address.” What?

ChrisArchitect 12d ago

It's weird that they are actively discouraging us from using external mail inside gmail. Like, you would think they want us sucking down all our scannable data into their system and staying inside the wall.

ceejayoz 12d ago
I'd imagine the adoption of DMARC, SPF, DKIM, etc. have just functionally killed the feature.
- throooooo 12d ago
  Yes, that was my first thought. It's wild to me that GMail would support sending as yahoo.com, outlook.com, etc. in the first place. Google makes lots of questionable decisions and shuts down lots of products uncessarily, but this is not a strange or unwarranted move.
  - zootboy 12d ago
    It's not wild at all. It's just behaving like any other MUA but with an extra step. You have to give GMail your SMTP submission credentials for the sending server of the target domain, then prove ownership of the specific address you want to send as. SPF/DKIM/DMARC works fine, as GMail is just submitting your message on your behalf the way any MUA would.
    - throooooo 12d ago
      Oh, if they're sending via your provider's SMTP then that makes sense. Still, I can't imagine a lot of people use this feature.
      - jayturley 12d ago
        We are a small web development company. I'd say that about 20% of our clients used this feature because gmail WAS their email client. They did't want to use a device-based mail client. I am happy we will no longer have to support this. Losing the POP access a couple years ago got about half of them to move, and this will kill it off.
      - avsteele 12d ago
        I use it. It is useful for anyone who has a personal domain from which they'd like to send/receive without needing to migrate off Google entirely. My registrar gives a few email addresses with SMTP support. Then I use GMail's send-as to remain in gmail but still use my name@mydomain.com mailbox.
treis 12d ago
Looks like it's still allowed in app. Probably a way to cut down spam and push people to the app.

Calinterman 12d ago

This will probably grenade the plans for many small businesses, right now.

Fergusonb 12d ago
Certainly seems intended to drive Workspace subscriptions, but I wonder how many of those users will sign up for Office instead.
HugoTea 12d ago
This doesn't apply to Google Workspace addresses that most small businesses will be using.
- Shank 12d ago
  A lot of small businesses actually have a free address for legacy purposes. Send as, even for paid users, won’t support third-party providers.
- ericpauley 12d ago
  This is incorrect. The plan doesn't apply to workspace aliases, but it does apply to workspace users using Send-As via SMTP.

ericpauley 12d ago

This was the last straw for me. I'm migrating to Apple Mail and cancelling workspace ASAP. ETA: I said nothing about where I'm planning to host my SMTP server. Apple Mail is a provider-agnostic client-side application, like Thunderbird. ETA2: Those who read TFA carefully will know that, even though this doesn't affect Workspace aliases, it does affect this feature (Send-As SMTP) for workspace accounts.

throooooo 12d ago
With workspace you can add your own custom domains anyway... This seems unrelated.
cptskippy 12d ago
> This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own.
Calinterman 12d ago
Before you do that: Consider a more open and transparent email platform such as Proton, Fastmail, Runbox, Tuta, basically just reconsider moving from one evil, unaccountable platform to another. As you may find the evil, unaccountable platform may do evil and unaccountable things.
- kstrauser 12d ago
  I'll say this for Apple Mail (the email service, not the email client): it's dirt cheap and works really well. You can bring up to 5 self-owned domains to it on the $1/mo iCloud+ plan. That price includes 6 users, and up to 3 aliases ("hackernews@example.com") per person. Even when Proton isn't helping the FBI identify protesters[0], their family plan is $24/mo if you pay annually. I ran my own server for about 25 years. I put in my time and got tired of doing it. I've migrated my own email to Apple's servers mainly because it's the only reasonably priced family host I could find. [0] https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/ https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonym...
- evolve2k 12d ago

occz 12d ago

I have a domain and a contact email address for that domain that I have exclusively used through GMail, I guess this means I need to figure out a different path forward for that, then?

raress96 10d ago
Same, although I have multiple domains Are you looking at a real mailbox provider, or trying to keep Gmail somehow?
dietr1ch 12d ago
Good thing they are reminding you to get out of Gmail for real
- LetMeLogin 12d ago
  It's not an easy task! I had mine account since gmail beta, so much stuff is going through it. Two years ago I moved to Fastmail(they're great), and pretty much setting up an alias per site/purpose. While I'm happy to see that gmail receives less & less, I still have about 150 entries in 1password that say @gmail.com... maybe one day...
  - Evidlo 12d ago
    Just do email forwarding and progressively update your accounts?
    - deleted 12d ago
      [deleted]
    - dietr1ch 12d ago
      Yeah, I'd say it's this easy, but it just takes a very long time to get confidence on it being ready enough.
  - goobatrooba 12d ago
    I switched to migadu which was not too painful for a single account (basically the advice was to put both accounts in thunderbird and then move everything over, thunderbird does the work). For email very happy with the provider, notably also as it allows infinite domains. But I miss a proper calendar which migadu is strangely mostly lacking (basic caldav only). Is fastmail better in this respect? And can you do wildcard emails and send/receive as whichever name you want with fastmail? E.g. I have it set so every email which comes to xyz@domain.com arrives in my single inbox (so not catchall but all with a certain letter combo) and use this to have custom emails for every site.

cptskippy 12d ago

Further clarification here: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 It seems like they're removing POP/IMAP support from the web client?

solfox 12d ago

Calling it now: they will reverse this decision by December after they realize how many gmail customers they are losing.

netllama 12d ago
Unless you have insider knowledge, this seems incredibly unlikely. Do you really think most GMail users even understand what this functionality is, much less use it? Google is many things, but they're not suicidal. I'm sure they did the math of the ongoing cost of supporting this functionality, versus whatever revenue people who care about it (and are still paying nothing) might bring in and realized its a cost savings for them. Losing 0.3% of all users is likely in their interests.

wnevets 12d ago

> we occasionally have the difficult choice to discontinue features that require disproportionate maintenance resources. Am I really expected to believe that the billions of dollars the company makes in pure profit can't sustain this feature? Am I really expected to believe the touted productively gains granted by Google's AI can't sustain this feature?

anotherhue 12d ago
Anyone still using Google for anything other than ads and YouTube post Reader has only themselves to blame. Maybe GCP. It's like saying the tiger had no prior history of violence.
- dude250711 12d ago
  It is not possible to use Google for anything but ads, since otherwise you can only be a product for them hence be used by Google. Do not be used by Google.
crossroadsguy 12d ago
Keeping the good, bad, and evil aside for a moment, is it possible that the very reason this company makes billions consistently is because they ruthlessly (or stupidly as per "us") drop things they don't want to do, don't need to do, irrespective of whether we think those would have been profitable, or even very nice of them?
staz 12d ago
Sodas are no longer free. * Seem Google don't feel the need to market to hackers and early adopters anoymore.. * https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
ericpauley 12d ago
The flip side of this is that GMail's Send-As feature has seen virtually no maintenance whatsoever. It's buggy-as and I expect most people (like myself) have been putting up with it out of inertia because switching email clients is a pain.

YesThatTom2 12d ago

> This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own. I bet most people complaining about this change don’t even know this feature exists. Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership. Most of those emails will end up in a spam folder. This doesn’t affect email addresses that Google controls DMARC records for.

tclancy 12d ago
> Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership I find this sentence confusing. Do you mean “forge” in a technical sense of “this email came from a server unassociated with the domain”? I don’t really get it. I’ve know this feature existed in Gmail for 15+ years and have made regular use of it. Plus I’ve used it to help older relatives keep an old address alive.
john_strinlai 12d ago
>Right now you can forge email from any email address you can verify ownership. how can you "forge" something if you verify ownership? when you own something, it's not "forging" to use it. i think the point you're trying to get at is that the mail might fail dmarc requirements?
- paxys 12d ago
  Because ownership can change. I can still use Gmail to send email from my old university address that I lost access to 15+ years ago. This should not be possible.
  - john_strinlai 12d ago
    if the mail from that address is being delivered to mailboxes, that's your universities fault. if it's not (i.e. spf & dkim is failing), that's just how email works and is not unique to gmail.
    - paxys 12d ago

petesergeant 12d ago

Moving to Fastmail was almost entirely painless, although you may end up with 1-2 pieces of spam a day.

tomasphan 12d ago
Fastmail seems great
- advisedwang 12d ago
  Do you see a referral link or code in their comment? No? Then obviously they aren't making money off it.
- deleted 12d ago
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- petesergeant 12d ago
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- branon 12d ago
  This is against site rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
- nosioptar 12d ago
  I've been searching for email provider that's not purelymail, fastmail really seems to be the best reputable option. (Looking to switch off purelymail because the new design blows and I'm really unsure about the new owner. Can't put my finger on it, but I just dont trust the guy.)

anticorporate 12d ago

I moved all my custom domains to Fastmail five or six years ago and couldn't be happier. My Gmail only exists to catch legacy messages and Google service notifications. I look forward to the day I can completely migrate out of all their products, but some organizations I work with who use Google for various things have made that a slow slog.

baggachipz 12d ago
The moment they turn off automatic forwarding (and I have no doubt they will), my gmail address dies. I'm trying to migrate accounts over whenever possible, but it's quite tedious.
matheusmoreira 12d ago
Me too. Moving mail to my own domain is one of the best things I've ever done. To anyone considering it: just do it. Doesn't matter what provider you pick, the important thing is to start receiving mail via your own domain as soon as humanly possible. Once mail is going to your own domain, switching is as easy as updating DNS MX records.
- lisp2240 12d ago
  Apple is a good choice if someone doesn’t know which company to start with. A lot of Apple customers have iCloud+ but don’t realize email hosting on your own domain is included in the plan. If you’re already paying for it you might as well use it.
  - iamatworknow 12d ago
    I was totally unaware of this. I haven't quite been ready to pull the trigger on something like FastMail or ProtonMail, but I have a few domains kicking around and figure it's worth a shot to try it out. Thanks!
    - CharlesW 12d ago
      Apple's been a rock-solid email host for me. imapsync (https://imapsync.lamiral.info/ https://imapsync.lamiral.info/) made the migration very easy. https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces-to-icloud-custom-domain/ https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces...

ChrisArchitect 12d ago

Related from Oct 2025: Gmail will no longer support checking emails from third-party accounts via POP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45439670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45439670

j45 12d ago

Brutal. How are other platforms solving this without disproportionate resources?

BuckRogers 12d ago

This doesn’t affect me, but it certainly influences me. I’ve been holding off from leaving Gmail for years. They try to force you into their Gmail app on iOS, it’s the only way to get push emails from them. OK fine. So I switch from Apple Mail to Gmail. I write a relatively long email full of research to send to my great uncle who is a professor at a nearby university who I greatly respect. I type it up on the desktop, go to the app, add another sentence wishing him well and send it. Come to find out since my phone is in dark mode it changed the text from black to white. That’s Google‘s idea of dark mode. So I have to send it again removing that text formatting and apologizing. Dark mode is something that Apple and Microsoft and everyone else can get right. It’s a presentation layer problem, not text formatting. And they don’t let you change the app to light mode, it only tracks the phone. Their web dark mode is also terrible. Apple and Microsoft have no such issues. Even smaller players like Proton get these things right. Maybe focus on delivering quality and value instead of trying to extract more out of your existing customers. Google is pathetic and has been for a long time for anyone paying attention to all their quirks, terrible UIs, and canceled products. I have a Gmail beta account from the earliest days. That 1GB was nice 23 years ago but it’s time for me to finally do the work and get off of Gmail. I have email accounts at most providers; Microsoft, Proton, Apple etc, and no one else has these sorts of issues.

bognition 12d ago

Honestly i'd love to migrate off of google, but its been a pain. My family is a heavy user of google calendar so I either have to migrate them off or I have to keep my google calendar account. I tried fastmail but honestly its not as easy to use as gmail. Has anyone pulled off a migration like this? how did you do it?

toast0 12d ago
My family uses google calendar but has never used gmail for day to day stuff. Maybe a problem if you send calendar invites, I guess? Obviously, can't close your account and still use their calendar, but whatcha gonna do.
conradfr 12d ago
You can have a google account using a not-gmail email.

pgt 12d ago

This is suicide for Gmail.

mbreese 12d ago
Doubtful. It will reduce some user count, but most people won’t care. And they probably spend more supporting the feature than they gain from the Gmail users that actually use the feature.
john_strinlai 12d ago
that's pretty hyperbolic. i would guess some very large percent (80%? 90%?) of gmail users have never once even thought about the feature. it'll lose them some tech folk, but it's hardly "suicide".
netllama 12d ago
Their percentage of users who care about this feature is almost certainly fractions of a percentage.

happyopossum 12d ago

Current headline on HN is incorrect - it's not custom domains, it's third-party email addresses, such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com. Domains and other gmail addresses you own can still be used....

chrisss395 12d ago
I don't think folks read the source link. Most responses are a plug for Fastmail.
striking 12d ago
Where does it say that domains you own can be used? I'm looking around and nothing clearly states it afaict. > This change does not affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail addresses you own. to me, implies that you need to set up Google Workspace for that domain before it'll work.
lenova 12d ago
This support article gives more details here, even though it's still clear as mud that they are dropping support for custom domains _unless_ that domain is hosted via Google Workspaces: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213 Even more confusing, you _will_ be able to still send to a custom domain via the Gmail mobile app? This appears to be an anti-spam move I guess? Though personally, this is a big breakage for me...
sandeepkd 12d ago
The headline is not wrong, its intentionally worded that way to mellow down the message. Its for the people who use their own custom domains to send emails via google without paying for the workspace by verifying the domain ownership (its a extra cost that google bears now for free). The @yahoo.com or @outlook.com are just to give a face to what other custom domains look like. The whole point is if you have custom domains then pay for the google workspace if you still want to use it. Couldnt find it right away, from what I recollect it used to be $6 or $8 per email address
ajross 12d ago
Yeah, basically this is terminating the trick some people used where they host a domain elsewhere but want to use an free personal GMail address as the "mail client" for it. Google sells their own domain email product, they'd prefer you use that vs. paying someone else. And let's be honest here: GMail remains the preferred email client for almost everyone, for a lot of boring but very good reasons (mostly down to reliability and spam filtering). Basically: people who don't like Google and don't use Google won't be affected and won't care. People who pay for Workspace hosting won't be affected, as those domains still work via Send-As. The people complaining here are in category 1, there are a handful of people (I'm one) in category 2 trying to help explain, and unsurprisingly there are very, very few people here in the actually impacted category of "mail client for external domain" users.

nottorp 12d ago

Hmm I'm confused. I have my own domain that is totally not hosted on google. However, I use Google's SMTP to send mail as that domain (specifically the one email address that is enabled on my custom domain). For that I'm authenticating to the SMTP with my google account, and I somehow proved to google i own the email a couple billion years ago when we all had pet dinosaurs. Are they discontinuing that or something else? And Q2: if this is what they're discontinuing, are there any other email solutions that would support something like this? I.e. incoming email to my server I control 100% but offering smtp relay?

dataflow 12d ago
I'm similarly confused/upset, but it really does sound like they're discontinuing sending via SMTP: > The “Send as” feature will no longer be available. This feature allows you to send email from a third-party address, such as @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, and others, using your primary Gmail account. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=2314716165684459578-NA https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=2314716...
- nottorp 12d ago
  Ah well. Google helps me degoogle. Can't complain much can I? Anyone has recommendations for send-only (or that allow being used only to send) email services? Not those that are used for commercial emails, even if legit.

roesel 12d ago

As someone who uses their personal Gmail account to forward emails from custom domains to (via MXRoute and other email providers), losing the ability to "Send as" from the given adresses from Gmail means I will have to find an entirely new "home base" for email (and paradoxically start forwarding my peronal Gmail emails these instead?), right? Similarly to losing Inbox many years ago, this really sucks.

sixhobbits 12d ago
Ha I totally forgot about inbox until right now. But yes enshittification has hit gmail and workspace in a huge way and seems to be accelerating. I'm also looking for a new home after being a heavy user since 2005
raress96 10d ago
Same problem here. Forwarding domains into Gmail and using Send as worked fine until it didn't. I ended up building my own solution (Mailyond) to have all my product domains under one place. What solution are you looking at?

evolve2k 12d ago

The multiple nudges just turned into a shove. I’ll now be actively enacting plans to move on and be sure to support family and friends, even non tech savvy ones, to do the same. When you think they can’t fall further, they do.

simon_weber 12d ago

Can anybody tell if this announcement affects a personal gmail account's ability to send as a workspace-hosted custom domain email?

sandeepkd 12d ago
That should not be impacted, in fact thats the whole point. tldr; Google is trying to monetize everything, if you have a use case for using personal custom domains then move to google workspace

cdrnsf 12d ago

So, when do they drop support for IMAP and SMTP altogether?

josefresco 12d ago

Regarding the outrage in this thread: Am I missing something? DMARC/SPF/DKIM enforcement makes third-party relaying fragile and likely to cause deliverability failures. Discontinuing it seems like progress towards reducing abuse. Where am I wrong on this?

boredhedgehog 12d ago
IF headline contains (Google OR Musk OR Israel) GOTO outrage. That's all.
advisedwang 12d ago
I bet you there's a lot of people on HN that 1. want their email on their own domain (for professionalism and portability) 2. Want to use Gmail (it is actually a pretty nice service to use) 3. Don't want to use Google Workspace (either because of how cobbled google features are on workspace, because they don't want to migrate google accounts, or because of it's cost) Google just killed the ability to meet those three requirements. There's lots of people facing either a) showing the world a gmail.com address, b) switching to a different mail solution or c) paying for workspace and accepting it's flaws. It's totally fair for people to be mad about that. If the "new" infrastructure doesn't support a common and reasonable use case, then perhaps it needs more work.

deleted 12d ago

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tobadzistsini 12d ago

I am not technical. What does this mean for one who migrated to Proton but has their old Gmail account forward to a new Proton address? I am guessing that's unaffected and it's just outbound from Gmail as a third-party email domain?

advisedwang 12d ago
Yes, that's unaffected

loloquwowndueo 12d ago

> third-party email addresses, such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com. Unfortunate choice of examples as it doesn’t make it clear whether it applies just to other free web email providers or also to e.g. my own custom domains.

netllama 12d ago
Custom domains are still 3rd party.
- loloquwowndueo 11d ago
  There you go, was that so hard to include in the original document?

petilon 12d ago

This only impacts Gmail web interface, according to [1]. You can use a desktop email client and continue to receive and send email from your custom domain. "Web access changes: As previously announced, you can no longer add or sync your third-party email account in Gmail on the web. Alternative access: To access your third-party email account, you can use a dedicated mail app, a desktop mail client, or the Gmail mobile app." [1] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=9352980337468821062-NC https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213?sjid=9352980...

advisedwang 12d ago
That is basically just saying "the gmail app can be a smtp/imap client for a 3rd party mail provider". It's not really using gmail as when the gmail app is operating in this mode there's a tone of gmail features you don't get.
- petilon 12d ago
  I think mainly your mail won't go into the sent folder and be searchable. You can work around that by CCing your domain. What other features will you not get? The mail composer in Gmail is pretty sucky anyway. For example when you are replying on a long thread it is very hard to see the message you are replying to.

Throudin 12d ago

This is really frustrating along with them removing POP for external accounts. I have an old email account that I had configured to have my Gmail account pull in emails from, and I can reply from that email using this feature, and now their only suggestion is to set up forwarding on the old email account to Gmail but that is way less reliable, and even then I wouldn't be able to reply. It's confusing because like, I'd figure they'd want more data, not less.

tlhunter 12d ago

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kimos 12d ago

Whelp. I’ve been using Gmail since it was invite only. Sending as my personal domain was grandfathered in. This is going to be my push to leave for another service. I wonder if they understand or intend that?

raress96 10d ago
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dataflow 12d ago

What alternative solutions would people who use a lot of aliases at their own domain name suggest?

cameldrv 12d ago

This is really obnoxious. I've used this feature for a couple of decades so that my email is not beholden to Google in case I decide to stop using them someday. I guess that day is coming sooner than I had thought.

jameshilliard 12d ago

> You can continue to use "Send as" for any Google-hosted identities, including other Gmail addresses or aliases associated with your Google Workspace account. The discontinuation will not impact these addresses, which only applies to third-party, non-Google email accounts. I have "Send as" accounts that have this configuration: Mail is sent through: smtp.gmail.com However the actual email addresses are often custom domains with say both google and cloudflare sfp records with cloudflare handling the incoming emails and forwarding them to gmail with gmail handling outgoing via google's own smtp server directly. They aren't remotely clear if this use case is considered a third-party, non-Google email account or a Google-hosted identity since the outgoing smtp server being used is still a google server. It's crazy that they don't actually explain what "any Google-hosted identities" means.

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