Google to discontinue allowing send as an external account in Jan. 2027
Per https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17101213, starting in January 2027, you may no longer send email as you@x.com if you use a you@gmail.com account. You can only send as you@gmail.com.
For those who like the convenience of having all of their external email commingling with their Gmail email, and taking advantage of the integration, such as calendar integration, Google Drive integration, and more, what is our best path forward?
At this point, it seems like doing a Google Workspace paid account may be the best solution for continuity of experience, but you break all the commingling and integration. Also, your you@x.com account is a separate window from your you@gmail.com account.
You could also consider a service like Fastmail. While it is reasonable quality, you don’t get the quality of the app or of the web experience, and its spam catching features don’t seem to be as good. Your access to you@x.com will be via Fastmail's own interface or some IMAP solution. The Gmail mobile app appears to support IMAP, but it's just an IMAP tool at that point, not strongly differentiated from any other IMAP tool. The Gmail web client has no support for IMAP.
Comments
The real problem with the Workspace suggestion is the exit. A product you can't cancel isn't a continuity plan, it's a bigger lock-in.
From the perspective of someone who receives tons of spam, I find it's a good thing.
From the perspective of someone who had to do a lot of administrative work by hand to increase reputation of ips because of some guy had his email hacked to send lot of spam, I find it's a good thing.
From the perspective of someone who uses the free SMTP service of Google to send emails from a not gmail domain where there is no SMTP, well it's uncomfortable. There are solutions, paid solutions, but still.
Is it really a responsibility of Google to provide a qualitative free SMTP service for other domain names ? I don't think so.
Not applicable for me. I have GMail send emails from you@x.com using the SMTP service of the web hosting company I manage that account through. I am not using GMail's own SMTP servers handle sends.
It's all on the up and up.
I am not a Google Workspace user but I hear that its features actually lag behind the personal accounts?
Workspace is the Google+ of SaaS.
Nobody asked for it or likes using it. Full of undiscoverable, poorly designed features, a privacy nightmare, too much unrelated stuff bundled together.
Weird product design and the kicker - you cannot cancel. You cannot remove your payment method. I had to close the card. Iykyk - Google will keep charging you and won’t let you turn off all services. Class action lawsuit waiting to happen
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565693
Well this is sad