Fastmail – Email & Calendar Reviews

by Wraithequestrain

The new design follows the foolish new trend of little to no color and too much white everywhere. Stop this nonsense! Add more color to distinguish the different UI elements and don’t force a new design without running it by people first. Us paying customers rely on this service to get our jobs done. This is a serious tool for people to get serious work done. This isn’t a hip new social network.

Plus, where’s offline support? An email app that requires constant internet connection is not very useful. (How’s that wrapped webview working out for you?)

Also there’s already a bug where the status bar text is white on iOS 12 so we have white text on white background. Nice going with this! 🙄

by Brian Reviewed This

They moved the extremely useful report spam button behind a menu and replaced it with snooze which I will never use. Then today when I started Fastmail there’s a new huge round compose button that covers 2 other buttons including settings. It’s now impossible to tap settings at all. Fastmail now somehow extends up over the top bar of my iPhone so I can’t see the clock, battery, signal strength, etc. The new font and lack of color makes it look like every other generic email client. Every time something changes they break something else or remove a feature. I think the developer just decided to throw in the towel on spam detection?

by Northern_Flicker

What is it with the never-ending UI changes? It would be one thing if the changes were useful, but they aren’t. One now has to do more tapping to accomplish anything. As of today, the delete button has now been incorporated into the “More” menu in the mobile UI. That means it now takes two taps instead of one tap to delete every email I receive! Seriously? Whose brilliant idea was that?

this app has become the new Apple, arrogantly assuming they know what is best for everyone. I’ve been with your company for almost 2 decades now, and have sent multiple subscribers your way. However, this recurring trend of dumbing down the UI and hiding important functions in menus is enough to have me looking elsewhere. Change for the sake of change is beneath you. Knock it off!

by Flyer17pilot

Love the this app service but hate that Fastmail requires an internet connection. Believe it or not, there are still places and times when one isn’t always connected to data or wifi. Every third party email app allows you to access previously downloaded emails when offline, but the this app app will not even open if you aren’t online.

This alone is what keeps me from using Fastmail as my main email app. I am forced to use a third party app in order to access my email offline.

by Ridogi

I love this app service, but find the mail app only okay when compared to the mail app when I can add my this app account.

It is packed with I think all of the features of this app you can accomplish on the website such as editing spam filtering level & other settings, advanced search, and bulk actions.

Compared to mail app it is lacking unified inbox (I have 2 this app accounts), swiping messages in message list is not customizable (mark as unread would be useful here, and there is no option for confirming delete), sounds are customizable only from their list (need something more subtle), and some functions (mark unread and flag / unflagging) are more buried (under the ellipse at bottom of screen instead of the 3 dot menu at top) than they should be when viewing full message.

I also wish viewing a message removed its notification, that 3D Touch was supported as a way to get to other actions for a message, and that I could increase font size.

It feels like the great this app web service, but on iOS that feels out of place and I’d prefer more ease of use, less functionality, and more iOS conventions adhered to.

by Robby Meeker

The service itself and the web app are great. However many functions that you would expect to be smooth on the mobile app are not. Like pulling down to refresh is super buggy, sometimes nothing happens, sometimes the animation stops halfway and then nothing...

Also the swiping from the edge of the screen is not consistent with the native iOS UX. Normally you should be able to flick from the edge of the screen to go back, however in Fastmail you have to physically cross the halfway point of your phone in order to proceed in going back. This is quite annoying when every other app on my phone follows the native UX perfectly, while Fastmail does not.

by Garrily

Opened Fastmail this morning to find they’re forcing me to use their preferred font instead of the system font I had selected in the previous version. I looked through the settings and it seems they’ve taken that option away. The dark mode also is custom, and isn’t True Black but instead an annoying very dark gray which makes for a brighter screen at night than is possible if they used the native UI. Fastmail is what you get when web developers don’t actually like the platform they’re developing on, or think they can do better than the OS - it makes for a jarring experience with the rest of the phone.

They’ve also increased the amount of white space, and made the font size of the folder you’re currently viewing much larger, creating more wasted space and reducing the number of messages visible on the screen. Why not put it between the menu bar control and the search icon? I love this app’s service but am growing to hate Fastmail .

by OLee 2

I have been using this app for many years and will continue with the great service. The this app IOS app is very good and I want to make it my goto email app, however, the text is too small and can’t be changed.

The small text causes too much of a strain on my eyes and I just can’t use it for any amount of time. If I could zoom out the text to make the text larger and reformat the screen, Fastmail would be the best. Thanks.

by Epheumsirc

I so wish I would’ve found Fastmail years ago to protect my e-mail clutter and privacy. The only complaint I have is there is no way to filter or sort by alias, so you can’t easily find messages that you do want to keep and reference later on. Since all mail appears in only mailbox in Apple mail, you have to rely on the search function. At a minimum, in the this app app, there should be a way to focus on only one alias at a time. C’mon guys (this app) - give it a shot! After all, we are paying for this service, so improvements should be part of the deal.

Otherwise, I highly recommend this! Worth every penny.

by Heart Of Fartness

Honestly one of the best mail apps I’ve ever used so I have no interest in using a third party app to access my this app. the placement of buttons is really friendly and discourages you from having to stretch to the top of the screen. Touch ID protection by default is nice, and it loads quickly enough that’s not a problem.

The bad: there are a few features in settings that it LOOKS like you can use, but actually they require desktop. And unlike some other mail/calendar combo apps, there are no iOS 13 home screen widget available. Would like to see that happen.

by JesusBenNazareth

It must be great given that I’m here merely to gripe about a small thing.
Gripe: It takes way too many clicks to copy the address an email was sent to to the clipboard. I use disposable email addresses mostly (unique to each recipient, so there are hundreds) so I’m constantly needing to do this. I can see each address while scrolling through emails in a thread. but it’s:
Click to expand
tap, tap to show details (Yeah, NO, it’s not on this giant menu!??!)
(NO, at this point or the last, I can’t long tap on the address either - that works in some other apps but in this one, that gets me almost nowhere as selecting and copying is impossible or really difficult and unpredictable that way—And my recollection is it was easier back in pre- iPhone 4 days but that’s an iOS issue...) Note: Discovering through trial and error that there is no quicker way to accomplish the task takes way, way more steps than shown here!
tap for menu
Tap for more
Tap for copy

by Jean E Lane

I love the on-the-go convenience of Fastmail when I am away from my pc. After years of being tied to the big G, it’s wonderful to be free! I only have a couple of issues.

The unread mail counter is inaccurate. I don’t know if this is an app issue or my iPad issue. The inaccuracy doesn’t show on my iPhone.

My only other “complaint” is that I haven’t found how to go back to “Today” in the calendar when I have scrolled far away.

by Cipherone

I have been a this app user for many years and I like it for the most part. However although the new logo may be “ fun”, the top white section does not make it look like an envelope. In my opinion a slight modernization of the previously well recognized logo would have being welcomed. I would rather see FM add more features and functionality which is needed and described elsewhere....and please touch up the new logo. It is hard to recognize as I think you intended.

by Calvinbrodice

I recently switched to this app from google as part of a personal effort to reduce and eventually eliminate my usage of google brands and services.

I have been extremely impressed with everything this app offers including the email web client, support, documentation and this iPhone client.

One suggestion I have is to allow the “swipe” to be customized (outlook for iphone) does this well.

by Kling0017

I’m a happy this app user, and have used Gmail, Office365, Yahoo Mail, and a self-hosted solution in the past to handle my email. Out of all the options, this app made the most sense, even after paying their reasonable fees. Haven’t had more than maybe a hour worth of downtime, and their support is actually useful. Their product is great and is not only super fast, but also secure. I’ve done a great deal of research into their backend/operations, and they are dedicated to security in a multitude of ways, and interested in the “next wave” of technologies for email. The only suggestion I have is for integration for iOS sharing (ex: If I want to share a PDF I first have to save to iCloud then upload that document from iCloud manually into email, whereas with Gmail you can use the sharing extension with one tap).

Edit: They added iOS Sharing!!! Yay!!!

Only last suggestion: add dark mode for iOS 13??

by Blacktrack8

Just wanted to thank the engineering, product, and design teams for the new design. I'm a software engineer so one would imagine I might be able to figure things out but it turns out having explicit labels makes things a ton easier to use, is less frustrating, and requires less mental overhead to perform actions.

I hope other products take note, and as you all eventually move on to other opportunities in your careers, please take these ideas with you.

by Kevbot123

After starting a free trial and hooking up my custom domains, this is the best email experience I’ve ever had. Never thought I’d be willing to pay for email but I got fed up with Gmail’s bloat and ads.

Love this app’s snappy and minimal UI, streamlined feature-set and ease of use.

Aesthetically I wish they would update the logo and UI to something even more minimal (like notion, WorkFlowy or Simplenote) to match the philosophy of the product.

That ugly logo sitting on my home screen looks like I just installed some terrible corporate time tracking app from 2007.

The only other thing that I’d improve is giving Fastmail had more of an iOS feel. Or maybe let me turn off dark mode in Fastmail . Their dark mode implementation feels out of place inside iOS.

If it feels like the team is actively updating and supporting this product, I’ll be a customer for years to come.

by Nintron711

Brief review, this app as a service works great! Didn’t think I’d ever pay for email but here I am and I love it! I think it’s a fair price for the services you get, especially over Gmails abundant ad targeting. However as far as an app goes, it feels... out of place. It’s fine and works fine but I feel like an improvement to the ui would be amazing! Cleaner icons and menus as well as a more streamlined colour scheme would really give this service a more 2020 feel.

Overall 9/10 would recommend!!

by 64616e6e79

this app is great, and I’ve had no issues that I can recall with the service itself. The settings and options are a little too nested in some cases which makes it a bit cumbersome to change things when needed; albeit not often. The features are great; haven’t found anything I “missed” from my previous email services.

In regards to the interface - I’d like to see a more modern take. Fastmail icon was updated today for the 20th anniversary but now it just doesn’t “fit” with the UX - at all. The design is straight forward, but feels dull. I do love the minimalist feel but feel like its a bit behind. Especially since it seems like Fastmail is just wrapping the web interface.

by Jamielt

Great redesign!

I have have been using this app for at least 12 years and just wanted to let you know that I am very happy with my this app account.

this app is more than just an email service provider to me, it’s email peace of mind. I like that this app is entirely private, secure and free from bothersome advertising. I also like this app enough to make it my main service.

I use the iOS mobile app and the powerful, and flexible web-based email for Windows.

I know that I don’t have a need for a big expensive email plan so I was very happy to find that I could get a this app account that meets my daily email needs. No one on the this app team has ever tried to push me into a bigger more expensive email account.

Thank you for your personal touch. It means so much to me that I get excellent, personal customer service and email service I can afford.

by Jeparg

Very consistent with this app web experience.

Since you pay for this app you also implicitly pay for Fastmail, so I expect a little more in terms of usability, features and iOS integration. For example you can’t share from iOS through this app app.

There is an irritating bug where sometimes Fastmail shows a message with no return to inbox icon. I’ve accidentally archived multiple emails because the icons get mixed up with archive furthest to the left. Only solution is to force quit.

this app is fantastic. If you have a few bucks extra a month, then drop Gmail and get the peace of mind of not having google (or whomever) sift through your email.

by Benjamin.patch

In previous versions we could tap the title bar twice to jump to the top of email. This no longer functions. Disappointed because this was something I use everyday.

It would also be nice to allow the calendar to default into Day, Week, or Agenda view. Not just Month view as it is now - requiring a manual change every time.

by Reddy45

I think the current version of Fastmail has a bug where the top buttons for navigation (like back to inbox, next mail, previous mail) in the mail view disappear on occasion. It seems to happen when I click on a mail notification (to go straight to the message body). The only fix is to close Fastmail and restart it.

I didn’t know where else to put this bug report.

by Opensiriusfox

The application is fantastically usable and has a very well thought out and implemented interface.

The only shortcoming is the caching behavior is nearly nonexistent, so reloading the application in areas with poor connectivity renders it virtually useless. The this app app remains my go-to for my mail, but the Apple Mail app is an unfortunately essential backup.

by SimReality

Great way to access this app on iOS. My only issue is that it doesn’t support multiple accounts which is a big gap to me. The mobile web supports two logins I can switch between so hopefully the mobile app can see that improvement soon.

by Peterdes

I’ve use Fastmail for quite a while, I enjoy it very much. Fastmail has matured over time but the one thing that is rather annoying is the notes. From an iPhone at least when I try to enter notes the cursor and screen position jumps around. It does tend to get frustrating because it just doesn’t help the continuity of the experience. I have reported the issue but that was a while ago.

by M Chilcote

When I changed my e-mail service over to this app, my plan was to continue using Apple’s “Mail” app on my iPhone and iPad. That does work fine. After trying this app’s own app, I found it much superior than Apple’s offering. I’m switching to use this app as my main e-mail and calendar application for my mobile devices.

by 123AppleSucks

I happily used Yahoo Mail for years. Then they lost it. The new pay-for-play Fast Mail app is, unlike free email programs, dedicated to meeting the needs of paying customers, not promoting advertisers. Security is painless. Features include everything I need. Product is stable. Well worth the modest fee they charge.

by J76m38

overall, the this app app and service have been great. as long as they continue to be reliable, i find very little reason to search for others.

i miss the previous app icon and logo, and don’t readily see an envelope in the new one.