I recommend fastmail with a custom domain. By using your own domain (not self-hosting) you can migrate to a new provider should you decide you don't like fastmail.
Very much agree on this. It's what made a switch from Google Workspace to Fastmail much easier than it might have been, and gives me confidence that if there's a better alternative to Fastmail I discover later I can jump ship pretty easily.
Before you look at Fastmail or ProtonMail or Tutanota, take a look at (in no particular order), runbox.com, Mailbox.org, mailfence.com and posteo.de (posteo is the only one in this list that doesn’t support custom domains). They’re all cheaper, support IMAP and are hosted in Europe.
Thanks for this. I looked at mailbox.org before picking Fastmail, but their pricing is a bit much for the relatively small amount of storage, and I just want email, not their office platform, which seems to be a core part of their offer. However, I'd rather be somewhere in Europe than Australia (as I am with Fastmail) for privacy reasons, and runbox.com looks interesting. Do you have any experience with reliability for any of those services?
Fastmail and protonmail are both solid email providers. And you can use your own domain name with either of them, reducing future friction if you should need to switch providers later.
I need to migrate my email from gmail. It's going to be long and arduous. Suggestions on providers?
Before you ask: No, I do not want to host my own mail.