DeGoogle

Last modified: 2025-03-25

Status: Completed

Why?

I’m not a big fan of business models that turn attention into money. I think they’ve wasted countless hours of people’s lives and stifled human ingenuity.
I believe in owning my online presence rather than renting space on platforms built around ads and engagement metrics.
I prefer a simpler way of doing business—where everyone’s interests are aligned. I pay you for a service, and you provide the service. Simple.

That said, I've done a pretty shitty job of practicing what I preach. This is my attempt to remedy that.

[x] I have the ability to sign up for services using an email with a domain I own.
[x] Gmail is no longer my primary email address, but I can still use it if necessary.
[x] Email is no longer stored on Google servers. Messages that come into my Gmail address are immediately forwarded and deleted.
[x] Have a separate CardDAV server for my contacts.
[x] Have a separate CalDAV server for calendars.
[x] Find a different search engine. Preferably one that I pay for.

2025.03.20

Setup Gmail to delete forwarded messages. I'm fully committed.
Also trashed all contacts stored in Google.
Going to call this done. I still have my Google account for a shared calendar and because so many people have my Gmail address, but everything is forwarded to my new email. I also am using Kagi for search now.

2025.03.15

Blew through my Kagi trial in a few days so I signed up for their individual starter plan for the year. I have 3600 searches for the year, which is a dramatically different paradigm to be in (as opposed to searching Google whenever I wanted to). I'm really curious to see how it changes how I find, consume, and retain information. It feels a bit more precious to me now. I want the searches to be worth it. And I want to find ways to better retain it. It would be great if it forces me to slow down a bit and get a deeper understanding of the things I care about. It'll also probably force me to go directly to websites more.

2025.03.12

2025.03.06

2025.03.05

Migrated personal GCal events to Purelymail CalDAV.
Setup mobile and desktop clients to use Purelymail.
Also connected clients to GCal, but only to keep using our shared family calendar. I removed all of the migrated/superflouous ones.

2025.03.04

Migrated contacts to Purelymail. Basically just exported vcard from Google contacts and uploaded it to the Purelymail web client.
Setup mobile contacts to use Purelymail. Was straightforward. Just had to use the purelymail.com server.
Setup desktop contacts to use Purelymail. Less straightforward, but not hard. Had to get a specific CardDAV URL for my user.
Most annoying part has been retaining a minimal number of app passwords as I experiment. Think it's probably best to just have one per device for Purelymail.
Officially turned all Google services off on all my devices! But I'm still using the web calendar and search...

2025.03.03

Bailed on Fastmail. It's more than I need.
Signed up for Purelymail. Seems dead-simple and exceptionally generous for the price.
Got my Gmail emails migrated and new messages are being forwarded.
Setup Purelymail web client to be able to send email from Gmail.
Setup mobile client. Also set it up to be able to send email from Gmail if needed.
Setup Purelymail to use my domain. Had to tweak Gmail forwarding.
Setup routing for hello@ to go straight to my main address. Also setup web client to be able to send email from hello@.
Setup desktop client. Can send email from Gmail using existing Google account without enabling mail for it. Just have to let the initial message send fail before getting to select the proper SMTP server. Kind of a bummer since the mobile client lets you setup a fallback if the default SMTP fails.

2025.03.01

Signed up for Fastmail. Seems nice, but I'm worried that it's more than I need.
Setup Fastmail to use my domain.
Gmail migrated to Fastmail. They also have a mechanism to poll Gmail that doesn't require you to explicitly setup forwarding, which is kind of nice.