Recently, I decided to set up an iCloud email address with a custom domain. Having been an early Gmail adopter, I was fortunate to secure a clean email address without any numbers. However, this has led to an unexpected predicament. Apparently, many people forget to include the numbers when entering their email addresses, and as a result, I end up receiving their messages. It’s been quite fascinating to see the lives of these unintended correspondents unfold in my inbox, but it’s made checking my inbox a chore.
Every day, I receive dozens of emails clearly meant for someone else. Among these, some are regulars. It’s been intriguing to follow the career of a similarly named journalist in Canada, his former colleagues ignored me when I asked them not to send ‘we’ll miss you’ messages to me when he got a new job.
On two occasions, a person in Wyoming forgot to pick up their child from school. When I alerted the school that I was not the intended recipient and that I lived on another continent, they told me they couldn’t update their contact details as I was not the parent.
No matter how much I explain the mix-up, a Ford dealership in California remains relentless in sending me emails intended for a customer who disappeared after buying a truck on finance.
Over the last few years, I’ve been playing whack-a-mole with blocked senders and filters, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up. To handle this situation, I devised a plan using my Gmail account as a sort of buffer zone. I’ve set up a filter that forwards only the emails from people I want to hear from to my new iCloud account. This way, I can occasionally go through my Gmail inbox to unsubscribe, block, or add senders to my forwarding list. So far, this approach has been effective, though it feels weird to start transitioning away from an email account I’ve had for half of my life.
Over time, I’ve found myself using fewer Google products. I switched from Chrome to Firefox and Safari for browsing, and I rely on DuckDuckGo for most of my search needs. While I don’t have an explicit plan to completely “De-Google,” I see the wisdom in diversifying my digital presence beyond a single platform.
Although I don’t inherently trust Apple much more than Google in the long term, spreading my digital footprint seems like a sensible step. By using an iCloud email with a custom domain and employing a filtering system through my Gmail account, I hope to streamline my inbox. The journey towards a more organised and sane email experience has begun.