There are only people in my inbox

My email inbox is really great, and the reason for that is because the only emails i get there are from real live people.

The way i have set this up relies on a fastmail feature, but i did so in such a way that i can easily replicate it if i ever decide to stop using fastmail. Every site that i have an account with, or every time i have to input my email address, i create a new masked email (i have a shortcut in my bookmark bar). In the fastmail ui, there are a few extra features associated with masked email addresses, but i mostly don’t use them. I have a single filter set up to search for all emails with the Fastmail:MaskedEmail header which is given to every message sent to a masked email address. Then i move all of them into a separate folder.

It’s easy. I check that folder every week or so, but mostly it’s stuff i don’t care about, so i do some unsubscribing and mark-as-spamming. But most of the time, the only emails i see are a nice list of people who have sent me thoughtful things. Email inhabits a niche different from every other messaging system, but it’s been taken over by spam and corporate messages so most people don’t enjoy using it. I do enjoy using it, and this is why: there are only people in my inbox.