Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
Author leaves Gmail after 16 years due to aggressive, unsolicited AI features that feel disrespectful and infringe on email writing.
The author describes recurring interruptions from Gmail's generative AI tools: automatic message summaries, auto-drafted replies, and repeated prompts to use the "Help me write" feature. Some AI features cannot be disabled without losing other functionality, which the author suspects is intentional to inflate usage metrics. The author characterizes this as user-hostile behavior that sends the message they are incapable of reading and writing their own emails. After 16 years with Gmail, they are migrating to Fastmail using a personal domain, though they remain undecided about importing old data.
What HN community is saying
Top comments frame this as Google deliberately degrading service quality. The dominant complaint is that Gmail's spam filtering is worse than its AI promotion, with users reporting legitimate emails marked as spam and requests for help leaving the platform. Discussion of email oligopoly notes that Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail control delivery reliability, making it nearly impossible to run independent mail servers without hours of monthly tuning. One user reports excellent spam filtering on an old, high-reputation account, suggesting the problem may be selective. Apple is discussed as a potential counterexample, though skepticism is high given recent ad insertions in Maps.