# Gmail 295 Hacker News commenters recommended Gmail and 797 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 20 years (58 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for strong spam filtering, a fast, reliable interface and flexible labels, though critics warn about sudden account lockouts, intrusive AI features and confusing settings. ## Why people recommend it - Excellent spam filtering (3 comments): "GMail remains the preferred email client for almost everyone, for a lot of boring but very good reasons (mostly down to reliability and spam filtering)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567803)) "Turns out the quality of things like self hosted spam filtering is no match for the world's most notorious data ingestion and analysis company" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47711056)) "Email spam isn't a day to day problem for Gmail (at least) since Bayesian email filtering was first implemented." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897700)) - Fast, reliable, works anywhere (4 comments): "GMail remains the preferred email client for almost everyone, for a lot of boring but very good reasons (mostly down to reliability and spam filtering)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567803)) "the standard Gmail interface is highly optimized to cope with bad network connections, hide latency, and recover from interruptions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47693164)) "Tried a cleared cache load, open and usable in 3 seconds, loading my work inbox which is fairly busy and not clean." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45846211)) - Category-defining, still unmatched (4 comments): "If for the past ~20 years nobody has come up with something clearly better, then I would say that speaks to how outstanding the product that are being copied are to this day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482702)) "they also completely defined their product category and today are among the most popular software products ever made" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48482219)) "Google really had developed only 2 good products(not including acquisitions such as YouTube): search and gmail." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292115)) - Flexible labels and organization (3 comments): "It's a pretty elegant design, which is why I'm so frustrated that Gmail has been the only service where I have found comparable functionality." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48387173)) "I do wish ProtonMail handled labels/folders as one unified model like GMail does, it's so much simpler and more ergonomic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48387053)) "What's clever about the "promotions" tab being automatic that it actually makes me want to read them on my own time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380880)) ## What people warn about - Arbitrary account lockouts (3 comments): "one wrong question or query that looks like “cyber”, say me fixing a buffer overflow in library I maintain, and all of the sudden my gmail is blocked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49917377)) "if some wayward algorithm decides it doesn't like you, along with nuking your app and developer account it will probably nuke your 20 year old gmail" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48757540)) "Google can just block your account for no obvious reason and ask for KYC, which could easily leave you without access to your email for a week." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381160)) - Unwanted or unreliable AI features (4 comments): "I found the auto writing stuff pretty useless so far (suggestions change the intended tone or even meaning of the email) but summaries are very useful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376139)) "I have had multiple incorrect Gmail summaries that, if I had only read them instead of the actual email, would have resulted in financial harm." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49256506)) "I get so angry about these intrusions. There is nowhere I am more opposed to AI written slop than in my interactions with friends and family." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985458)) - Confusing settings and UI (4 comments): "I do think their settings panels, and their filter management in particular, could sorely use some UX improvements." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876172)) "It needs to be much more granular than it is. For example: Turning that setting off also disables the (very, very old) Updates/Promotions/Social/Forums tabs in the Gmail interface." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45927756)) "Gmail gets confused about multi-item orders with different delivery dates, and I cannot click away the banners displaying on top of the mailbox." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45851298)) - Squeezes out self-hosted email (2 comments): "It doesn't help that Google has been pushing people away from running their own email and into Google's services by ever tightening what it accepts over the years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46989694)) "Surely the problem is on Google's end? And a metaproblem is that we are allowing corporations to change or ignore standards for critical infrastructure?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46999995)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [mailbox.org email](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mailbox-org.md): 45 recommend - [Zoho Mail](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zoho-mail.md): 29 recommend - [iCloud Mail](https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud-mail.md): 24 recommend - [HEY email by Basecamp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hey-email.md): 23 recommend - [Posteo email](https://hackerapproved.com/p/posteo.md): 21 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://accounts.google.com/v3/signin/identifier?continue=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/&emr=1&followup=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/&osid=1&passive=1209600&service=mail&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin&dsh=S1711765743:1793623549077349) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Gmail", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gmail/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).