Welcome to Fastmail! On this page, we'll walk you through the basics of using Fastmail. We're excited to help you get started.
- Logging in
- Layout at a glance: Mail
- Contacts
- Calendars
- Managing your account
- Using a mail client
- Stopping spam
- Personalization
- Power features
Logging in
Logging in via the web
Start by opening your favorite web browser. (We support most popular browsers, including Edge, Google Chrome, and Safari.)
Next, go to Fastmail's login page: https://app.fastmail.com/login
In the Username field, enter your Fastmail username. Your username is the email address that you chose when you created the account. Please note that you can only use your Fastmail username to log in — you cannot log in with any other addresses in your account.
In the Password field, enter your password.
If you're having trouble logging in, please see our I can't log in! help page for guidance on what to do next, or contact our support team.
For more information on logging in to Fastmail, please see our Logged in sessions help page.
Layout at a glance: Mail
When you first log in to the Fastmail web interface, you can see a menu bar along the top, the folder list down the left, and the list of messages in your inbox in the content pane.
The menu bar has a dropdown menu from where you can access your calendars, contacts, files, notes, and settings. The menu bar also has buttons that let you take actions on selected messages, and a search box.
The folder list shows your folders and a count of the unread messages in each folder.
The content pane has a list of all messages with a brief preview. The messages are sorted to show the newest first, and filter buttons to let you control if you're looking at just unread mail, or all mail.
Reading mail
Selecting any folder out of the folder list will show the list of messages in that folder. Selecting a message will show you the contents of that message along with any other mail in that conversation.
From here you can manage your mail: reply to it, delete it, forward it, move it to a different folder, pin it, print it, create a rule to automatically filter similar mail, or even mark it as spam.
Sending mail
You might want to compose a new email, or reply to an existing mail. You can adjust whom your message is going to by changing the list of email addresses in the To: field.
The Cc: (carbon copy) field lets you set who else will be sent a copy. The Bcc: (blind carbon copy) field lets you choose who else will be sent a copy without anyone else seeing these additional recipients.
You can also attach files, and change the formatting of your message.
Searching
You might be after a particular email, but can't remember when it arrived and your inbox is overflowing.
Use the powerful search functionality to locate mail. For simple searches, enter what you're looking for in the search box in the menu.
If you want a more refined search, you can use the Advanced search... option below the search box to fill in multiple search terms and add filters to find relevant mail.
If you find yourself running the same search more than once, you can save your search and have it appear in the folder list.
If you want to automatically move future messages matching these search conditions into an existing folder, or if you want take some other action on them such as pinning or forwarding, you can click Create rule to make a rule from your search terms.
For more information, please see our Searching your mail help page.
Contacts
Storing information in your contact list makes it easy to send them mail: type a few letters of their name when writing a new email and we'll find their email address for you.
By default, any time you email someone, we'll add them to your contact list so they're ready for next time.
You also have the option to include additional information in your contacts, such as a phone number or alternate email addresses. This is useful if you want to sync your contact list with your mobile phone.
For more information, please see our Using Contacts help page.
Calendars
Fastmail has a powerful calendar interface, allowing for full event management. This includes inviting colleagues or friends to an event, setting reminder notifications, sharing your calendar with others, or syncing your calendar out to another service, or in from another calendar host.
For more information, please see our Calendar events and invitations help page.
Managing your account
Choosing a theme
You can customize your user interface by choosing a theme. We offer a range of pre-designed color themes to choose from, or you can design your own custom theme.
You can also choose between dark mode and light mode, or follow your system preferences, and choose a button style.
For more information, please see our Themes help page.
Change password
You can update your password at any time. We strongly encourage you to also set up two-step verification (2FA) to protect your password and keep your account safe.
With two-step verification, you use a second device (a special USB key or a code from an app on your phone) to log in. This means that even if your password is compromised (through password reuse on an insecure site, or a malicious attacker getting hold of it), your Fastmail account can't be accessed by anyone else without the second device.
For more information, please see our Passwords and Using two-step verification (2FA) help pages.
Change plan
You can change your plan to fit your needs whenever you want. You could upgrade or downgrade to adjust the set of features you need, adjust how much storage quota your account has, or adjust the length of your subscription to take advantage of our multi-year discounts.
You can change your plan whenever you'd like. Your payment amount will be adjusted to the end of your subscription due date automatically.
For more information, please see our Upgrade or downgrade your account help page.
Pay subscription
Your subscription to Fastmail will automatically renew on the due date using your saved payment method.
For more information, please see our Payments help page.
Using a mail client
Whether you'd prefer to access your email, contacts and calendars on a desktop client, or if you want them on your phone or a tablet, our Set up Fastmail on your device help page has all the details.
In our web interface, we also provide interactive guides for many of the popular email clients such as Apple Mail, Microsoft Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird. These guides can be found at in Settings → Migration → Apps & Setup guides.
For security purposes, you will need to use a separate app password with third-party mail clients. Unlike in the Fastmail app, your normal password won't work.
Users on a Basic plan will not be able to use Fastmail on third-party mail clients or create app passwords, as Basic plans do not include access to IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, or CardDAV. If you downgrade to a Basic plan from another plan, any existing app passwords will automatically be disabled. If you are on a Basic plan, you can use Fastmail on a desktop web browser or the Fastmail app on any mobile devices, such as a phone or tablet.
Stopping spam
Fastmail has excellent spam protection, and we are always inventing new ways to combat the efforts of phishers and spammers. However, for every protection we put in place, spammers are devoting more time to avoiding safeguards.
Our Improving spam protection help page is filled with steps you can take to stop spam without blocking real mail:
- How to identify a mailing list and unsubscribe.
- Using your contacts to make sure real mail is never stopped.
- Training your personal database to recognize spam targeted at you.
- Using rules to delete mail from particular senders.
Personalize your Fastmail experience
Customize your view on the web interface by selecting your language, layout, and more in the Settings → Display options screen.
Customize your mail experience by:
- selecting who you want browser notifications from;
- whether you'd like to use threaded conversation view;
- whether you prefer to compose new mail in plain text or rich formatted text;
- whether new contacts are automatically saved to your contact list.
Customize your calendar by choosing:
- your timezone,
- whether a new event by default should have a reminder,
- whether event invitations and updates should be automatically added to your calendar.
Power features
Mail rules
If you'd like incoming messages automatically saved in a folder, you can create a rule to do so from the Settings → Mail rules screen.
Each incoming email is checked against your rules. If the message matches the rule condition, the rule's action is taken.
Email addresses
Email addresses can be used in two ways:
- Add extra email addresses (at our domains or your custom domain) that you can also receive email into your account from.
- Assign more than one person as the target of an email address. Sending mail to that address (such as sales@mycompany.com) will send a copy of mail to everyone on that address.
If you have a custom domain, you can use wildcard or catchall addresses to ensure any address used at your domain will be received into your account.
Masked Email
Masked email addresses can be created automatically anytime you need a private email address, for example when signing up to a new mailing list. You can disable them at any time.
Connect your Fastmail account to your 1Password account and generate new masked email addresses and a strong password every time you sign up for a new service.
Read more about Masked Email.
External accounts
If you have accounts still on other providers, but you'd like to use Fastmail as a central location to read and reply to all your mail (both Fastmail and other), you can fetch mail from your other email account into your Fastmail mailbox. You can also continue to send mail from your external addresses, too!
Keep your mail from different accounts separate by using folders and rules to filter mail from other accounts into those folders.
Subdomain and plus addresses
Even if you don't have your own custom domain, you can still make use of our subdomain and plus addressing to have additional mail addresses for your use. Addresses in this format can be automatically filed into a folder.
Useful for creating an address when signing up to a new website and you want to send all mail from that company to its own folder. Or, if that address is compromised, use the individual address as a target to file as spam or even move to trash.
What next?
This guide touches on the basics of using your Fastmail account. For more information, we recommend exploring the rest of our Help Center.
If you have any questions or problems, please raise a ticket and our friendly support team will be happy to help you out.