Operamail.com has been migrated to Fastmail.FM

March 10, 2011 · by Espen André Øverdahl

Operamail.com is finally back where it belongs: Hosted and run directly by Opera Software.

Over the past few months, the FastMail team has been preparing for the migration of operamail.com to Fastmail’s servers. That migration has finally started today. Over the last hour, they’ve switched across the domain operamail.com to point to Fastmail’s servers, so users going to http://www.operamail.com will see the new login screen. Existing users can login with their existing operamail.com username and password (see below regarding some accounts showing a different name after logging in).

Get more details in the FastMail.fm blog.

Readers' comments 50

Left under the original article, as archived; 1 page of comments could not be recovered.

TamilThursday, March 10, 2011 11:43:02 AM
techlawsamThursday, March 10, 2011 11:46:22 AM
Çağlar YeşilyurtThursday, March 10, 2011 11:49:00 AM
Samed AyanThursday, March 10, 2011 11:49:05 AM
Daniel HendrycksThursday, March 10, 2011 11:56:12 AM
Where do we give feedback, wants, and questions?
pursanovdThursday, March 10, 2011 12:24:11 PM
And what are benefits before GMail or Hotmail, for example? From the description seems that Fastmail is not a competitor for popular mail services..
AshkirThursday, March 10, 2011 12:46:46 PM
Sadness. 25 megabytes? That is ten total high quality photographs, the American camera standard of 12.1 megapixels. And it's increasing! Camera photos sizes are going up with new projection and refocusing technology. This space will fit only two or three psd designs. How does the design team feel about being limited to 25 megs of space? So no more archives past ten hours? Need the space instead. A PowerPoint for a major project and hour presentation wouldn't fit. A PDF of an aspiring novelist wouldn't fit.

This email is seen as an opera beans. I'm afraid the long awaited updates are not really welcomed. Many will use a competitor service for lots of space.

Reconsider storage. Ask your employees to log into their professional and personal emails, name one that can save messages without upgrading space past your new free standard. Kind of doubt you'd find one.

The opera browser is larger then the email box... Sad. You just destroyed my hope in opera. I had high hopes when you all bought out an email company and seemed to promise to be modern.

Whoa... Wait bandwidth on emails. Now that's a first. Does a large ISP own you guys? Seems like our companies that want to limit total Internet bandwidth monthly to less then twenty gigabytes and block competitors.

A very sad opera fan.

Edit: wait... Free gets no virus scan? No commercial uses? Isn't reading our email illegal?
Mağruf ÇolakoğluThursday, March 10, 2011 12:48:45 PM
x-15a2Thursday, March 10, 2011 1:21:18 PM
The best part is that they lost my old operamail account information so the paltry 25mb of email that I had is no more.

I was able to login to my account just last week (before the switch-over), now it won't let me log in.
intergalacticninjaThursday, March 10, 2011 1:27:35 PM
Here I am expecting: "About damn time, Opera mail is now in the 2010s and not stuck in the 90's, and finally my email storage capacity is now in GBs, not MBs".

Later: "Fastmail.FM website: Guest - 25MB email, FREE"

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-
ChirpieThursday, March 10, 2011 1:35:48 PM
They just moved operamail.com to a new host. All these complaints about lack of disk space seem to forget that the purpose of this was to get operamail.com over to Opera's hosting facilities, not to change the service overnight.

The FastMail.FM service was a commercial company that needed money. They didn't have ads, so they needed people to pay. It doesn't make sense to give lots of storage away for free if that meant that no one would be upgrading to a paid account.

So all these rude complaints are missing the point of this.
netwolfThursday, March 10, 2011 1:50:20 PM
Originally posted by Chirpie:

They didn't have ads, so they needed people to pay. It doesn't make sense to give lots of storage away for free if that meant that no one would be upgrading to a paid account.

The way it is now, you don't get storage (25 MB is plain ridiculous nowadays), no POP3 _AND_ you get ads (see http://operamail.com/pages/fastmail/docs/pricingtbl.html ).
Strange way to announce something new, trying to get users' attraction...
ChirpieThursday, March 10, 2011 1:58:18 PM
Originally posted by netwolf:

Strange way to announce something new, trying to get users' attraction...
It isn't new. They are announcing to existing operamail.com users that the service is now under Opera's control. You didn't seem to read that part of my comment.
Charles SchlossThursday, March 10, 2011 2:31:55 PM
Ngọc SơnThursday, March 10, 2011 3:53:33 PM

I am a Opera's fan but I will use Gmail. Why? Free space is 7GB >> 25MB (Opera mail)
I used 102 MB in my Gmail account!
intergalacticninjaThursday, March 10, 2011 3:55:40 PM
Originally posted by ke5ha93:

This is insanity!

Insanity/Madness?!? This is Opera!!!!(mail)
*sends ke5ha93 emails totalling 26 MB*

Originally posted by Chirpie:

The FastMail.FM service was a commercial company that needed money. They didn't have ads, so they needed people to pay. It doesn't make sense to give lots of storage away for free if that meant that no one would be upgrading to a paid account.

So all these rude complaints are missing the point of this.

Almost all of the free web email companies currently existing (even if you don't count the big ones: Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail), offer at least 1 GB of storage capacity. And based on the success of many of them, I guess it makes sense to give lots of storage for free (Yahoo mail doesn't even have a storage capacity limit.) This argument reminds me of those who are defending Opera's showing of ads, back when it was still adware (pre-8.5 versions of Opera: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)#History )

25 MB was lacking even back in the 90's, let alone the 2010s. Also, the "rude" complaints were already said years ago. So for some of us who are looking forward to using a good and *free* web mail with the Opera stamp on it, this is a disappointment.

I'm keeping my hopes up, though, that Opera will live up to its name and give us free email that is up to date with current standards.
huxrThursday, March 10, 2011 3:59:13 PM
Yeah, seems like a bad move PR-wise to announce this (a mere technical change affecting few people) without also announcing competitive new email offerings (for the large masses ).
ChirpieThursday, March 10, 2011 4:07:45 PM
Originally posted by huxr:

Yeah, seems like a bad move PR-wise to announce this (a mere technical change affecting few people) without also announcing competitive new email offerings (for the large masses ).
What they announced was that Opera has taken over operamail.com, nothing else. The change affects people who are using operamail.com. If you didn't use it, why do you even bother commenting?

I don't see any bad PR moves here, just people who aren't even affected comenting on something they don't understand.

Opera did not announce a new mail offering, contrary to what you seem to believe.
ChirpieThursday, March 10, 2011 4:08:13 PM
Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

Almost all of the free web email companies currently existing (even if you don't count the big ones: Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail), offer at least 1 GB of storage capacity.
These are not mail companies. Mail is just a tiny part of their business. FastMail, on the other hand, was a pure mail provider with no other businesses to prop up their only source of revenue.

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

This argument reminds me of those who are defending Opera's showing of ads, back when it was still adware (pre-8.5 versions of Opera
That's because it's the same argument. Opera needed to make money back then too, or there wouldn't be an Opera browser. There was no other way to generate revenue until they managed to get a deal with Google.

You seem to think that businesses can survive without revenue, but I've got bad news for you if you ever want to start a business...

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

Also, the "rude" complaints were already said years ago. So for some of us who are looking forward to using a good and *free* web mail with the Opera stamp on it, this is a disappointment.
What you don't seem to understand is that Opera just wrestled operamail.com from IBM's death grip. They apparently couldn't do anything to the service, and IBM didn't seem to be willing to help.
Johan BorgThursday, March 10, 2011 4:31:38 PM
We *will* announce a new, free mail service soon, using the same user name and password as for My Opera

For now we needed to get our existing operamail.com users inhouse and that is what this is about. Operamail.com has a mix of free and premium accounts that matches the service levels of FastMail.FM and we give all paying users an extra year of free Full account including a support level that no free mail service can offer.

Active users will get their messages imported to FastMail.FM, they are not lost. We prioritize recent logins so that as few users as possible end up seeing an empty Inbox. I apologize to those who were affected by that today.
RobsonThursday, March 10, 2011 5:13:46 PM
If it was 1gb of space would already be good. I'd send to hell my Gmail account.
PatataThursday, March 10, 2011 5:24:09 PM
sadly my operamail.com account doesn't work anymore now
Johan BorgThursday, March 10, 2011 5:29:22 PM
@Patata Have you used it the last year? Otherwise it's probably removed due to inactivity.
huxrThursday, March 10, 2011 5:32:14 PM
The interesting questions are:

How will it be integrated to Opera Mini and Desktop and My Opera?

Will it become a social-upgraded 'email 2.0'?

Will Opera deliver a winning combination like social + mobile + email + IM?

I'm really looking forward to these!
mrlanethThursday, March 10, 2011 5:34:10 PM
PatataThursday, March 10, 2011 5:38:41 PM
Originally posted by borg:

@Patata Have you used it the last year? Otherwise it's probably removed due to inactivity.

Not sure. Tried to register my old mailadd again. But it seems to be impossible to do so, because of fastmail.fm's 7 character limitation (my old add was [email protected]
Mr. PurrsonalityThursday, March 10, 2011 6:46:16 PM
Johan wrote: We *will* announce a new, free mail service soon, using the same user name and password as for My Opera

Well, if you just handed the Operamail.com domain over to be used at FM, what will be the domain for this new service ?
Johan BorgThursday, March 10, 2011 7:13:19 PM
Originally posted by MrPurrsonality:

Well, if you just handed the Operamail.com domain over to be used at FM, what will be the domain for this new service?

It's not so difficult to guess
bEuweThursday, March 10, 2011 7:28:33 PM
Originally posted by Ashkir:

The opera browser is larger then the email box... Sad. You just destroyed my hope in opera. I had high hopes when you all bought out an email company and seemed to promise to be modern.
Up to yesterday, I had a mere 2 megabytes. Now a whopping 25! No, seriously, I think this is to be seen as a technical move: consolidating all mail users. fastmail is technically advanced enough to compete with any other email provider - safe the mailbox quota. Since they didn't communicate in advance about this move - not the most clever choice IMHO - but now do tease about a new email service integrated with MyOpera, I suspect they will make sure the feature list will not look too pale when compared with Gmail
A well, who knows for sure... Let's just wait and see.
PatataThursday, March 10, 2011 7:34:32 PM
Originally posted by borg:

It's not so difficult to guess

you mean opera.com?

or at least @my.opera.com?
x-15a2Thursday, March 10, 2011 8:12:48 PM
I still cannot login to my "new" operamail account. Opened a support request, no response.

Also, I don't understand how you can reconcile the comments, "Operamail.com is finally back where it belongs: Hosted and run directly by Opera Software." and "...the FastMail team has been preparing for the migration of operamail.com to Fastmail’s servers." If it's on FM's server, how is it hosted and run directly by Opera Software?

In any case, I hope that others Operamail users aren't screwed out of using their accounts like I am. It certainly would have been nice to know that this was going to happen so we could have prepared for it (backup).
Johan BorgThursday, March 10, 2011 8:52:23 PM
@x-15a2: The company running FastMail.FM is known as Opera Software Australia Pty Ltd since May 2010. We will look into your support request.
Daniel HendrycksThursday, March 10, 2011 9:40:54 PM
Can we do an Opera Tech Break, I have many questions.
Arthur F Hansen, BSN RN CRNIThursday, March 10, 2011 11:08:20 PM
I am locked out of my email address. I use it everyday. That is, I used to use it everyday. I chose Operamail, because it was the one browser I could use at work because it didn't have dating ads and sexual content ads popping up all the time. I am a nurse and my colleagues really didn't like that.

I paid for premium email. I am willing to continue for access to my email. I hope I can get back into my email. O' wherefore art though, operamail?

Art Hansen
[email protected]
d4rkn1ghtThursday, March 10, 2011 11:15:22 PM
zombieFriday, March 11, 2011 12:29:25 AM
I was able to log in yesterday before the move, but not today.
Username: nilssn
intergalacticninjaFriday, March 11, 2011 3:08:22 AM
Originally posted by Chirpie:

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

Almost all of the free web email companies currently existing (even if you don't count the big ones: Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail), offer at least 1 GB of storage capacity.
These are not mail companies. Mail is just a tiny part of their business. FastMail, on the other hand, was a pure mail provider with no other businesses to prop up their only source of revenue.

I said even if you don't count Gmail, Yahoo mail, etc.

Gmx.com (5 GB of mail, 1 GB for documents and media) and Mail.com (unlimited) are just a few out of many free email providers and email is their main business. They may have pro versions but their free versions are already good. A simple web search of "free webmail" or "free email" shows hundreds of free email providers which provide much larger capacity than 25 MB.

Also, Opera now controls operamail.com and email is not Opera's only business. They do browsers, remember? They also run that My Opera site which I believe, provides more than 25 MB of storage.

Originally posted by Chirpie:

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

This argument reminds me of those who are defending Opera's showing of ads, back when it was still adware (pre-8.5 versions of Opera
That's because it's the same argument. Opera needed to make money back then too, or there wouldn't be an Opera browser. There was no other way to generate revenue until they managed to get a deal with Google. You seem to think that businesses can survive without revenue, but I've got bad news for you if you ever want to start a business...

I don't think that businesses can survive without revenue. I have never implied that in my posts.

Also, I'm not talking about businesses in general, but *free webmail*. Free webmail can and has survived without forcing non-paying users to 25 MB of email.

About pre-8.5 Opera showing of ads: They already had a partnership with Google back then! They showed Google's ads (adsense) remember? (I also seem to remember that Google was the default search engine with Opera back then, but I'm not sure.) This argument has already been defeated, that's why they decided to remove the ads and just make the desktop browser free.
Originally posted by Chirpie:
What you don't seem to understand is that Opera just wrestled operamail.com from IBM's death grip. They apparently couldn't do anything to the service, and IBM didn't seem to be willing to help.

I know Opera took control of Operamail.com, that's why I'm expecting a better email service, within or beyond Opera's standards, compared to when they didn't have control of it.

I'm still keeping my hopes up, though. One of the posts above said that it could be integrated with My Opera. For the decade of 2010's sake, let's hope it does not stay at 25 MB.
ChirpieFriday, March 11, 2011 9:41:02 AM
Originally posted by bEuwe:

Since they didn't communicate in advance about this move - not the most clever choice IMHO
Wasn't that IBM's job, and something they failed to do?
ChirpieFriday, March 11, 2011 9:48:08 AM
Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

Also, I'm not talking about businesses in general, but *free webmail*. Free webmail can and has survived without forcing non-paying users to 25 MB of email.
GMX and Mail.com are both owned by bigger companies. Again, not exclusive webmail companies. In fact, Mail.com is an advertising subsidiary of a bigger company (guess how they are making money).

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

Also, Opera now controls operamail.com and email is not Opera's only business. They do browsers, remember?
Operamail.com is still in the process of being migrated to Opera's servers, remember?

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

I know Opera took control of Operamail.com, that's why I'm expecting a better email service, within or beyond Opera's standards, compared to when they didn't have control of it.
Your expectations are unrealistic. Before anything can be done, they need to migrate everything.

Originally posted by intergalacticninja:

About pre-8.5 Opera showing of ads: They already had a partnership with Google back then! They showed Google's ads (adsense) remember? (I also seem to remember that Google was the default search engine with Opera back then, but I'm not sure.) This argument has already been defeated, that's why they decided to remove the ads and just make the desktop browser free.
Yes, they showed ads in the UI. Your point being? Opera made money from showing ads, and from licenses when people paid to remove the ads.

Again, the point being that Opera needed to make money, and there was no alternative business model until they got a revenue sharing agreement with Google, at which point they promptly removed the ads when they realized that they could make money that way.

The argument that Opera needed to make money to stay in business has already been defeated? I beg to differ.
walterFriday, March 11, 2011 2:53:47 PM
x-15a2Friday, March 11, 2011 7:31:08 PM
Originally posted by x-15a2:

I still cannot login to my "new" operamail account. Opened a support request, no response.

Also, I don't understand how you can reconcile the comments, "Operamail.com is finally back where it belongs: Hosted and run directly by Opera Software." and "...the FastMail team has been preparing for the migration of operamail.com to Fastmail’s servers." If it's on FM's server, how is it hosted and run directly by Opera Software?

In any case, I hope that others Operamail users aren't screwed out of using their accounts like I am. It certainly would have been nice to know that this was going to happen so we could have prepared for it (backup).

To be fair, I wanted to report that I received an email from fastmail.fm support and my account is now available and all of my emails (read: spam) is there.
frost-giantFriday, March 11, 2011 10:45:28 PM
My 2 cents:

I don't mind the small 25mb size, operamail is a secondary email for me (runbox.com is prime) I just use it as a backup / throw away and to show my support of Opera browser. Newsletter at one account, auction notices at another, and so on...

I have been able to access all the accounts I have tried.

What I am NOT happy about is the TOTAL lack of warning about this!

I had filters at operamail, gone! And no way but memory to know what they were. A few minutes of taking notes would have taken care of that, if I had been given the SLIGHTEST WARNING!
I logged on using the auto login feature in Opera, it doesn't work on the new site. And I can't access the passwords (and getting the usernames is a pain) on it because it only works when it fills them in. I think I have them all in my password software... BUT I would have made sure before hand if I had been given the SLIGHTEST CLUE!

If I want any of the emails that are being (eventually) transferred over I seem to be out of luck for the interim.

"Over the past few months, the FastMail team has been preparing for the migration of operamail.com to Fastmail’s servers."

Well they should have sent a <1k email to all the operamail users to let them know!!!!!!!!!

Basic politeness, basic business practice, basic common sense. When the power is going to be cut for maintenance I get a notice. When the street out front is going to be dug up I get a notice.

It's free, I'm grateful...

But have a clue, or this kind of headaches make it a negative value.
Johan BorgFriday, March 11, 2011 11:23:59 PM
@frost-giant: We know, we know. In hindsight we should have sent it two months ago, since coordinating it just ahead of the actual takeover wasn't really practical (despite common sense).
Myspace2bSaturday, March 12, 2011 9:19:37 AM
ya guys. NO SOMETHING 4 NORTHING.
AlexisSaturday, March 12, 2011 9:29:09 AM
On my Gmail account:

You are currently using 838 MB (11%) of your 7560 MB.

'nuf said.
ChirpieSaturday, March 12, 2011 11:45:17 AM
Originally posted by lexiz08:

'nuf said.
There is one thing to say about that: Google's business is to gather as much data about you as possible to create a profile so that they know who you are. That way, they can target their ads.

It's in Google's interest to get you to give them as much information about yourself as possible.

Neither Opera nor FastMail are in the data mining business. They are not going to make money by creating a profile out of everything you do. So with a different business model comes different limitations.
Reginald ThorntonSaturday, March 12, 2011 2:13:39 PM
Glad I googled this.... My operamail account that I access every several days is missing. I have been using it to communicate with responders for a craigslist item I'm selling. It's nice to see someone else here saying operamail restored their account. I hope that is still available or else their lack of foresight will have cost me some serious money.
Cutting SpoonSunday, March 13, 2011 9:36:35 PM
Working fine here. Borg, if the My.Opera site will include email in future, will this use the same 2GB storage pool? Because that would be great for me.
Johan BorgMonday, March 14, 2011 7:20:51 AM
Originally posted by reggiethorn:

My operamail account that I access every several days is missing.

Please use the support link on FastMail.FM to contact us and verify why that happened.
techlawsamMonday, March 14, 2011 2:05:46 PM
guys you dont get 7 GB's overnight from 25 MB jeez they have reached a milestone for there mail service give them time geez..you arent being forced to use opera mail..