we always recommend dedicated accounts and not sharing an e-mail address with another e-mail client. For newcomers among your friends, they will then not have to care about an an e-mail address at all but can just use the default onboarding one or other #chatmail server servers. We strive for users not having to *think* about e-mail when onboarding the first time. But if you can create an e-mail address yourself somehwere, by all means, go for it ;)

Thanks for the reply! I created a profile on android in the default #chatmail and I used a new account in my email server (custom domain with infomaniak) for a second profile in mz Linux Desktop to check out how this works. I see #deltachat created a new imap folder in my email server and started adding emails there (as expected).

Sending emails from the new email account in my server also works. I can download the .asc files, export the public key from the app, and decode the file using gpg in the command line. Then I can see, for example, for a file, the email content and the image in base64. It is really cool!

But I fail to understand why can't I use it with my normal email account. It does create a separate imap folder, and the app "only" sends messages. Is there any reason to not use my normal account? Maybe the account limits (such as the ones from gmail, for example) or maybe some technical reason I am still not aware of?

if you know what you are doing it's ok. It's just not good for unsuspecting users of big email providers which come with arbitrary rate limits and spam filtering and slowness that derades the initial experience. Classic email and chatmail instant messaging usage also do not combine too well on the same address. If our efforts gain more widespread traction the situation might improve though.