UPDATE: To everyone who suggested YUNO, thank you so much. This seems like it is about to make my journey much easier. It is basically almost exactly what I was looking for, but I was unaware that it existed.
Thank you ALL for your suggestions, actually. It's a bit overwhelming for an almost complete noobie but I an going to look into all of the suggestions in time. I just saw that there were several mentions of YUNO so I decided to make that one of the first things I investigated.
So, about two months ago, I had a very eye opening experience. As the result of a single misconfigured security setting on my Android, I was locked out of my Google Account on my phone AND all of my PCs. I had no access whatsoever to Google, or any of the literally hundreds of services that I get through Google.
This is when I realized that I relied entirely on Google/Android because those two days were actually very difficult, being cut off from media, services, passwords, everything, from the past almost twenty years of my life, could be taken away from me in an instant. The decades of my life that were locked away in my Google Account included hundreds of thousands of pictures, almost a hundred thousand audio tracks, several hundred books, several hundred apps, thousands of videos, etc. ad infinitum. Unfortunately, very little of this material was backed up at that point. That is my fault. Also, the misconfigured security setting was my fault as well.
The amount of data, media, memories, services, etc. that would have been lost is actually endless and it would have affected my life in several ridiculously negative ways.
Luckily, in the end, I was able to get my access back and then basically immediately grabbed all of the several terabytes of information and media of mine that they had, and that I was almost locked out of. I have it all in my house now on a drive in my computer, with a backup made on another disconnected disk.
I then decided that no corporation was ever going to have such an insanely high level of influence on and control over my entire life and my media ever again. That experience was actually very scary.
I've been trying to get into SelfHosting, but am finding it quite daunting and difficult.
There is a LOT of stuff that I have to learn, and I am mostly unsure of where to even begin. I know basically nothing about networking.
I need to learn the very basic stuff and work my way up from there, but everything that I've seen on the Internet assumes that the reader already has a basic to intermediate understanding of networking and the subjects that surround it. I do not, but I am going to learn.
I just need someone to show me where to start.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
I'm about 90% decoupled from Google, it's been a journey.
I'm at the difficult stage of contemplating how to decom my gmail email, and the Google account itself.
I'll throw my hat in the ring and offer any help if you need it. Similar to others here, I suggest you start with something discrete like photos.
I have a couple of domains at OVH, and for the last few years I've been using email aliases when making accounts, all redirecting to my Gmail. The other day I had enough, created a mailbox on one of the domains, changed all aliases to this new address, and installed Thunderbird mobile. So far it's been going well.
The webmail runs roundcube, which is usable but not great. The biggest problem I've had is the inability to create automatic filters.
Edit: forgot about the calendar, I've moved that to my Nextcloud instance
I moved my calendar to Nextcloud, then radicale. My contacts too. Gmail is just a wean away.
My problem is how I'll be able to deal with work apps like ms authentication. Even if I set up a 2nd "normal" phone for work only, I need to sign in to the play store to get the app... Its a chicken-and-egg problem.
@non_burglar @Damage Are they just TOTP authentication codes you need? If so, you there's alternatives
Certain apps do not allow one to use freeotp et al (o365).
Right, forgot about the contacts, those are on Nextcloud as well. What's the advantage of radicale over NC?
I still run the play store, but I get what I can from F-Droid. I'm not familiar with the MS authentication app, but I use Ente Auth, idk if that's comparable.
Functionally, they work the same. I got kinda tired of fixing NC every other upgrade, though. It was always some "occ add missing indices" or some similar garbage. Like just solve this, already. Make that part of the upgrade.
Hmmm, luckily I haven't had issues so far, but I'm using the AIO docker container