Show HN: Mail Memories – A desktop app to rescue photos from Gmail

Post by ltiger » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

benzofuran wrote: post #41

Here's a gmail extractor google apps script that does the same thing, but for not $30! function autoExtractGmailMedia() { const START_TIME = Date.now(); const TIME_LIMIT = 1000 * 60 * 5; // 5 minutes (leaves a 1-minute safety buffer) const BATCH_SIZE = 50; const FOLDER_NAME = "Gmail_Media_Export"; // 1. Retrieve our current position from the script's property store const scriptProperties = PropertiesService.getScript…

Post by jborichevskiy » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

ltiger wrote: post #49

Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who commented today. Launching on HN isn't for the faint of heart, but it’s been really valuable. What a day. I was told my landing page looks like an AI wrote it, got roasted for a confusing illustration metric (and rightly so), and received the ultimate rite of passage: being told my app could be replaced by a couple of Linux CLI commands. Unironically, than…

Post by KomoD » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

ltiger wrote: post #51

benzofuran wrote: post #41

Here's a gmail extractor google apps script that does the same thing, but for not $30! function autoExtractGmailMedia() { const START_TIME = Date.now(); const TIME_LIMIT = 1000 * 60 * 5; // 5 minutes (leaves a 1-minute safety buffer) const BATCH_SIZE = 50; const FOLDER_NAME = "Gmail_Media_Export"; // 1. Retrieve our current position from the script's property store const scriptProperties = PropertiesService.getScript…

Clever. But Gmail and Google Drive share the exact same 15 gb storage quota. If a user has 10 gigs of photos in their Gmail and runs this script, it'll create another 10 gb of files in their Drive. Instead of saving space, this script doubles their storage usage to 20 gb, breaking through the 15 gb free tier and forcing them to buy a Google One subscription. That’s one of the reasons this desktop app exists, it strea…

Post by benzofuran » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 10:45 PM UTC

KomoD wrote: post #55

ltiger wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clever. But Gmail and Google Drive share the exact same 15 gb storage quota. If a user has 10 gigs of photos in their Gmail and runs this script, it'll create another 10 gb of files in their Drive. Instead of saving space, this script doubles their storage usage to 20 gb, breaking through the 15 gb free tier and forcing them to buy a Google One subscription. That’s one of the reasons this desktop app exists, it strea…

> breaking through the 15 gb free tier and forcing them to buy a Google One subscription Which is like... $2 for 100GB and you can cancel immediately after, or if you get the same offer I got: $0.50. $27 in savings and 100GB of storage, sounds like a good deal to me!

Post by ltiger » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

adamtheturtle wrote: post #54

Whether or not I could have got this stuff out without the app, I wasn't going to, and I already have $29 worth of nostalgia out of it. Thank you