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I've spent the last two years building a new email client

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Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#101

Post by stevekemp »

amelius wrote: post #54

> Show HN: I've spent the last 2 years building a new email client Where is the corresponding "Ask HN: What requirements should I consider before writing a new email client?"

> "Ask HN: What requirements should I consider before writing a new email client?"

Oh boy. I've written a mail client [1] (two actually) and I've found that people have widely conflicting requirements.

Me? I wanted to replace mutt with something that was similarly console-based, and would use the same Maildir hierarchies.

Other people demand GUI access, sometimes with IMAP, sometimes with POP3, and sometimes (very rarely) with just local Maildirs.

If I were to begin again I'd probably abandon Maildirs, and instead just work via notmuch, or some other indexed-store. That would allow "virtual folders", and other neat things.

I don't think I've got the patience to start again though, as my current client is already the second version.

1 - https://lumail.org/

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#103

Post by muszc-master »

jk2323 wrote: post #94

Well, I am curious. Seems so hard to get an email client right. I would not mind paying (GPG integration is a must). If you don't go the mutt/alpine route, there aren't much options. Basically Thunderbird and Evolution. Never really got Clawsemail and iscribe to work with my IMAP server settings. To make things worse, people do understand email less and less. Often, all ports except 80 and 443 are blocked and you can…

During development of this client, I fully understand why there aren't more email clients out there. GPG is coming!

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#105

Post by muszc-master »

vezycash wrote: post #83
muszc-master wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your comment :)

Are you familiar with outlook.com's sweep feature? It's the ultimate email management tool. And I hope you can add it fast.

I will definitely look into this!

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#106

Post by apta »

SyneRyder wrote: post #68
vijaybritto wrote: post #30

This looks fantastic, I was just thinking about so many of these features being released in gmail. Like the chat bubble. Those things really speed up reading information. Kudos!! Btw where are the electron haters?!

> Btw where are the electron haters?! Hi! I'm here! ;) I mentioned Electron in my comment, and Electron is a deal-breaker for me... but I would much rather encourage the work and effort that is going into this. If the product is successful and profitable, maybe it can be ported to native frameworks a few versions later. And considering the rumours about macOS, probably wise to avoid writing native Mac code just now.

> And considering the rumours about macOS, probably wise to avoid writing native Mac code just now.

What rumors?

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#107

Post by cronin101 »

porker wrote: post #56
dogma1138 wrote: post #24

No offense but unless it’s a 1st party client email clients are something that is very hard to trust. Who controls your client has access to your inbox with most services even the few that have separate IMAP/POP3 passwords like Hushmail can be compromised through it. If your client also integrates with encryption or worse takes charge of it my encryption key is also now at risk. Lastly since email today is pure HTML…

I've downvoted you for your sheer negativity. This is a person who's worked 2 years on a project, in a neglected space where companies don't go because they can't make money. He deserves praise for taking the time, creating something that's different, and thinking through the idea. Well done!

He isn't trying to take away from the achievement, just highlighting some legitimate security concerns.

IMHO this is justified since people often overlook how critical an attack vector this would be.

Imagine if a state-sponsored "hobbyist" posted a pet project like the OP to Reddit and started harvesting keys/password reset capabilities for huge amounts of users.

Hell, people flocked to use unroll.me and then it turned out they were (predictably) scraping your entire inbox and selling the data to advertisers.

I don't believe that worrying somebody's skepticism might hurt feelings is a legitimate reason to downvote (remember, downvotes aren't about whether you agree with somebody; it's about whether they add constructively to discussion).

Aside: Great work OP. Seems like an incredibly hard sector to make traction with though, so best of luck.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#108

Post by muszc-master »

s_kilk wrote: post #98
muszc-master wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's an Electron app, but it is built to use as little RAM as possible, when I run it on my old Macbook Air, it consumes only around 300mb of RAM maximum, which is less than what Finder consumes, and I consider everything over this limit to be a bug. 2. Currently not supporting Mbox/Maildir but downloading emails directly from the server, however an import of this is on the todo list 3. Re: turn off conversation v…

Given that it's an Electron app, is there a chance that we could get a Linux build at some point in the future? Great work by the way!

Yes, multiple people have requested a Linux version and it is coming in the future!

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#109

Post by e_proxus »

Tepix wrote: post #64
willvarfar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the landing page: > Privacy & Security > Total privacy - we do not have access to your email account, Ivelope only sends your email data and password between your computer and your email server.

Without source code, that's nearly impossible to verify.

As with any other closed source app. What's your point?

If you're really paranoid but still want to try it out, you could run something like Little Snitch to verify the connections the program makes.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#110

Post by stedaniels »

muszc-master wrote: post #59
SyneRyder wrote: post #34

This looks pretty cool, I'm really pleased to see people writing new email clients, and you've clearly worked very hard on this! I have a bunch of questions that I couldn't find out from the website (but are obscure enough that I shouldn't expect to): * Is this a purely native app, or an Electron / Javascript app? Personally I'm only interested in native apps & Electron would be a deal breaker - but I'm weird, most p…

1. It's an Electron app, but it is built to use as little RAM as possible, when I run it on my old Macbook Air, it consumes only around 300mb of RAM maximum, which is less than what Finder consumes, and I consider everything over this limit to be a bug. 2. Currently not supporting Mbox/Maildir but downloading emails directly from the server, however an import of this is on the todo list 3. Re: turn off conversation v…

I think SyneRyder means what format are you storing emails on disk? If a user uses your email client to download all their pop3 email, is it available in a nice format on disk for whatever reason (backups/file recovery/migration to another client)? Or is it locked up in a custom file format.
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