The application itself looks absolutely amazing, and the authors should be commended for it.
That said, the FAQ mentions that the for-profit model is designed to avoid ads in the client and to "take a strong stance on privacy", which is a little bit disingenuous given that the client exclusively relies on an email service provided by the world's largest advertiser and email data miner.
Yes, Mimestream itself isn't using my data, but there's a bit of induced cognitive dissonance in taking a strong privacy stance for a Google-specific product.
Nice to see a native app and not something Electron-based. I wonder about native app viability these days though. Years ago I used native email apps like Outlook, KMail, and Thunderbird, but lately I just use the websites made by the service providers (Fastmail for personal, Gmail for work). As an open standards person I find my behavior kind of depressing, but the websites just tend to work better.
That's a very fair question. Web apps made by providers are definitely several steps ahead feature-wise, because standardized protocols take a lot of time to evolve. My hope with Mimestream is to strike a middle ground here, by using the Gmail API to support more of the Gmail featureset, while retaining the ergonomics of a native client.
Nice to see a native app and not something Electron-based. I wonder about native app viability these days though. Years ago I used native email apps like Outlook, KMail, and Thunderbird, but lately I just use the websites made by the service providers (Fastmail for personal, Gmail for work). As an open standards person I find my behavior kind of depressing, but the websites just tend to work better.
SwiftUI will make the native application development experience much easier for Apple platforms. It still has a little ways to go, but once it's the "de-facto standard" for new apps, you will certainly see an explosion in innovative native development. Hoping other platforms follow suit. Preferably using SwiftUI...hey, I can dream right?
This looks amazing. I am so glad that you kept it as close to the native Mail experience as possible. My only question relates to payment. This is an app that I would gladly pay a solid price to own (in the ballpark of $50?). I would _much_ prefer that over a subscription model. Because the site mentions eventual payment, but doesn't specify a pricing model, would you be willing to elaborate on your intentions?
I am not in the market for this, but would prefer a subscription model. Because a one time fee means the developer has to grow the sales constantly to keep receiving revenues. I think that gives the wrong motivation: adding features might be prefered to solving bugs. Or just stop working on it all together because the growth has stopped.
Cool! I use MailPlane but would be happy to try this out. I'd need two things though: gmail-style keyboard shortcuts (or at least sufficient alternatives) and a way to link myself to an email (so I can put a link to an email into my task manager). Any chance those will be possible?
Hi HN! In the past, I spent over 7 years working on Apple Mail, and today I am really excited to share a new email client I'm building: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail. Mimestream is written in Swift, and uses AppKit+SwiftUI for a clean, stock appearance. It's designed to be fast, lightweight, and use a minimal amount of disk space. Mimestream's advantages over using the Gmail web interface includes…
Hi, i browsed through the website but didn’t find a comprehensive comparison with Apple Mail. Why not just using the default macOS email client?
There are two main differences:
1. Mimestream uses the Gmail API (instead of IMAP), so it supports more Gmail features: Gmail categorized inboxes, first-class labeling support (apply multiple, change color, etc), use all the Gmail aliases you have set up, use the signatures you set up in Gmail, and conduct server-side searches with Gmail search operators. A lot more is coming on this front, as the app is still in development.
2. This is a lighter-weight client with a minimal local cache. Mail downloads a copy of every message in your account and requires a lot more disk space to use.
Cool! I use MailPlane but would be happy to try this out. I'd need two things though: gmail-style keyboard shortcuts (or at least sufficient alternatives) and a way to link myself to an email (so I can put a link to an email into my task manager). Any chance those will be possible?
Gmail shortcuts (and Apple Mail shortcuts) are available as an option in Preferences > General. Linking to a specific email in the app is something that's on the roadmap, and I've gotten several requests for it (all mostly for your use case of putting emails into a task manager app).
I've been using the beta for a while and I'm happy to see it land here on HN. The two things I love most about Mimestream are: 1. It's wicked fast (seriously) 2. It has Gmail style shortcuts The only thing I wish it had was a generic IMAP support for some of my other accounts. Either way I've been liking it!
Thanks! IMAP account support is something I would really like to add (and Mimestream already uses IMAP for some specific operations where it is a better fit), but from past experience I know that it is complicated ;)
I'm also really keen on adding support for JMAP and Office 365 I the future.
To the author :
There are times where I would like my mail to be delivered at specific periods of time in the day rather than disturbing with any new email.
Or perhaps a snooze button for specific period of time.
Do you have any intention of such features?