Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#21

Post by vslira » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

darklion wrote: post #11

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 us…

> In order to build a sustainable business that can continue to innovate and improve our products, Mimestream will eventually transition to being a paid app.

Come on, they're explicitly saying that they're charging for the service. It's pretty clear that when they're talking about privacy the caveat is that they won't suck your data into another sink (them) _other than google itself_, being the provider of gmail and all.

I'm all for privacy and informing the user but they're hardly playing word games here.

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#22

Post by caillou » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

I have been using the gmail web app exclusively for one reason: I use the following Chrome Plugin to convert Markdown to HTML emails: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown-here/?hl=...

Did you ever consider adding a Markdown to HTML email option?

This is especially helpful when sending formatted code around!

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#23

Post by njhaveri » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

philips wrote: post #13

Looks great! Given how bad Gmail is on iPad Safari and how bad the Gmail iPad app is there is probably a market there if you port.

Thanks! Porting to iOS/iPadOS is something I would really love to do, but I still have a lot of work left on the Mac client. I'm curious to hear more what your pain points are with Gmail on iPadOS – I've been using the Gmail iOS app on my phone lately, and aside from the nonstandard UI, my experience has been fairly positive.

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#24

Post by ivanr » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

narenkeshav wrote: post #20

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? Besides, the application is great. Good work.

I would love to be able to send an email tomorrow. I like to respond to some emails to get them out of the way, but the more email I send, the more I get. I would therefore love to be able to slow down the exchanges. Gmail has only a limited-time undo, with delay that's too short and almost entirely useless. I'd be quite happy with a default, say, 5-minute delay and undo.

Similarly, it would be awesome to hide inbound email until I want to see it (while I am still able to use my mailbox to send email and respond to already-received messages.)

EDIT: Ah, it turns out Gmail can schedule email sending. Thanks @llarsson!

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#25

Post by syvl » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

mronge wrote: post #9

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!

Just downloaded and have to say, +1 it is seriously fast. Well done!

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#26

Post by llarsson » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

ivanr wrote: post #24

narenkeshav wrote: post #20

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? Besides, the application is great. Good work.

I would love to be able to send an email tomorrow. I like to respond to some emails to get them out of the way, but the more email I send, the more I get. I would therefore love to be able to slow down the exchanges. Gmail has only a limited-time undo, with delay that's too short and almost entirely useless. I'd be quite happy with a default, say, 5-minute delay and undo. Similarly, it would be awesome to hide inboun…

No, Gmail has scheduled send, too. Hit the downward arrow in the right part of the Send button and you can schedule sending the message.

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#27

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

robenkleene wrote: post #4

njhaveri wrote: post #2

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…

This is a great point: "There are no intermediary servers with access to your account or copies of your messages." A number of popular email clients use intermediary servers and that's a complete deal breaker for me. I'd argue that should be a deal breaker for almost anyone. I'm not a security expert, but as far as I can tell, for most people the single biggest security vulnerability is an attacker gaining access to…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#28

Post by comex » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

Nice! More than once I’ve gotten my hopes up after seeing screenshots of a spiffy new macOS email client, only to learn that it was Electron-based. At the time, I was using the Gmail web app but searching for a native alternative. Since then, I’ve settled on Apple Mail for the time being, but better Gmail integration is an enticing feature and I’ll definitely be trying Mimestream out.

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#29

Post by sneak » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

darklion wrote: post #11

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 us…

Google also provides the account contents to the US military intelligence community on demand without a warrant via the PRISM program, so it is impossible to use this program as it exists right now and have private email.

Here’s hoping you can use it with an actually private email service in the future.

Re: Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail

#30

Post by brian_herman__ » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

njhaveri wrote: post #2

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…

Can you make this a competitor to Thunderbird rather than being locked into GMail? I would love to have an app like this that used IMAP and was multiplatform!