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

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

#71

Post by latchkey »

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 fantastic, please support Google Advanced Protection as I cannot add my account as a result of it being enabled on my account.

  "Advanced Protection prevented your Google Account from signing in. This security feature stops most non-Google apps and services from accessing your data to keep your account protected."

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

#73

Post by njhaveri »

mappu wrote: post #69
dvtrn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never quite understood what the value add was for email-client developers to use intermediary servers. Is it to gather usage telemetry or something else?

Pessimistically for telemetry, but I suspect some of them are Javascript apps in a lightweight shell that have actual technical difficulties making a TCP IMAP connection.

Yeah, I think difficulty making an IMAP connection is one reason. I think the biggest reason has been to decorate more features on top of the backing email service, like adding Snooze support to an arbitrary IMAP account (so the server can un-snooze a message at the scheduled time).

That being said, there are security/privacy implications to that model, and I wouldn't personally use an app that works this way. That's why Mimestream was built as a traditional client.

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

#74

Post by antaviana »

njhaveri wrote: post #31
sjroot wrote: post #5

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?

Thanks! So, I don't know exactly what the pricing model will be yet, but I definitely hear your feedback on this topic, and I'm looking at pretty much every option :) My intention is to build a sustainable long-term business, and deliver a continuous/regular stream of updates (e.g. see the Release Notes at https://mimestream.com/releases ), so the pricing model will need to support that goal.

IMHO, if you are looking for long-term business, you need to go the subscription-only route. Probably $19/year.

Don't offer permanent licenses, it will add complexity to purchase and support. You do not want a users with a product of yours with a vulnerability they are not entitled to update.

A subscription-only model will allow you to focus on only the last build which everyone will be entitled to download, greatly simplifying your support.

You will be able to add features at your pace and will avoid the bloating that results when you compete with yourself as is the case with a permanent license model and (increasingly stupid) upgrades.

You will focus on quality not on corner case features to justify upgrades or interface revamps for the sake of it, confusing your existing user base. If you keep your quality high and the product is stable and reliable, your users will stick.

We have been selling our desktop product (in our case B2B) as subscription-only for 8 years and we couldn't be happier about the decision.

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

#75

Post by hyko »

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 looks absolutely amazing. Nice one!

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

#76

Post by njhaveri »

dmix wrote: post #54
njhaveri wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dev…

How was your experience working with the GMail API?

It's nice to have a RESTful API, and nice to access to more Gmail features, but there are several aspects where it is not as efficient as it could be, and multiple round trips are required with the server to perform some basic tasks that IMAP can execute in 1 round trip. It also has pretty aggressive request throttling, which is fine for a very thin client like Mimestream, but would not be a good fit for a client that wanted to download every message in the account.

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

#78

Post by wasd »

I use Superhuman. I can see myself switching over to Mimestream. One of my recent complaints is the lack of deep integration with GSuite. If you can match the speed & shortcuts AND integrate deeply with GSuite, I think you have something really compelling.

> The app is a traditional email client that makes direct connections to Gmail and stores your data on your Mac. There are no intermediary servers with access to your account or copies of your messages. Mimestream is free for a limited time during the public beta, but will eventually be a paid app by the time it gets to the Mac App Store.

I appreciate the thought behind this. However, it means you can't implement some other features (pixel tracking, scheduled send, snooze) unless GSuite opens up an API for them. Consider having a subscription which uses a 3rd party server. I would be happy to pay for it.

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

#79

Post by jooize »

Makes me wish I use Gmail. I want a natively designed email app for IMAP. There's one feature I desire: group by sender. Unibox does it, but the apps jump around when loading email contents and aren't that fancy other than that feature. The app I use must not use an intermediate server.

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

#80

Post by narenkeshav »

njhaveri wrote: post #38
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.

Thanks! I've heard this request before in a few different forms, and I have it on the backlog. In the meantime, one option is to just quit the application, and you'll stop receiving any new mail notifications.

Thank you for your response. An addition to what I said is to have a access/noaccess list of domains within which you can accept emails.

There are loads of email clients but something that would not be distraction for an end user is a market on it's own.

Do you intend to have a subscription based plan or one-time fee purchase?

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