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Mimestream, a native Gmail client for macOS – now in free public beta

njhaveri

njhaveri

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 16, 2020
6
26
Baltimore, MD
Hi everyone 👋

I'm Neil, the developer of Mimestream, a lightweight native Gmail client for macOS. Mimestream is now in public beta, and looking for more beta testers! If you're interested, visit https://mimestream.com, enter your email address to request access, and you'll instantly get a download link.

Mimestream is made for Mac (written in Swift, using AppKit), optimized for Gmail, and takes a lightweight approach focused on speed. Because Mimestream uses the Gmail API, Mimestream offers some features that traditional email clients using IMAP can't, such as:
– Categorized Inbox 📥
– True support for labels (with synced colors) 🏷
– Signature syncing 🖋
– Alias syncing 😎
and more, still on the way!

Mimestream takes a firm stance on privacy, and stores your data and credentials only on your device. There are no intermediary servers, and the app makes direct connections from your Mac to Gmail. Your email is not collected or even analyzed on-device for marketing purposes by Mimestream.

Once 1.0 is released, Mimestream will be a paid app. Pricing has not yet been set, but there will be free trial, and licensing will have two options: (A) A one-time purchase, or (B) A small monthly subscription. Mimestream requires macOS Catalina. Updates are generally released 1-2x a week, and release notes can be viewed online. If you don't use Gmail, stay tuned, because support for additional services is planned in the future.

A little about me: In the past, I used to work at Apple on Mail for 7.5 years, and after a detour, I decided that I missed writing software and working on email. I wrote Mimestream to be my ideal Gmail experience on macOS, and I'm working on this full time now!

Please send any feedback to feedback@mimestream.com, and you'll reach me directly. Your feedback helps me make a better Mac app!

Thank you! 🙏

Reference.png
 
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posguy99 said:
It doesn't matter, email is not a secure channel, don't kid yourself.
Click to expand...
Correct, email is not end-to-end encrypted by default.

However, many email clients utilize intermediary servers that have your credentials and a copy of your data, which poses both security and privacy concerns. If you have a Gmail account, you've already chosen to trust Google with your email, but Mimestream's architecture does not involve additionally trusting another set of third party servers.
 
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njhaveri said:
enter your email address to request access, and you'll instantly get a download link.
Click to expand...
Why? If everyone gets a download link anyway, why not just publish it? Doesn’t seem like a firm stance on privacy here — avoided data is always better than collected data.
What does the client really improve on? To me it looks like Mail with proper Labels and category support.

Edit: But thumbs up for not using Electron or similar crap!
 
Babmo said:
Why? If everyone gets a download link anyway, why not just publish it? Doesn’t seem like a firm stance on privacy here — avoided data is always better than collected data.
What does the client really improve on? To me it looks like Mail with proper Labels and category support.

Edit: But thumbs up for not using Electron or similar crap!
Click to expand...

As Mimestream is still in beta, user email addresses are being requested on the website to provide any important updates, and also provide users with instructions on how to transition to the Mac App Store version when it goes live. The app itself does not collect your email address, and won't in the App Store version either.

Mimestream adheres to standard macOS design paradigms, so the overall app appearance is similar to Mail. In terms of reasons why you might like Mimestream if you have a Gmail account:
- Categorized Inbox support
- Proper Labels support
- Automatic syncing of aliases and signatures from Gmail
- Lightweight, limited-cache syncing model that is designed to complete syncing a new account in seconds and uses a minimal amount of disk space
- Server-side, Gmail-equivalent search (same results as Gmail)
- Really fast message rendering performance

There are many more Gmail-specific features still planned to be added, such as server-side filter/rule configuration, importance flag / priority inbox support, vacation response configuration, and more.

Thank you for your feedback 🙂
 
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Too bad this requires Catalina. Would love to try it out but I’m on Mojave (not going back to Catalina anytime soon, will prob wait til the next macOS version comes out).
 
This is awesome! So far it's much faster than others I've tried, especially Apple Mail. Also love the minimal UI and having the categories. Looking forward to seeing what else you add!
 
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This looks very promising -- nicely done! (I'll be signing up)

Question: Does this support classic 3-pane views? You know, sidebar on the left, and then the message list with the window showing the individual selected message below? Guess I'll find out soon enough....
 
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rforno said:
This looks very promising -- nicely done! (I'll be signing up)

Question: Does this support classic 3-pane views? You know, sidebar on the left, and then the message list with the window showing the individual selected message below? Guess I'll find out soon enough....
Click to expand...

Thank you! I hope you enjoy using it!

Mimestream doesn't have support for a horizontal layout, but I've added it as a request to the backlog. Please let me know if you have any other feedback!
 
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is there support for Spotlight searching, as with Apple's built-in Mail.app?

also, any update on support for a classic, horizontal layout?
 
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