Is there a build available which doesn't require users to sign up for a Nylas ID?
The support page states that "If you’re using N1 against our open source sync engine, you’ll still need to create a Nylas ID."
Given the privacy policy says that Nylas shares information with third parties and that they can "make a copy of the entire contents of the applicable email inbox, calendar, and contact book", it doesn't feel like a traditional email client to me.
Nylas Mail Basic does NOT store your mail data in the cloud. It still uses a cloud service for some features (like read receipts), but all the data is local on your disk and auth credentials stored in your native OS keychain.
Nylas Pro currently syncs in the cloud to enable some of the pro features not currently offered in Nylas Mail Basic and to provide a much easier to use modern API wrapper around mail data. The cloud syncing infrastructure is open source and you can run it yourself and inspect the code.
All editions (both Basic and Pro) need a Nylas ID. This lets us manage subscriptions for those who want to upgrade. The code is open source on GitHub (nylas/N1). You can fork & run yourself without a Nylas ID. You just won't get any cloud-enabled features.
We never send mail, contact, or calendar data to 3rd parties. We do, however, use 3rd parties for basic usage and performance statistics and self-host as much reporting infrastructure (like Sentry) as possible.
At first I thought "shares information with third parties and that they can [copy your email]" (emphasis mine) meant that the third parties can see & copy your email. I can't find anything like that language in Nylas' privacy policy (https://nylas.com/privacy-policy/) and so I guess your "they" meant "Nylas". Given their precise business model is making synchronized copies of your email inbox, that doesn't sound very unreasonable to me.
That's an integral part of how it works. Their sync servers download your email, then sync with your local client. You need that ID to log into their server and access your individual email accounts.
I really wanted an Email client for Linux which isn't power hungry but unfortunately last I tried Nylas - it was always top app in `powertop`. An always running app has to be low on power consumption IMO, but because so many apps are being built on top of webkit/electron most of them pretty much suck when it comes to battery usage.
Another case in point is slack app. On Linux, it is probably the worst app. :(
Electron actually gives you quite a bit of free help for power consumption. The Chromium team goes through great lengths to save power and most of those efforts get reflected in Electron. For example, when it the app gets put in the background it will automatically reduce power usage.
When no javascript is running the app consumes effectively no power.
Now that being said there's nothing to stop developers from running lots of expensive code or being non-performant with rendering. This is true in any environment. However; having access to the type of flame-charts and profiling tools that come with Chrome / Electron go a really long way to addressing some of these issues.
I work at Nylas and we've been heavily focused on reducing the amount of power the app consumes. We've still got a lot of work to do, but at the end of the day processing a ton of email quickly is a fairly expensive operation.
In the long run it's possible to offload very expensive work to natively compiled modules. A lot of Electron projects do this and can use Node's native bindings to connect to processes that really need to be fast in native code.
I think the answer is Mutt. For me, the editor is what stops me from switching. Does it still require you to shell out to an external editor to send a mail?
There was an amazing mail client for (of all things) FidoNet back in the 90s called GoldEd that was amazing. It had threaded message display, a great editor, pleasant colors, etc. It was tailored to that network, however. Would love to find something like this for console-based email that has the built-in editor and isn't Pine.
The trouble isn't electron/webkit, it's the tonne of JavaScript frameworks that are used to emulate what HTTP already does very efficiently (pages, links, requests, responses, etc.).
An app that doesn't do anything in the background won't use any resources, doesn't matter if it is built on webkit/electron. Unless you have a huge volume of email, then Nylas should not be power hungry. I for one am grateful for web apps and for webkit/electron desktop apps. Without these taking off, the Linux desktop would be dead for me.
Is your usage IMAP-centered ? Then I can only recommend Trojita (http://trojita.flaska.net/). There are a few quirks here and there, but it's pretty much the one application that is started when my computer starts and closed only when it is shut down. Its smart usage of IMAP makes it extremely efficient (doesn't download all of your emails just to display one, doesn't download the entirety of a single mail just to display its subject, ...). The only downside is that your usage has to be pretty close to IMAP for trojita to work best for you.
I use Mail.app, Outlook and Nylas on OSX and Nylas is way faster for me. Problem is that it doesn't have an easy way to encrypt/sign mails with PGP. Well the new MacOS Mail.app neither...
After signing up for Nylas Mail, I started getting daily "marketing email" (spam) from them. It really added insult to the injury already caused by the Linux app being horribly slow, buggy, and power-hungry.
I open the page and have no idea what Nylas is. I click on the logo and I'm taken to the blog home page, where 60% of the screen is the Nylas logo with no subheader telling me what it is. I click on it again and it just refreshes the blog index. No link to nylas.com. How do so many people make the same mistake?
I used Nylas back when it was free, and it is a good email client, but it just wasn't worth $7 a month to me, and certainly not $12, especially when I consider that Office 365 Business Premium is only $12.50 a month, and includes Outlook, Word, Excel, etc. I would never use Office 365 personally, but when I consider the value offered by Office 365 Premium vs. Nylas, for about the same price, it makes Nylas Email look grossly overpriced.
It seems to me that Nylas could make a lot more money by charging $1 a month, since there are likely many, many more people willing to pay $1 vs. $12. Probably more than the 12 to 1 ratio required to break even.
I like Nylas, and think it is a good email client, but their pricing suggests they haven't done the market research and competitor analysis required to price themselves strategically and to be successful.
> It seems to me that Nylas could make a lot more money by charging $1 a month, since there are likely many, many more people willing to pay $1 vs. $12. Probably more than the 12 to 1 ratio required to break even.
Do you have any data on this? Would love to see it to help inform the research we already did when pricing the Pro edition of Nylas Mail.
How is this different than Mail and every other email client in existence?
Don't get me wrong, it looks extremely good.
However, I visited the site and immediately clicked on the back button.
I've been using Google Inbox for a few months, and it radically changed how I handle my many mailboxes. It's not rare now that I actually achieve inbox zero.
I would love to see the same amount of innovation that was put into Google Inbox (I think they might have acquired it, though?) in another email client, as I'm always looking to try things out.
In Nylas, I see the same things that make dealing with email a pain: folders, the trash and spam being given the same importance as the inbox, etc.
It's set up to make it a job to keep your emails organized, while you shouldn't keep them organized, because it's just doesn't matter: just reply and mark as done, snooze until you can reply and mark as done, or discard/mark multiple emails at the same time and go on with your life.
Nylas Mail Basic and Nylas Pro are all built on an open source, highly extensible, modern platform. This lets us deliver a very familiar clean experience out of the box while supporting the ability to add an enormous number of very powerful features very quickly.
Everyone uses email slightly differently. The plugins allow us to build Salesforce integration, tracking, templates, and mail merge for sales people, while offering an entirely different targeted set for other users.
We intentionally "don't move the cheese to far" from existing clients to ease transition. There are a lot of grand ideas for radically different email experiences that fall flat due to their deviation from the core experiences most people expect and need. We instead believe that a handful of targeted features to a targeted group gradually develop into a very different way to interact with email for a very specific use case.
I love Google Inbox as well. The one downside that bothers me is its performance. It can be very slow and tends to gobble up resources the longer you have the tab open. I'm constantly on the lookout for a native desktop app that matches its features and ease of use.
I've tried it, I wanted to love it, but man was the self-hosted sync engine a pain in the ass. Seemed like this was a totally second-class offering from Nylas, there were several known bugs where the client had problems syncing with self-hosted engines and the response was seemingly "we know this is a problem with self-hosted sync engines, we'll try to fix it eventually". A fair enough response to me as a nonpaying user who didn't want their cloud offering, but certainly enough to get me to stop using their open source offerings as my email client.
> Today’s release supports Gmail/G Suite, Office365 Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, and FastMail. Full support for self-hosted Microsoft Exchange servers is coming soon.
I am a little curious why this is so limited. All of the above solutions support IMAP, so why is this so specific? I could understand if they're trying to support, say, Gmail-specific features of your inbox, but a provider like FastMail is pretty much entirely standards-compliant, AFAICT.
Nylas Basic is free forever. We hope you'll like it so much that you'll upgrade to Pro.
Essentially, we started as a free beta at the very beginning, launched with free trial last year, and now have switched to freemium (with a free trial on the Pro version still there).
The Nylas client doesn't connect to you mail provider directly, instead the Nylas client connects to the Nylas Sync Engine. It used to be that using this API for this was a couple hundred a year, per account.
Both the client and the sync engine are open source, so you've always been able to host your own.
I use Nylas but I recently had to move from a 2013 MBP to a 2008 MBP and it shows how unresponsive the UI is. I'd like to use something such as mutt but I find it very unfriendly.
I used Nylas for a while after it was first released and really liked it. Then one day out of the blue I started getting sync errors and it basically stopped working (I've talked to multiple people that this happened to). After spending a couple hours, removing, reconnecting, re-installing, all with no success I gave up and stopped using it (actually attempted using again a month or two later with the same results). Would've been great to have local sync from the beginning as I actually might've paid to use it if I wouldn't of encountered so many issues and lost time trying to fix them. Now it looks like everything that I used to use and like about the app is only included in the paid version, and there's no way I'm going to pay just to see if they fixed the issues.
I'm really enjoying spark (https://sparkmailapp.com). I would try Nylas, but snooze is an absolute deal breaker for me. I'd highly recommend making that a free feature.
Spark has similar shortcomings: it isn't an email client, it is an email `service.` It relies on a third party service (other than your email provider).
I looked at this app in depth and used it for about 2 days. Overall it is fairly usable and I liked it but the memory usage is killer. On a MacBook Air with 8 gigs, it uses 979 megs out of the gate and bloats up an additional 100 megs by the next morning. More details here: http://fuzzyblog.io/blog/email/2017/01/18/nylas-mail-review....
Ok I will try it again. I have to say when I used it during the trial, I liked it a lot. Love the inverse theme and the customization that is allowed. My only bad experience was, I ran the OS update that killed their app. It stopped updating with their server, then a week later started taunting me to pay money. It's not their fault the app stopped working. It was just bad timing that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I really do like the app and looking forward to reinstalling and configuring right now.
[+] [-] yoasif_|9 years ago|reply
The support page states that "If you’re using N1 against our open source sync engine, you’ll still need to create a Nylas ID."
Given the privacy policy says that Nylas shares information with third parties and that they can "make a copy of the entire contents of the applicable email inbox, calendar, and contact book", it doesn't feel like a traditional email client to me.
https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/220974588-How-is...
[+] [-] e0m|9 years ago|reply
Nylas Pro currently syncs in the cloud to enable some of the pro features not currently offered in Nylas Mail Basic and to provide a much easier to use modern API wrapper around mail data. The cloud syncing infrastructure is open source and you can run it yourself and inspect the code.
All editions (both Basic and Pro) need a Nylas ID. This lets us manage subscriptions for those who want to upgrade. The code is open source on GitHub (nylas/N1). You can fork & run yourself without a Nylas ID. You just won't get any cloud-enabled features.
We never send mail, contact, or calendar data to 3rd parties. We do, however, use 3rd parties for basic usage and performance statistics and self-host as much reporting infrastructure (like Sentry) as possible.
(I build Nylas Mail)
[+] [-] lxfontes|9 years ago|reply
(puts Stallman's hat on) This is not free as in freedom.
[+] [-] SparkyMcUnicorn|9 years ago|reply
https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md
https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine
Edit: Not sure what the latest update changes yet (much of the sync engine is local now?), but this thread looks like it has the latest info so far.
https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/3166
[+] [-] echion|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sreenadh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shreve|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnufied|9 years ago|reply
Another case in point is slack app. On Linux, it is probably the worst app. :(
[+] [-] e0m|9 years ago|reply
When no javascript is running the app consumes effectively no power.
Now that being said there's nothing to stop developers from running lots of expensive code or being non-performant with rendering. This is true in any environment. However; having access to the type of flame-charts and profiling tools that come with Chrome / Electron go a really long way to addressing some of these issues.
I work at Nylas and we've been heavily focused on reducing the amount of power the app consumes. We've still got a lot of work to do, but at the end of the day processing a ton of email quickly is a fairly expensive operation.
In the long run it's possible to offload very expensive work to natively compiled modules. A lot of Electron projects do this and can use Node's native bindings to connect to processes that really need to be fast in native code.
[+] [-] wslh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrissnell|9 years ago|reply
There was an amazing mail client for (of all things) FidoNet back in the 90s called GoldEd that was amazing. It had threaded message display, a great editor, pleasant colors, etc. It was tailored to that network, however. Would love to find something like this for console-based email that has the built-in editor and isn't Pine.
[+] [-] g105b|9 years ago|reply
One day someone will build a good Electron app.
[+] [-] bad_user|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rakoo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beckler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olalonde|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrissnell|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AndrewUnmuted|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artursapek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artursapek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grinich|9 years ago|reply
We are a very small team building this app. Hopefully you can focus on what's new/good and not what is left to do! :)
If you find bugs, please post them here: https://github.com/nylas/n1/issues/
[+] [-] ilSignorCarlo|9 years ago|reply
Here's the original discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11553738
[+] [-] innocentoldguy|9 years ago|reply
It seems to me that Nylas could make a lot more money by charging $1 a month, since there are likely many, many more people willing to pay $1 vs. $12. Probably more than the 12 to 1 ratio required to break even.
I like Nylas, and think it is a good email client, but their pricing suggests they haven't done the market research and competitor analysis required to price themselves strategically and to be successful.
[+] [-] grinich|9 years ago|reply
Do you have any data on this? Would love to see it to help inform the research we already did when pricing the Pro edition of Nylas Mail.
[+] [-] nkkollaw|9 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong, it looks extremely good.
However, I visited the site and immediately clicked on the back button.
I've been using Google Inbox for a few months, and it radically changed how I handle my many mailboxes. It's not rare now that I actually achieve inbox zero.
I would love to see the same amount of innovation that was put into Google Inbox (I think they might have acquired it, though?) in another email client, as I'm always looking to try things out.
In Nylas, I see the same things that make dealing with email a pain: folders, the trash and spam being given the same importance as the inbox, etc.
It's set up to make it a job to keep your emails organized, while you shouldn't keep them organized, because it's just doesn't matter: just reply and mark as done, snooze until you can reply and mark as done, or discard/mark multiple emails at the same time and go on with your life.
[+] [-] e0m|9 years ago|reply
Everyone uses email slightly differently. The plugins allow us to build Salesforce integration, tracking, templates, and mail merge for sales people, while offering an entirely different targeted set for other users.
We intentionally "don't move the cheese to far" from existing clients to ease transition. There are a lot of grand ideas for radically different email experiences that fall flat due to their deviation from the core experiences most people expect and need. We instead believe that a handful of targeted features to a targeted group gradually develop into a very different way to interact with email for a very specific use case.
(I'm an engineer at Nylas)
[+] [-] rrdharan|9 years ago|reply
Inbox is homegrown, not an acquisition.
(work at Google)
[+] [-] pgm8705|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghosttie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnx01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sethhochberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|9 years ago|reply
> Today’s release supports Gmail/G Suite, Office365 Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, and FastMail. Full support for self-hosted Microsoft Exchange servers is coming soon.
I am a little curious why this is so limited. All of the above solutions support IMAP, so why is this so specific? I could understand if they're trying to support, say, Gmail-specific features of your inbox, but a provider like FastMail is pretty much entirely standards-compliant, AFAICT.
[+] [-] romanovcode|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sachinag|9 years ago|reply
Essentially, we started as a free beta at the very beginning, launched with free trial last year, and now have switched to freemium (with a free trial on the Pro version still there).
Does that make sense?
(I work at Nylas.)
[+] [-] Jaepa|9 years ago|reply
The Nylas client doesn't connect to you mail provider directly, instead the Nylas client connects to the Nylas Sync Engine. It used to be that using this API for this was a couple hundred a year, per account.
Both the client and the sync engine are open source, so you've always been able to host your own.
https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine
[+] [-] colinramsay|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aylmao|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grinich|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] davidcollantes|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fuzzygroup|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grinich|9 years ago|reply
Do you also run apps like Slack or Google Chrome? How does their memory usage compare?
Was this during initial sync (very resource intensive) or at a steady state?
(Thanks for the blog post btw!)
[+] [-] fritzw|9 years ago|reply