Mailspring: Cross-platform, fast, open source mail client
18 comments
·February 3, 2025zachh
I still think about the best-designed email app I've ever used, Sparrow [1]. This is the closest I've seen in design and spirit!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_%28email_client%29
zuhsetaqi
To bad it's an Electron app. I'm really RAM restricted …
tony-allan
On MacOS the RAM usage is much better than for Apple's mail app.
brw
It's worth noting that the actual sync engine is C++. https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring-Sync
robterrell
Mimestream is a fantastic native app. Mac only though: https://mimestream.com/
shamiln
That’s not a mail client, it’s a GMail client
righthand
We really do live in a web technologies hell scape. Even modern Qt apps include javascript code with an added startup time cost.
rekabis
>Electron
…oh. Shame, that.
right-click->delete
cwbriscoe
I used it for a couple of years but I find Thunderbird to be better.
wslh
I wonder if someone uses Claws [1].
etiam
I probably will, but Thunderbird hasn't quite broken the interface enough yet to take the costs of emigrating everything.
rufus_foreman
I use it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they've tried everything else first, which I pretty much did.
It slowly and grudgingly does what I want it to do, but my workflow is probably not anyone else's.
brw
I've tried a ton of email clients over the years and always end up coming back to Mailspring. Started using ever since it used to be Nylas N1 years ago (which later rebranded to Nylas Mail, then got discontinued and forked into Mailspring).
I actually do think it's the best performing and best looking cross-platform email client, although there are some potential pain points people should probably be aware of:
1. Development has become very stagnant. It's still semi-maintained with small bug fixes every now and then, but it hasn't seen any changes in years. This might also be a good thing depending on how you look at it, it's largely a finished product.
2. There are quite a lot of bugs that have never gotten fixed over the years[1]. I run into these bugs every now and then where e.g. deleting a draft will often also delete the entire thread without you realizing it, leading to unknowingly deleted emails[2]. And sometimes the local sqlite db gets locked/corrupted and you have to reset it[3]. I personally put up with this but I wouldn't expect anyone else to. Especially not non-tech folks. This makes it hard to recommend the app to other people.
3. You're required to have a "Mailspring ID" account to use the app. It doesn't actually do anything useful like synchronize your settings or connected mail accounts. As far as I can tell it's only used to check for a Pro subscription, and probably some telemetry. I don't use any of the Pro features so I can't say how well it works for that. Still required to have it though.
Nonetheless I still use it because no other client seems to have the UI/UX and information density down quite like Mailspring does. And it performs very well even with hundreds of thousands of emails thanks to its C++ sync engine (the UI is Electron, but I'd say it's still pretty snappy, it's one of the better ones). If Gmail ever supports third party IMAP accounts without needing Workspace for it and without needing to have a Gmail address attached to your Google account I would probably just use that instead though.
My favorite client used to use Alto Mail[4], which was a wonderful web and mobile app email client that did support external IMAP accounts. I believe it was created by AOL, but sadly shut down in 2017, shortly after Verizon merged AOL and Yahoo. I've wanted to create a spiritual successor to it ever since, but email standards and HTML email rendering has always seemed like such a massively complicated space. Plus email clients like these are so niche considering that almost everyone simply uses Gmail, Outlook, or their default system mail apps instead that the required effort just doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps I'll still do this someday if I can find the motivation, or maybe I'll try to contribute to Mailspring instead, but for now I just put up with its issues.
[1] https://community.getmailspring.com/c/bugs/10 [2] https://community.getmailspring.com/t/deleting-draft-emails-... [3] https://community.getmailspring.com/t/database-is-locked/420 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alto_Mail
elashri
Regarding the third point. you are no longer required to have Mailspring ID for sometime now.
For me, what actually makes me not using it is because it does not support Exchange without IMAP support which my university disable. Otherwise it is the best UX/UI email client on Linux.
brw
Oh! You're right. I suppose I just missed the fact that there's now a skip button/text on the set up screen. Thanks for the correction. And yea its Linux/cross-platform support is also one of the main reasons for why I use it.
I do also remember the part about Exchange not being supported if IMAP is disabled. I had the same issue when I tried to use it at a university, but luckily haven't needed that since. Not surprising to hear that it hasn't changed either.
Fnoord
Wait, you can now log in directly to IMAP? That is quite some change. Wasn't happy to give third parties key to the castle.
I've been using Postbox but unfortunately they got acquihired by eM Client. So much for lifetime license. Won't fall for that again.
Meanwhile, Thunderbird has resurfaced. So I might switch back to that instead.
johnea
Will it accept a self signed server certificate?
The code comments make it a pleasure to read the source: <https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring-Sync/blob/master/Ma...>