Mailspring: Allow opt-out from Mailspring ID

[OmeGak]

Edit by Maintainers: You can find a more complete response to this question on our Knowledge Base here: https://foundry376.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003141552-What-is-a-Mailspring-ID-and-why-do-I-need-one-

Feature Request?
I'm not interested in the features Mailspring ID brings. Would it be possible to use Mailspring without Mailspring ID? I believe all necessary features for a fully-working open source email client are built-in, so why forcing to use Mailspring ID? This, along with mailsync not being open source (#24), kinda defeats the purpose of the Mailspring client being open source. Well, besides the fact that anybody can make a fork of this project and disable the feature.

Does this feature exist in another mail client or tool you use?

Thunderbird.

---

It seems there is now a fork, started by @notpushkin, that removes Mailspring ID. Updating the issue to give it some visibility to the comment that announces it:

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

[RussH]

+1

[lamixer]

I find myself again searching for a Linux imap mail client that works for me (decent feature set, and attractive on Gnome 3) and discovered Nylas mail and the recent forks thereof. I would like to use Mailspring as my email client but don't want to send my email to a third party -- that's why I run my own email server!

So, long way to say, +1.

I doubt it would hurt your business model and maybe some 'imap-only' users will help you improve the client further.

[mmarif4u]

I was about to create an issue for this and saw this one. Thanks for creating one.

And yes i agree it totally defeat the purpose of using own mail server if i am going to be dependent on third party server for few features.

[ldartez]

i am also not interested in mailspring ID and i would like to opt out.

[step21]

FWIW, as far as I know, your email is not sent to a third party. Let alone, because hosting costs would prob be much higher if they were.
While I cannot speak for @bengotow etc, it seems that for now Mailspring requires the id. I shared many of the concerns mentioned, when the emails were actually stored on the server, as with the original N1 client. For everybody else, you could try NylasMailLives which is in the process of not requiring an ID (or maybe has already removed it by now) and might in the future use the sync-engine from Mailspring or a similar one if possible. And also fixed many bugs already.
Also, Geary just very recently released 0.12 with many improvements. This might be not entirely on-topic, but before trying to argue about business models or another fork, maybe it is best to revisit the alternatives that are there and might move in a direction that is more suitable to you and perhaps help improve them.

[bengotow]

Hey folks! Thanks for filing this—I actually debated what to do about the "Nylas ID" concept when I forked Nylas Mail and ended up keeping something similar in place. This is great feedback.

The ID concept in Mailspring is a bit different than in Nylas Mail: Mailspring stores your mail credentials securely on your machine in the keychain / keyring, and does not send your email credentials to the cloud. All email sync is done on your computer. (This may change in the future as new features launch, but it will always be opt-in per the Privacy Policy.) Your Mailspring ID stores small bits of metadata used for snoozing, send later, read receipts, etc., and also allows for feature rate-limiting, which can be removed by purchasing Mailspring Pro.

I know you're not interested in the features provided by the Mailspring ID, and that's totally fine! I'd really love for you to use Mailspring as your mail client even if you just want a prettier Thunderbird.

That said, Mailspring is intended to be a /product/ as well as an open source project. If everything works out, revenue from Mailspring Pro (which competes with subscription products like Mailbird, Rapportive, Mixmax, etc.) will allow me and others at F376 to allocate time to maintaining it indefinitely. Maybe one day we can find another sponsor like Nylas (which spent upwards of $2.5M developing Nylas Mail) or Mozilla to remove the financial concerns, but for now Mailspring needs to target paying customers with great pro features so I can continue working on it full-time. The Mailspring ID is a core component of these Pro features and a lot of exciting stuff on the roadmap, like team templates, read receipt analytics and shared folders. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to remove the Mailspring ID and make the mail client better for you, because it pulls us further away from doing a great job on the pro features for paying users that will ultimately make this a long-lasting open source project.

Hope that helps! I'm going to flag this as a wontfix for now, but I welcome everyone's thoughts and feedback here. As I dig into the pro feature development a bit more, I'll revisit this to see if we could make login optional.

[mmarif4u]

Yes, the sync i am sure everyone is aware of, the only few features which need the id are tracking, pro etc. The thing is to not create another id in the process and use the app like TB/Geary etc.

@step21 thanks for the mentions. From this thread, i guess id(not tested yet) is not required anymore for NML.

@bengotow making login optional would be great, but that totally depends on your business model in the future.

For now i will try NML, and see it that fits. If not yet, i will stick to TB(old is gold sometime).

[step21]

Just two (subjective/my point of view) observations on business models -
I was wondering, have you thought of combining e-mail hosting with the client subscription? This probably was more applicable to the original 'N1' client, but the most annoying thing for me was always to have another intermediary, between me and my mail server/provider that not only stores the mail (in the case of N1) but also wants to be paid. Whereas if I could for example pay to set my mx records accordingly or use @mailspring-mail.com or similar, this would have been easier to justify a then at least for that account, you pay for e-mail but also get the client. (obv also doesn't apply to many accounts that you cannot control etc)
Second, while I guess most businesses like subscriptions, because they are recurring, the 'problem' is that so many companies, especially 'digital' ones are doing that. So in a sense, there is a new category of utilities that many people pay for, which can quickly add up and is in this case almost without limit. And while I like to have my utilities, as people do, I think that probably most people do not like paying for them, especially if they are adding up and seemingly only getting more. Sorry if this is maybe too off-topic/meta, but as we are on the topic of subscription I thought it fit.

[shibacomputer]

All I want is a beautiful email client. I've loved everything about Nylas N1 and, now, Mailspring but this was and continues to be a dealbreaker for me . On one hand I am so thrilled that the project continues in this new form, but that I can't opt out of Mailspring ID means that I can't support this project. I urge you to seriously consider alternatives for 'basic' email use that don't include any of the features that require joining a third party service.

Either way, good luck!

[jGleitz]

If Mailspring ID is a showstopper for some people, and Mailspring ID is a way to generate income from the project, wouldn’t it be an option to offer the opt-out from Mailspring ID against payment? To me, it seems like this would open another stream of income from people that can not be reached by the current business model, without losing any potential of the current business model.

Or would none of the people interested in this issue be willing to pay for Mailspring’s development?

[shibacomputer]

@jGleitz Personally, I'm very willing to pay for Mailspring in some form, even as a reasonably priced subscription. I'm not willing to send any email activity to a third party service.

[philfreo]

Mailspring stores your mail credentials securely on your machine in the keychain / keyring, and does not send your email credentials to the cloud. All email sync is done on your computer. (This may change in the future as new features launch, but it will always be opt-in per the Privacy Policy.) Your Mailspring ID stores small bits of metadata used for snoozing, send later, read receipts, etc., and also allows for feature rate-limiting, which can be removed by purchasing Mailspring Pro.

You made a point in your website's documentation to say what _isn't_ sent to the cloud. However you should be more explicit about exactly what _is_ sent to your servers.

[egrueda]

In the end, there's absolutely no need to store anything in any server, that's beyond the target of an email client.
An email client cannot create that mandatory dependance with a 3rd party, it's really insane if you have an email provider and you still depend on another company and your data (whatever) will be in their servers.
IMHO, forcing users to be full dependant without need is not the way. This could be a nice mail client, but developer's goals are above user's needs, so it will never become extended.
You must respect user's privacy and independency, but it seems mailspring's core was built against all of that :-(

[ldartez]

@egrueda, agreed! Hopefully things will become more sensible down the road.

[muuuh]

I also hope there will be an opt-out possibility for the analytics package. Don't know what's happening here.
https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring/blob/master/app/internal_packages/analytics/lib/analytics-store.es6#L94

[step21]

@muuuh I'd say it sends the name and address you registered with, for analytics I guess.

[gitbobbed]

Just adding support to the idea of having a paid version of Mailspring specifically for those users that don't want to have to create a Mailspring ID to use the tool.

I honestly don't have a problem with them having an ID that lets them offer useful features that wouldn't be possible otherwise, but understand that others might not want to. Maybe offer it for a one-time payment without the Pro features?

Also support the idea of a reasonable monthly subscription service for the Pro features.

[gyunaev]

I support the (cheaper) subscription idea for non-Pro users. Something which might be valuable is ability to opt out of analytics/telemetry - the old saying is "if you're not paying for the product, YOU are the product" - but I'd prefer to pay for it and NOT be a product.

Another issue this may also address is viability of the company, which would in turn improve Pro subscriptions. As someone using Link Tracking from another platform, frankly I'd need to be VERY sure the company doing link tracking is still in business for at least a year after the campaign starts (I still receive tracking from some emails we've sent in 2010!!!). Some of the marketing campaigns have long-lasting effect and cost lots of money - and if the company which tracks my links decide to stop doing business, this would be a major blow.

[OddDev]

Even if I'm using Pro I need to create a mailspring ID, correct?

[gitbobbed]

Quick question: are snoozed e-mails supposed to sync across different instances of Mailspring tied to the same Mailspring ID? Like, if you have Mailspring installed in your laptop and desktop, will a message resurface on either of those automatically? Or only if I open the instance in which the e-mail was originally snoozed?

[jGleitz]

Even if I'm using Pro I need to create a mailspring ID, correct?

That’s correct. One proposal we made in this issue is to offer disabling Mailspring ID against a fee.

[OddDev]

How about making the ID optional when on pro? Can be sold as a pro feature and fits seamlessly.

[step21]

@gitbobbed if you want an answer, make a new issue or write directly to support, this thread seems like the wrong place to ask.

[Goddard]

I liked it until I found this out. Real bummer for me. Clearly the meta data must be valuable for you to consider it an option for free/open users. Usually open source projects operate a community version and then a corporate/business version. You are employing that along with meta data collection?

[jsamr]

@bengotow

I'm in favor of opt-in ID too. But if you want to keep those ID mandatory, at least you should guarantee some PII protection to users, which is not yet the case (see below).

If everything works out, revenue from Mailspring Pro [...] will allow me and others at F376 to allocate time to maintaining it indefinitely.

If you aim at maintaining indefinitely, I suggest you shall remove this paragraph from your privacy policy document, which I find disturbing:

__Information Disclosed in Connection with Business Transactions.__ Information that we collect from our users, including PII, is considered to be a business asset. Thus, if we are acquired by a third party as a result of a transaction such as a merger, acquisition or asset sale or if our assets are acquired by a third party in the event we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, some or all of our assets, including your PII, may be disclosed or transferred to a third party acquirer in connection with the transaction.

[step21]

As I see it, with some legal knowledge, this is just informing you of what would happen in such a case. Even if it was not there, it would probably still take place in the case of the events described therein.

[Sebastiaan76]

This mandatory ID is 100% why I won't be using Mailspring. It's a dealbreaker for me, and probably many others. I'd also be happy to pay to not have this 'feature'. Will keep an eye on the project and hopefully some common sense prevails to at least make this an optional component of the software.

[OddDev]

This mandatory ID is 100% why I won't be using Mailspring. It's a dealbreaker for me

Agree 100%

[replaid]

@bengotow I paid $50 for MailMate on the Mac, and am now looking for its equal on Linux. I would be willing to pay up to $100 for a Mailspring product that didn't leak information to any third parties, didn't have this ID thing, and didn't try to upsell me. I am a different kind of customer from the Pro customer and would not buy the Pro product for any price, but would love to buy an upsell-less version of the free download. I think there are many of this kind of user.

[step21]

I would love that software too, I only disagree with the payment part - I would think that there are very few people willing to pay 100 $ for a mail client, especially with free alternatives available. Furthermore, with the exception of the sync engine, the rest of Mailspring is under GPL v3 nobody could prohibit distribution of that part, afaik. Which would also make this model you guys proposed unfeasible and is likely one reason for the current model.

[jonkri]

As attractive as Mailspring is, I won't use it unless (it's fully open source and) I can opt out of Mailspring ID and any other features that sends information to some server. I would be interested in paying for it as well.

[id777]

That's bullshit, not an open source product.
Open source means freedom and security. Both of it fucked here.

Just wonder why no one yet forked this and get rid of ID spy component.

[gyunaev]

To be fair, it doesn't claim to be an open source product. The readme page states "Mailspring's UI is entirely open-source and pull requests and contributions are welcome".

At the same time, the product as it is can only be distributed by its author, because while claiming to be licensed under GPL, it has binary-only modules. This means no one else - including distros for example - can redistribute it, as we won't be able to follow the GPL which requires complete corresponding source code.

[step21]

@id777 the old code was forked, ofc lacking some Mailspring improvements and the faster sync engine, and the fork is looking for maintainers. https://github.com/nylas-mail-lives/nylas-mail
At least some gui stuff could probably be ported back. @gyunaev the original product has a js sync engine, maybe even just written to open-source it, because shortly afterwards it was shut down as a product from Nylas.

[lindhe]

@bengotow I would happily pay a subscription fee to your project on Patreon or via some mailspring account, but would never consider connecting my mail client to an account like it does now. Please, if you would make Mailspring account optional for using the client it would be fantastic!

[IamSpacename]

► Requiring a Mailspring ID to access my emails...has caused me to uninstall M.S. and delete my ID.
'No idea why this is "forced".. _don't care why either_ .

► Two licensing choices and BOTH 'fail to meet modest expectations.
* I'd like to:
• access all of my accounts ..more than 4.
• no requiring the MailSpring ID..EVER. ..'which also means to me that you're not in my email access loop, nor do you have any info from my emails...etc etc ..I think it's called something like; PRIVACY.
• not pay monthly, but rather pay one time for a perpetual license, for a version with update support for the version.
• be sure that my emails are only between me and the email server. No "middle service man" per se. Having a local email server and using the current form of MailSpring would be arse backwards.
• I'd add more here, but I think the basics mentioned here, would be sufficient.
*

- You can tell me that you don't care.. sure. I'm ok with that.
Either way, I think it would be nice if the team took a moment and stepped back to realign themselves with the users via the user-needs, wants, and of course; with the history of email since the
(I assume)bleaching or _allowing_ access to email-service-provider-read-receipts is an overreach for a paid feature IMHO.

ok, enough with the direct speak.
I really like the client. It felt solid. I think I have used/tried every email program offered for Mac/Windows in the last 10 years or more..and IMHO, MailSpring has potential to be a strong marketshare competitor.
'BUT...BUT!!!!! ... well.. one sentence can sum up what I'm trying to say: Read the book or audible "The Go-Giver".

[Erdbeergeist]

too bad this id is mandatory, would have liked to use this app... I take it an opt out option is not planned.

[waynekearns]

+1 to this thread.

If you are not paying for a product, and the 'giver' wants something, seemingly innocuous from you, then YOU are the product.

I understand your position, but it seems like a very thinly veiled defense of a position that allows you to promote your product (to potential funders) as another data gathering platform. ie an email only alternative marketing platform, a la gmail.

Giving people the ability to opt out provides a complete remedy to that claim. Sadly, I deleted the MailSpring client and flagged it as malware on my system as soon as I found out about the requirement.

👎 It makes me sad.

[MatthewScholefield]

While I may disagree with not providing an opt-out mechanism, I applaud you for being honest rather than doing what most other companies would do and just ignoring or giving a BS reason. If you think that's that's the best decision to ensure the continued life of this project, then I respect that.

[macdanger]

Ok, I just wanted to try Mailspring but got harshly stopped by the dialog of creating a mandetory ID. This makes no sense to me for a Mail client. I just read here that this is what the authors think is best to finance the project. I don't agree with this approach, sorry. Maybe I will come back later when this changes, but for now I will not even try Mailspring ... sadly...

[SeAlgoAsoma]

Yeah, I didn't even evaluate Nylas because of this sleazy business. Requiring an ID to even open the program to evaluate if you want to use it? Not to mention promoting spywar^h^h^h^h^h^h "web bugs" as a selling point? Yuck. I see this has fully inherited the sleaze of the project it was forked from.

Good luck making your money. I paid a lot of money for my last client, MailMate, and then regularly willingly donated even more to the developer after buying, as part of his "patron" program, because he made a great email client. And now I will never be a part of your user base at all.

[SeAlgoAsoma]

Wow, it gets even worse. This is outright malware.

Mailspring sneakily installs a user agent to your system, even if you quit before surrendering your email address to them to get a "Mailspring ID". If you've ever even started Mailspring on your system once, you may have the hidden User Agent. To remove it, drop into Terminal and enter:

rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mailspring.plist

Then reboot your machine.

My god, I can't believe how sleazy this product is. I'm going to see if Github has rules against hosting things that install user agents without your knowledge or permission.

[tbertels]

The right way to do it would be to invite the user to create a Mailspring ID when enabling the pro features.
This ID is only necessary to enable those pro features, so forcing every user to create one just to test Mailspring may not be a smart move.

[waynekearns]

Thanks for the tip on the Launcher component. It definitely supports the theory that the Mailspring folks are trying to monetize using the "Facebook" model. It is a sad day.

[jorpilo]

I just wanted to try MailSpring for now but I am not willing to link the application with all my mail data to a single ID, even if mail credentials arent sync, totally freaks me out the fact of having all my accounts from different servers linked to one MailSpring ID

[jmelfi]

I would have loved to use this application. The GUI is well done, flows well, and the settings/etc. are excellent. Same issue as Polymail and other clients that require the id that's mentioned here. It's data collection.

If you let me opt-out and assist another way, I'd do so. If I could have my business use this without the id, I'd have a full team of developers probably switching to this. User advocates and contributors are ways to increase your user base, add new or improve plugins, and create a community.

Our users need a local email client with GPG support that doesn't do email syncing to another cloud as we have regulatory requirements around that. We use Thunderbird + Enigmail for GPG encryption. We don't need or require the "Pro" features. I could possibly convince the company I work for to give a donation or perhaps sponsor if we could do this; however, the ID is required. Even more, my company would pay a perpetual license for a version of the software.

Like many in this thread, I'd encourage a change.

Perhaps that is allowing individuals unlimited licensed use. Target to get Pro users to make MailSpring IDs and pay for the advanced features, but don't require the MailSpring ID for non-pro users.

Perhaps also look at how you would license this at a particular version or on an annual recurring basis for enterprises. This could be accomplished by a license server or a cloud management of the keys to be handed out similar to JetBrains or Parallels from either Active Directory or a set department.

Again, client is beautiful. It's fluid and elegant. It's too bad about the MailSpring ID.

[pferreir]

Maybe someone should just fork this and remove the id?

Edit: Oh... mailsync is closed source. I see... well, too bad. Seemed like a good client.

[jorpilo]

in fact, it already exist an open version of nylas-mail (the base proyecto of mailspring)
https://github.com/nylas-mail-lives/nylas-mail
But its not longer mantained...

[noplanman]

Would it hurt so much to just allow an opt-out and gain all the extra users that would actually like to use Mailspring but don't want those extra features provided by the ID?

I too find myself in the boat of "Why register yet another account, just to test a software and have extra features I don't want/need?"

[yasinuslu]

I would also make one-time payment for using mailspring without a mailspring id. I want to use this client both in my personal computer and company computer but the way it is i cannot use it.

[billylindeman]

👍

[jakubgs]

I installed Mailspring thinking "Oh boy, this will be great.", but then I saw the registration form...

sudo apt remove mailspring

[thegass]

sudo dnf install mailspring-1.5.3-0.1.x86_64.rpm
5 minutes later and reading this thread
sudo dnf erase mailspring

mandatory 3rd party account to read my mails -> dealbreaker.

[alichakery]

I love the interface of this email address as much as I hate the interface of Thunderbird.

Of course I would pay for Mailspring but would never ever share my company's email with your cloud. It does not matter how to what you collect. You should not collect anything in any terms at least you should make it as a feature. For example a feature that the user would select if he or she would like to have a cloud sync between all computers which he or she has.

I almost installed this app on our linux desktops, but when I saw this thread ... Well.... I would not even get neat it as sharing data with your servers should not be mandatory.

[bliet]

Same here. Just want to evaluate this client. But with a registration for a service that is not needed... no way.

[dmitryd]

I was looking for e Linux email client too and installed MailSpring. As long as it prompted me to create an account without a way to opt-out, I got rid of MailSpring at once. No spying, thanks.

I am willing to pay for the opt-out but I would never allow to send my mail activity to a 3rd party server. So, bye, MailSpring.

[fictitiousexistence]

Agreed. The Mailspring ID is a major turnoff.

[noplanman]

Honestly, the main problem I'm seeing here in this issue, is how it's simply not being addressed as the comments are piling up.

So at this point I'm not really open to trying MailSpring any more even if this ludicrous "feature" were removed.

This isn't a problem of the product any more, but of the project itself (i.e. the developers / decision makers). Seems like a nice example of an Open Source project NOT being Free Software.

[rbos]

I went to give this software a try, and was informed that I had to start up a mandatory account on your servers.

No. Dealbreaker.

[javenschuetz]

I think it would be less troubling for people if the privacy policy didn't claim that user personal information wasn't a business asset. It isn't necessarily the ID per-se, as I see it anyway.

"revenue from Mailspring Pro (which competes with subscription products like Mailbird, Rapportive, Mixmax, etc.) will allow me and others at F376 to allocate time to maintaining it indefinitely"

A lot of us are not against paying for software, we just are trying very hard to keep our data to ourselves.

[vincenzoml]

I'm a researcher in Computer Science.

I also was looking for a good imap client for linux, and was about to click "install" on the mailspring .deb then I realised that I needed to permit a third party application to simultaneously hold my e-mail passwords AND make encrypted connections to a third party server and I decided not to install it. Just wanted to share this with the devs, maybe they can understand what this looks like, from the outside.

[benkay86]

Agree with above.

dnf install mailspring-1.5.6-0.1.x86_64.rpm
mailspring
# realize ID creation is mandatory
pkill mailspring
dnf remove mailspring

It's a shame because this looks to be otherwise great software with no dependency on the ID for its core features. Firefox has an optional ID and they are doing OK monetarily...

[wiebel]

Complete show stopper, so sad.

[alichakery]

I would definitely pay for a version which respects my privacy. TBH This could be the best replacement for Apple Mail on my mac and thunderbird for my Linux and windows.

Now, there is no way.

[vincenzoml]

After having read the justification from the devs, that they are maintaining a server (and presumably paying for it) just for the sake of storing metadata associated with mail messages, I smiled a little bit. What I would do (and plenty of people can also get there) is to use IMAP folders to store such metadata and cache it locally. Now tell me this is "technically unfeasible". Make me smile again :)

[prozumr]

The client seems to be stable and robust with a nice fresh UI hence basically a real alternative to Thunderbird. But after all what I am reading in this thread it is simply a No-Go. The business model is a shame. I a willing to pay for good software but I do not want something that is violating fundamental data privacy principles - not even for free. -- Too bad.

[BrainAnnex]

What is this nonsense about FORCING people to create a "Mailspring ID"???

As many, many have complained on this thread, there ought to be an OPT-OUT !

Although I entered some fake junk name/email, and it seems to go past the _intrusive_ sign up.

Anyone who wants to create intrusive programs ought to go work for Microsoft....

More importanty, what's with the heavy-handed attempt to upsell by forcing a max of 4 email accounts, unless one coughs up $8/mo ? :o

I'm not necessarily against freemium for sort-of-useless extra features like "snooze" or whatever, but a minimum # of email accounts?!? Oh, please!

Someone ought to FORK this project, and do it as a REAL community email client program. I'll look into that myself! For now, I'll pass on this so-called "free" email client....

Edit: Someone said that the _mailsync_ module is closed source. Is that a necessary component to the basic email function? This Mailspring program is beginning to appear more sleazy than Microsoft, just incredible!

[alichakery]

I agree with you 100%,

After I saw this, I donated some money to Thunderbird and I decided to keep using it instead. Although it has a horrible oldish look but it works great with all kinds of features which are included in the paid version.

Its a shame!

On Mar 9, 2019, at 12:05 AM, BrainAnnex [e-mail] wrote:

What is this nonsense about FORCING people to create a "Mailspring ID"???

As many, many have complained on this thread, they ought to be an OPT-OUT !

Although I entered some fake junk name/email, and it seems to go past the intrusive sign up.

Anyone who wants to create intrusive programs ought to go work for Microsoft....

More importanty, what's with the heavy-handed attempt to upsell by forcing a max of 4 email accounts, unless one coughs up $8/mo ? :o

I'm not necessarily against freemium for sort-of-useless extra features like "snooze" or whatever, but a minimum # of email accounts?!? Oh, please!

Someone ought to FORK this project, and do it as a REAL community email client program. I'll look into that myself! For now, I'll pass on this so-called "free" email client....

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[BrainAnnex]

I agree with you 100%, After I saw this, I donated some money to Thunderbird and I decided to keep using it instead. Although it has a horrible oldish look but it works great with all kinds of features which are included in the paid version. Its a shame!

I have tried Thunderbird a number of times in recent years... It was my first go-to choice, but:

1) cluttered/ugly [not a big deal for me]

2) not-so-good search functions. On a number of occasions, I was able to find items thru Outlook's search function, but not Thunderbird - doing the same search in the same account! :o That made me lose interest in Thunderbird

3) most recently, Thunderbird is not showing some emails that are in the account - and which show up just fine in Outlook!

I've had it with Thunderbird!

Maybe I'll hold my nose and pay for Mail Bird instead. They seem misleading and over-aggressive in their marketing, and I'm not a fan of their "Window 10" style, but it seemed to work well in a recent test - and they offer a deep discount if you buy soon after installing it...

At least they don't pretend to be a "free open source project"...

[ArchangeGabriel]

@BrainAnnex So because you don’t like that a partly oss project might be doing something with your emails, your prefer to rely on completely proprietary system where you have no idea what they are doing? Seems reasonable.

Other than that, people (on Linux) not liking Thunderbird should give Geary a try, they have been a lot of improvements in the recent 0.13 release.

[alichakery]

Thank you for the suggestion. Personally I love how Geary looks however, still it lacks many features comparing to Thunderbird. The most simple feature which I need is images in the signature which is needed for companies and business.

Still, Geary is perfect for basic email users.

On 12.03.2019, at 10:25, Bruno Pagani [e-mail] wrote:

able.

Other than that, people (on Linux) not liking

[jlbribeiro]

@BrainAnnex I subscribed this thread (and #24 as well) because I'm hoping either someone will fork this project and maintain an open-source sync engine or for Mailspring to change its direction. So I understand why you'd be upset but... I don't think the "tone" helps.

On Mail Bird: personally it doesn't fly (_pun intended_) because it's proprietary; I'd say most of us in this thread wanted Mailspring to be the best free and open-source mail client, no closed-source components (like the sync engine) or strings attached (like the Mailspring ID or any kind of "central control").

Geary is great and that's my "pretty and simple" alternative to Thunderbird. My only concern was that for some time it seemed abandoned (the changelog/releases stopped for ~half an year I think) and I was experiencing some frequent crashes while syncing big mailboxes at the time, but these days not only those syncing issues are gone, development seems to be back on track as well. It does lack some features (namely PGP/GPG integration), but for most users I'd say it does the job. You can track the development at their GitLab repo (IMHO it also didn't help they were keeping code in their own source code tracker; I think GNOME benefited from their migration to GitLab, because it helps with visibility).

[groovenectar]

Revisiting email clients, I can't believe I still had Mailspring installed for some reason after being unable to get past this bug from the first run.

Fixed this today with sudo snap remove mailspring

[Bugsbane]

If the ID is really about providing pro features then only force it on users of the pro plan.

Simple.

[HansCronau]

Fixed this today with sudo snap remove mailspring

Thx. That solved it. ;)

Honestly too bad though. I applaud any attempt to make an open source project financially sustainable, but in this day and age I pay _not_ to have my data on your server.
Would have loved to have a look past that sign up screen.

[headersalreadysent]

sudo apt-get purge mailspring
purge is better.

[filicivi]

Same here.
Discovered mailspring and decided to give it a chance. Googling about of getting rid of registration/ID, I decided to solve in radically manner:
Removed: mailspring-1.6.1-0.1.x86_64

[juancroldan]

If you came from WIndows like me, and you are looking for something similar to Outlook (column layout, allows Exchange protocol, calendar, native intregration...) you can install Thunderbird, and add the following addons:

• Exchange Calendar: To sync calendars, tasks and contacts using Exchange
• ExQuilla for Microsoft Exchange: Also required to read some Exchange servers
• Lightning: Calendar interface with a nice integration in the Thunderbird interface
• Messaging Menu and Unity Launcher integration: For Ubuntu integration

And you won't need any registration/ID.

[howdev]

Mailspring fork of Open Source Nylas and using proprietary mailsync core. Mailspring Pro is a paid version. All that being said, They making profit just by adding a few features on a large portion of the software they did not design or write. Meanwhile ID is required to use it. If you want to charge people for the software, write your own software instead of taking from the Open Source. If they want to continue to promote Nylas by forking the source then don't charge at all, that is good ethics.

[ArchangeGabriel]

@howdev Please avoid such attack, especially when this is false: @bengotow was one of the main Nylas dev.

[howdev]

@ArchangeGabriel Please check Open Source license. Mailspring is not Open Source when the the core is proprietary and not separable. The Open Source license states source should be made available to modified and redistribute. If whatever proprietary code is separable as an addon and Mailspring can function without it then Mailspring is Open Source.

[ArchangeGabriel]

The core is separable since you are free to implement your own version that match the API. This is not good, almost everyone here (me included) want an open-source core, but it’s not by attacking the developer that things may change.

[aaroncommand]

@bengotow Many people have commented about the technical and privacy issues around requiring a Mailspring account, but it's also a bad decision from a business, marketing and revenue perspective.

A large number of people obviously don't even try the program because of this -- the evidence is here on Github. I know it has been a showstopper for me twice, I keep hearing about Mailspring, twice now I've downloaded it, got up to the screen that wants me to create an ID but doesn't really explain why, and then I've quit and uninstalled.

From a business perspective, you give this client away for free because you want people to upsell to a paid plan later. But requiring the account results in fewer people completing the install, which means fewer people who you can sell the paid plan to.

I have absolutely no problem with creating an account to acquire paid services, but I'm not going to create an account just to try out a piece of desktop software. This is not something people who use desktop software are accustomed to doing. There's nothing on your website which makes a compelling case that it's necessary. I read the article about it - https://foundry376.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003141552-What-is-a-Mailspring-ID-and-why-do-I-need-one- Snooze? Send later? If they really need an account, rip them out of the free client. Make them paid features. The correct time for desktop software to require account creation is when someone's ready to bust out their credit card. Otherwise you are just creating more friction and reducing the number of people who use your software.

+1 to this issue from someone who loves to pay for good software, but absolutely won't create an account that stores email metadata in the cloud so that I can download and try an email client.

[groovenectar]

Snooze? Send later? If they really need an account, rip them out of the free client. Make them paid features.

@aaroncommand Sure, add features for paid... But my issue with this is, why target people who pay you money and decrease the security and user experience only for those people? I guess it's a whole other issue as far as putting a price tag on human rights, and using free services as a ticket to harvest souls.

I really doubt that Mailspring has nefarious intentions of course, and perhaps they don't even take the email addresses and automatically add them to a marketing mailing list. Adding the login feature to desktop software, and keeping data introduces a vulnerability, no matter what intention of the login is. For example, some people use the same password (they shouldn't but on the same token it's certainly convenient), and it's yet another place where that password could be compromised by a bad actor. An email client doesn't need these things to operate. It needs to communicate with mailservers to serve its function.

The justification is related to cross-device synchronization. The login is one way to accomplish that. And it's probably the first thing that comes to mind to get it done quickly. There doesn't seem to be a mobile app, so it would only apply to cases where people use more than one desktop computer. Which on first run to check it out, is no one...

I guess the main issue is that it has been implemented as a barrier to using the app at all. Seems to be along the lines of a critical UX issue. If I'm browsing email clients to try them out, I don't want to be filling a bunch of forms and potentially compromising my email address. Even though I use https://zinc.email/ religiously to remedy that, I'm looking at desktop email clients, not webmail where I would expect this kind of barrier as necessary.

[groovenectar]

All-in-all I'm sure we're excessively harsh in this thread with myself included.

Stripping out the noise / abrasiveness we can probably derive some more constructive criticism, and basically a feature request that would help improve the software and create more conversions for Mailspring.

Clearly @bengotow has put a lot of work into it, and the effort deserves compensation with a business model strategy. Unfortunately even implementing what a lot of people are clearly requiring in order to try it represents even more effort to change what's in place. And ultimately it would be up to Mailspring to determine whether that effort is worth it. Hopefully, they are doing very well even without those who aren't going to login before trying it.

[charsi]

If the point of mandating the ID is reducing friction for the user when up-selling I don't think it should come at the cost of reducing the overall user base. Surely having a much larger user base is good for business specially the kind who don't want to use any of your server resources!

Hope the devs find some middle ground that at least allows people to use the product before trusting your servers.

[MystesofEternity]

Surprised that nobody mentioned Evolution as an alternative to this and Thunderbird.
That said, the guys in here have a very good point. Forcing a user to register before even getting to try an email client is definitely counter to the fact that the user needs to try something first before paying for it.

Please don't be like those companies who offer free trials/experiences in exchange for user data so things would be 'profitable'. Money is the root of all evil and the bloody root of all problems that the IT industry have these days, the internet world was a much harmonious place before it became "profit focused".

So I firmly suggest for the mailspring team to, why not give it a try? Listen to all the people in here and see if it works out well? You can revert it all back to requiring mailspring ID or go become completely paid software if you fully confirm that it didn't work out well.

[alichakery]

Each time I see comments here I go and donate to thunderbird.

Thunderbird still has a 2000s look but its one of the most reliable and flexible in terms of features. With some plugins you can make its look and feel more modern ...

I would never sell my own data and company’s data to a service like this.

On May 10, 2019, at 5:22 AM, Mystes Yuji [e-mail] wrote:

Surprised that nobody mentioned Evolution as an alternative to this and Thunderbird.
That said, the guys in here have a very good point. Forcing a user to register before even getting to try an email client is definitely counter to the fact that the user needs to try something first before paying for it.

Please don't be like those companies who offer free trials/experiences in exchange for user data so things would be 'profitable'. Money is the root of all evil and the bloody root of all problems that the IT industry have these days, the internet world was a much harmonious place before it became "profit focused".

So I firmly suggest for the mailspring team to, why not give it a try? Listen to all the people in here and see if it works out well? You can revert it all back to requiring mailspring ID or go become completely paid software if you fully confirm that it didn't work out well.

—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[s-kris]

Forcing to create an ID even before trying the app? Great UX!

[CarlosRebolledo]

@s-kris qué correo recomiendas? Las características de Mailspring son buenas. Lo he usado pero me preocupan los comentarios sobre uso de datos y política de privacidad. Desde ya gracias.

[Bugsbane]

Uninstalled this and switched to Kube. It's still early days, but it's modern looking, easy to use and I'm really enjoying it! Thanks MailSpring team for requiring an ID! Without that, I never would have looked around and discovered Kube! <3

[alexanderadam]

@Bugsbane is it this one?

[s-kris]

@s-kris qué correo recomiendas? Las características de Mailspring son buenas. Lo he usado pero me preocupan los comentarios sobre uso de datos y política de privacidad. Desde ya gracias.

Yo uso el cliente de correo thunderbird con el tema monterail. ¡Es genial!
ref: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/08/monterail-thunderbird-theme-add-ons
screenshot: https://aozoeky4dglp5sh0-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thunderbird-theme-gtk-darkest.jpg

p.s: utilicé el traductor de google, perdoné la gramática

[CarlosRebolledo]

@s-kris qué correo recomiendas? Las características de Mailspring son buenas. Lo he usado pero me preocupan los comentarios sobre uso de datos y política de privacidad. Desde ya gracias.

Yo uso el cliente de correo thunderbird con el tema monterail. ¡Es genial!
ref: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/08/monterail-thunderbird-theme-add-ons
screenshot: https://aozoeky4dglp5sh0-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thunderbird-theme-gtk-darkest.jpg

p.s: utilicé el traductor de google, perdoné la gramática

Ok, muchas gracias

Saludos desde Chile

[Bugsbane]

@alexanderadam - Yep! :smile: So far, the main issue is the missing search function, however... it's also "missing" the need to create and use a privacy defeating ID... :wink:

[senaduka]

Installed to it try out. I have seen that requires ID and now I am uninstalling it. I'd rather use a proprietary client that does not require some "cloud service" than an open source one that does.

Big +1 to the feature request.

[C-REMO]

Uninstalling it for this reason as well. Please remove this.

[mainframed]

I came here looking for a workaround to avoid an account as well. Looks like i'm uninstalling this "FOSS" app now too. Shame.

[rbrucemtl]

Uninstall... why does everything today require a cloud account login. Blah

[Bugsbane]

why does everything today require a cloud account login

So they can track you, sell your personal life to a bigger business entity later down the road and generally be enticing to advertisers. It's hard to figure out how to manipulate someone when you don't know who they are. Much easier to make a buck if you make yourself attractive to those who would profit from the manipulation of your used's, er, I mean users.

[sharmi]

Uninstalling because of id

[rorhug]

It's terrible that this issue was marked wontfix. There's definitely a way out of this that will satisfy the people commenting while also encouraging people to pay you for the useful cloud based features.

To ensure forks don't start from this otherwise amazing project, I believe you could entice people to pay for the premium features and subsequently create an ID.

After presenting the user with the create ID form, a small skip button for those privacy-focused users on this 100+ issue comment thread would be preferable. I personally would bet that mailspring's rep would increase and possibly even more paying customers via a privacy focused outlook.

For the moment, I've signed up with a "fake" email, use a VPN and block requests to your servers using little snitch 🤪!

[EternityForest]

I hope this can eventually work without ID. I feel like there's some environments I would have a hard time convincing everyone to use this because of it, and we'd be forced to choose something far less modern.

[MystesofEternity]

For the moment, I've signed up with a "fake" email, use a VPN and block requests to your servers using little snitch 🤪!

Whoa pretty good! I should try this
Thanks for the share!

[tonybounty]

What a pity! That's why I do no use Mailspring and my family too. Nerver mind.

[Baemir]

Is your app practically dead yet? How long until it finally fades into obscurity? @bengotow

[sharmi]

@Baemir Hi, I am someone who have taken issue with Mailspring's phoning home too. I understand how frustrating it must be to find a good mail client but not able to use it because of privacy concerns. Mail clients are critical software wrt privacy and the concerns are genuine. So I have chosen to stop using Mailspring.

Having said that, we should also respect the contributors' intentions and incredible amount of work that they have open sourced for the community. If needed, we can always fork it and make the changes we need. If we feel something is wrong, let us vote on it with positive action. Coding is an incredibly lonely activity and the negativity may harm the developers' psyche.

In the grand scheme of things, even if this app is not proceeding in the direction we deem correct, it is a vote towards a better mail client and we are all the better for it.

[notpushkin]

I've been using Mailspring for some time with a stubbed out API server on localhost. Ultimately, I've switched back to Thunderbird, but it's a possibility to explore (hint: look at what setting *.env to "development" in config.json does :).

This, and lack of PGP support are the two things that ruin Mailspring for me. And we can't actually fork it because of the proprietary Mailsync (somebody, please look into reimplementing it!).

[notpushkin]

ALSO

In my opinion it would be perfectly fine to use Mailspring ID for the Pro features only (especially the ones that actually require some cloud counterpart, e. g. link tracking or read receipts). But it sends much, much more info than that.

[Larx]

IMHO, and without disrespecting the hard work surely going into this piece software:

I won't try out anything that wants me to create an ID which does not give me any advantages for my personal usage. I value privacy and I get suspicious as soon as I am confronted with such a demand.

I will never pay 8$ a month as a private person for a IMAP client, even if it is a well designed one. Imagine, that's almost 100$ yearly for a functionality you can get everywhere for free (even if Mailspring implements it better or more sophisticated).

I am ready pay for well designed software, but I dislike subscription models. Let me say, pay 10$ one-time for well-done app. That's already much by the standards your used to in the Android ecosystem.

So, I was looking for something to replace my desktop client software (which is free, btw). Mailspring looked very interesting and more up-to-date, but for my private user use case, Mailspring completely disqualified itself.

This is, of course, nothing which has to be taken into account by the developpers, who are free to do what they want. However, I fail to see the business case for the obligatory registration as IMHO for private users it is completely nonsense: You won't lure a private users into the expensive subscription by the obligatory registration.

[prozumr]

100% agree to Larx' notes. Mailspring disqualifies itself by a) violating data privacy b) the subscription model. Personally I would not mind to pay for good and frequently used software even more if I could own a lifetime license.

[MystesofEternity]

A big point there given by Larx!

I have taken a look into the features offered by Mailspring pro but it's strictly for business-use only. If you sincerely want people to recommend your client to their bosses for business use and stuff like that then I think your best move is to start listening to all the people in here and you're definitely going to earn more people giving you valuable feedback for improvement.

[headersalreadysent]

I subscribed this issue for learning about id situation.

But after long time and lots of comments, i believe that mailspring team reads our email and sells them. I will unsubscribe from issue. I think their goal is not making a good email client.

[Red-Eyed]

@headersalreadysent fully agree with you.

[Larx]

Well, I guess it is not worth further following this bug report as probably nothing will change.

Given the fact that email is loosing its importance because of other messenger clients, I've found my peace of mind with a custom roundcube instance for mail, integrated into a multi messenger frontend, for my desktop. This represents the fact that for me mail is only one (and no longer the most important) means of electronic communication. (I hadn't realized that before, I have to admit, as I somehow grew up with email.)

[notpushkin]

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

[s-kris]

@notpushkin Thank you!

[XGhozt]

One way to solve this might be to sell something we could host ourselves. I'd be willing yo buy a server license that has a limit to the number of users (or price per user). This way we can keep all these features and not stress about privacy concerns and you can still get funding from license / use.

[raphaeljolivet]

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

Wow Nice !
I'll watch this.

I can't wait to test it.
I did not use Mailspring so far due to the required account.

[notpushkin]

@raphaeljolivet Nightly builds are on the way but for now you can npm run build!

[beppe9000]

I still use last version of Opera Mail and I'm in the process of migrating to something more modern.

I can use Opera Mail long after Opera went out of business because it did not have a dependency on external back-end to run. And it wasn't even open source... until the sauce leaks.

I look forward to when Mailspring will be resilient enough to be able to "just work" (from scratch) when the back-end dies, in order to fully migrate to it. It was awesome until it asked for signup.

IMHO is fine to want control over the product by doing a closed-core model, but doing that in conjunction with mandatory back-end reminds me of planned obsolescence... 😒

[pgramme]

This is a no-go for me too... I installed it, opened it and uninstalled it without using it when I realized about the mandatory account. Although this is not directly related, an additional bad smell for me is the fact that Mailspring's website does not honor Do not track requests.

A pity: the app design seems great !

[Bugsbane]

@notpushkin Thrilled to see someone take up the cause. Way to go! I'd suggest not including "Mailspring" in the project name in case they decide to be as big d bags legally as they've been on the privacy front. This stuff takes a lot more effort and angst to change later when the project is more established and lawyers are invloved. Might I suggest "Mailibre" as a name?

[beppe9000]

@Bugsbane I think here is a better place for discussing that.

[bossmon]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.

[alexanderadam]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.

And you missed the free fork that doesn't need an ID and was mentioned in the comment over yours?

[renguer0]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.
Me too. I'm in Windows.

[Bugsbane]

Just making sure that you saw the post just above about the fork of Mailspring that removes the need for an ID, and aims to be more privacy friendly. You can checkout Mailspring-Libre here.

[aquelehugo]

I was searching for a cleaner alternative to Thunderbird and Mailspring seemed awesome. But also, one of the reasons of using a mail client in the first place is to get away from GMail ads and unify my inbox with Protonmail for more personal mails.

I am more concerned about privacy now and knowing that Mailspring team doesn't care about it at all is disappointing :/

I will try the free version tough. Thank you @notpushkin

[cloventt]

I too obliterated this app as soon as I realised it had a mandatory login. Much happier with the libre version mentioned further up in this thread.

[OddDev]

On a side note, Geary is worth a look if you seek a sleek minimal mail app.

[valentt]

Check my bug: https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring/issues/2231

This is a dead project and dead product unfortunately, and we need to find an alternative. Any suggestions?

[alexanderadam]

This is a dead project and dead product unfortunately, and we need to find an alternative. Any suggestions?

I have absolutely no idea why people are ignoring all comments pointing to @notpushkin's fork Mailspring-Libre.

It's mentioned every few comments and should be difficult to miss.

[lamixer]

true @alexanderadam but not an alternative for those who use Mailspring's services (which isn't me, but is valentt), as the app is hooked into service offerings from them.

[alichakery]

I would recommend using Thunderbird and a theme called Montrail:
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/monterail-dark-2-0-for-tb-68/

Thunderbird is a robust mail client with an outdated interface. This theme will make it look way better and way more usable.

Consider donating to thunderbird .. this would help them to keep up with this project.

[alexanderadam]

not an alternative for those who use Mailspring's services (which isn't me, but is valentt), as the app is hooked into service offerings from them.

This doesn't make any sense at all.

This issue here is literally called "Allow opt-out from Mailspring ID". Thus this particular issue would be absolutely irrelevant for people who definitely want to continue using Mailspring services.

[lamixer]

@alexanderadam Indeed. @valentt posted a link to his issue 2231 in numerous other 'issues' such as this one and I have been commenting on both so the comment I made is not relevant to this issue. Perhaps he should not have posted in this thread as it is full of people like me, Mailspring client fans but avoiders of Mailspring (ID) services.