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Comment by dugmartin | Hacker News Reader

Interesting to see the Gmail API being used for a general purpose email client when Google has a very visible note on the overview page that says:

> Note: The Gmail API should not be used to replace IMAP for full-fledged email client access. Instead, see IMAP and SMTP.

I'd be a little worried they will disable API access for the client due to this.

https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides

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They did perform the audit in collaboration with the author[0], so chances are it's fine, but you never know when a new manager might come in and flip the script for what's acceptable use of the api.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426342

This is something I asked about a few years ago when it was first introduced, and the vague answer I got is that the warning exists because the Gmail API is not as optimized as IMAP for some common email client tasks. (Indeed, for better performance, I would like to switch a few tasks to use IMAP instead of the Gmail API someday).

Google did vet Mimestream as a general-purpose email client before approving API access, and on the paperwork for that process "general purpose email client" was the app category that I selected, so I'm hoping all will be OK, or else I will be really scrambling to implement new protocols :P

There are more than enough email clients that only support Gmail. It's OK.

Sure but Google could do a Google and pull support, say 'I told you so' and you'd have wasted years of effort.

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