Show HN: A new way to manage your inbox | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A new way to manage your inbox

lightermail.com

10 pointsMaascamp22 comments

This seems like a great tool I have been waiting for a while. As I understand, it is rather an IMAP client, but will you store my emails on your servers as well? Or do you only connect to the GMail email storage?

Also, do you keep GMail's messages intact? Or are you authorized to update filters, apply labels and make a mess of my greatly organized emails?

Another question comes to mind: how about mobile? I read more than half of my emails on my phone or tablet. Is lightermail able to handle this as well? I haven't seen an app in the Google Playstore and there is no mention on your site. How do you think you will handle mobile access? (I see the sms text on a phone with a link to a lighermail.com page)

Great questions! I'll address them one at a time. We DO NOT store any of your emails on our servers. We scan only the from header when an email arrives and keep a reference to the message's unique ID if it should be acted upon. We also don't mess with your filters/labels. We strip the inbox label for deferred messages so they don't show up until you're ready for them, but all other labels are left intact. As for mobile, we built the site to be completely usable on smartphones. Mobile apps are in the cards, but we're still very young and have tried to make the mobile web experience first rate.

Thanks for asking. Feel free to contact me any time (gordon AT lightermail DOT com) with questions or suggestions!

Oh, and while we connect via IMAP, we aren't a client in the sense of outlook/gmail web. You keep using your current client of choice for reading/handling email and Lightermail works in the background to help you stay organized.

Hey guys, been on HN for a while, but Lightermail is my (our) first attempt at a startup. Looking forward to any and all feeback from my fellow HNers and answering whatever questions you may have!

For those interested in the tech stack, the application's built with Backbone.js, Python, Redis, and Postgres. We use both tornado and gevent on the backend (with tornado being my personal favourite) and we're using Jekyll for the blog. If you want to get a little deeper just ask!

I have a little trouble understanding whether you are actually a web-based pop/imap client or whether I would get a @lightermail.com address. (I assume the former, as it says " Gmail Support with more to come..." but I think you should explain that better)

Looks like we need to work on the messaging. We're not an email client. We're a tool you use with your email client to help control the flow of email.

Ok but how so? I see screenshots which seem to come from a web page.

I think you need to explain that before I would be willing (would I be using gmail) to register with your service.

Yeah, as I mentioned above we're a web based service. Set your preferences through the site then just use your regular client as per usual and reap the benefits.

Still don't quite get it. You will manipulate my inbox and I can control the way you do it through the web interface?

Pretty much, yes.

I feel it's dirty.

Definitely. I wasn't at all interested until I came to the comments to figure out what it was. I'm still not entirely sure what it does or how it works (both important) but I'm no longer dismissing out of hand.

I struggled too... I had concluded that this was a Chrome add-in to theme Gmail and add some extra analysis based on some off-Gmail server crunching some of the data from the email.

But then I saw the post (below/above) which details the stack that they're using, and I think my assumption is probably wrong.

I do think that you keep your own email address though.

Yeah, we're a web based service. We do have some browser extensions in the pipeline though to reduce the need to visit the website.

I like the idea. I like the features. It looks nice. But I won't give you my Gmail credentials.

Thanks!

We don't ask for your Gmail credentials though. We connect via OAuth. You can revoke our access at any time from your Google account without waiting for us.

Are you Open Source? How can I be sure? However, I'm sure some people are so much busy and worried by their mails that your tool will be helpful.

Looks like it might be a great tool.

However, it seems like it might be a bit complex. This seeming complexity is accentuated because of the "lighter" expectation created by the name.

Why is it called "lightermail"?

That's an interesting point. Reducing complexity is a top priority right now. I just wanted to ship and start getting some good ol' HN feedback!

Oh sorry, didn't see the last part of your comment! It's called Lightermail because once you start using it your inbox and email flow get a whole lot lighter :)

How will your email flow get lighter? :-)

Hehe, this is why I need to work on our message.

Lightermail allows you control when and from whom you receive email (from the global level to individual TLDs to specific senders). The who and when are highly configurable. You can also combine your unimportant email into summaries to reduce the actual quantity of email that lands in your inbox.

There's more of course, but that's the gist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com