Mailbox, from Dropbox (plus 1 GB of space to your Dropbox) | Hacker News Reader

Mailbox, from Dropbox (plus 1 GB of space to your Dropbox)

mailboxapp.com

41 pointsmoonlighter51 comments

Great, so now we don't even make email clients anymore; now we make Gmail clients. The open Internet sure is alive and well in the age of Google.

Just use Outlook. They have apps for iOS and Android now.

And IMAP! I'm actually really impressed with Outlook. I signed up the other day.

And ActiveSync!

It also supports iCloud

My exact gripe with nearly all of the new wave in email clients. I'm aware most people are OK with Gmail, but I'm not--surely IMAP is worth supporting too!

A lot of people use Gmail. A lot of people use iOS. The Gmail iOS client is pile of shit. That's an opportunity if I ever saw one.

Mobile email is hard. Those old standard email protocols don't cut it. Now, if you're willing to hand over your IMAP or POP3 username and password to Microsoft or RIM, they'll be happy to run your private email through their servers to your phone.

Edit: What's with the down votes?

Is it because I said the Gmail iOS client is a piece of shit? Well, it really is unreliable and unusable garbage. If it wasn't then that's what we all would be using.

Is it because I said mobile email is hard? Well, it is. That's why everyone here is looking for a better mobile email client.

Is it because I said IMAP and POP3 don't cut it? There's never been a remotely decent mobile IMAP or POP3 client. If there was, that's what we'd all be using.

It's 2015. Email has been around for 30+ years and everyone uses it, yet it remains an unsolved problem for many people.

> Those old standard email protocols don't cut it.

IMAP IDLE works fine for me. Mail notification within milliseconds of arrival.

What do you feel is broken?

The folder analogy is completely broken; tags have shown to be much more useful.

Disclaimer: I'm a maintainer of Sup, which is born on the same idea that tags + good search is much better than folders.

Cloud Magic handles pretty much everything (except POP3) and has much of the same UI of Mailbox.

You're certainly free to make an email app too, and you can make it support anything you'd like. Google isn't stopping you.

I just don't want to take read/dealt-with emails out of my inbox. Which Mailbox can be configured to work with - only it shows 4,400 "unread" messages as a badge icon. The options available in-app are "always show 1," "show number of messages in inbox," and "never show any"

I want to see the number of unread messages in the inbox only. Not the total number. Not an arbitrary number. Not zero. Is that too much to ask? Outlook lets me do it, Mail.app lets me do it. It makes sense. So why not? Why force your beliefs and practices and methodologies on me? I have my reasons for keeping all my read mail in my inbox, and I'm not going to change that for a silly app.

I get the impression that the primary purpose of of Mailbox was always to provide a task-based interface to Gmail -- if you just want a traditional mail client, why wouldn't you just use the official GMail client?

It's not like they're gone. They just in your archive, two taps away. It's a much more organized way to deal with email, at least for me.

But they're also moved upstream at the IMAP provider, no? Anway, the problem is that it doesn't work unless you exclusively use their client/their method..

Mailbox were always pretty clear that they have an "ideology" if you will. You don't have to subscribe to it, but the app is geared towards that, so if you don't want it, don't use that app. For my part, I find it extremely useful to stick to a zero inbox, which is my chief motivator for using Mailbox.

> Why force your beliefs and practices and methodologies on me?

Seriously, you don't have to use Mailbox, no guns were put to heads.

I can't help but think they have given up on the Mac client. It's been at version 0.3.14 for an unbelievably long amount of time--so long that I've just gone back to Mac Mail.

Airmail 2 is pretty good. Kind of has some interesting bugs with the rules creator but it looks nice and functions well.

I've been using Airmail for about 3 months.

It's nice but has many frustrations in the UI - especially when dealing with large message threads.

I have been using Airmail for about an year. It like it, and live with its issues such as slow startup (because I have many mailboxes), and irresponsive when network changes or when machine wakes from standby; I have to always force quit it.

That's basically the same list of issues that Sparrow had.

I've found Airmail 2 has improved massively, and I use it as my primary email client on my mac, but to be honest it's still behind where Sparrow was IMO.

There are a number of interface gripes I have, and it sometimes consumes about 1.5GB of RAM, but overall it's the best OSX email client I've used (that's being actively maintained).

For the most part I haven't had many issues, I hope they haven't given up.

On the topic of OSX clients, especially for Gmail, I've been really liking Mailplane after trying most of the options. All the benefits of the gmail.com interface (which I like) while I still get a native app with a badge icon.

I haven't had a single issue with the Mac client... Their primary concern isn't this application, but I agree it could probably use an update for stability

Really, really wish they would add IMAP support for the rest of us that would prefer not to use Google for email. FastMail + Mailbox would be killer.

( I use Mailbox with my work email and love it )

Pretty cool. I wish it supported regular IMAP accounts. We could use a modern general mail client. Gmail is quite well-served already.

Definitely.

Mailbox's only distinguishing feature is task-based email. By making it GMail only, there's not really much to set it apart from the official task-based Gmail client (Inbox). Inbox works really well, so I'm not sure what the purpose of Mailbox is at this point.

General IMAP support would be a huge plus.

AFAIK, Inbox still only supports @gmail.com addresses.

The new Outlook iOS app is pretty slick, and works just fine with regular IMAP accounts.

How do you add a regular IMAP account to it on iPhone? I don't see any options!

Where's IMAP support? FastMail + Mailbox would be killer.

As much as I love Mailbox's flow for handling my email, I can't get over the performance issues and random crashes with the app. After a few weeks of usage the app slows down on launch and becomes a chore to use.

In contrast, Outlook (previously Acompli) is very stable. It may require more taps to do something like move an email to a specific label, but at least the app performs well and hasn't crashed on me once.

I'm confused. Is this the same Mailbox that I've been using on my iPhone for like two years? Why is this news?

I was asking myself the same question and the answer is yes: nothing new to see here...

Sweet thanks! just d/l client on phone and open it and click link to dropbox and you get the extra GB.

anyone know whats new here, if anything?

pretty sure absolutely nothing, it's really weird. millions and millions of people were on their waitlist when they launched, I'm pretty sure everyone knows about it.

old news indeed.

Awesome thanks! I just got notified that nearly 50% of my current capacity is getting revoked because the giveaway from the college Space Race promotion was only for a limited time, so the extra gig is helpful! (And I'll try out Mailbox too, I guess...)

I don't personally see what problem this is solving. As with Carousel, Dropbox hasn't wowed me with their releases lately. What is compelling about this over the thousands of other mail clients / gmail skins out there?

I've been using Mailbox for quite a while, and I find the concepts and design of it to be quite good.

It's just a shame that it's tied to gmail and forces you to use Dropbox. Makes it useless for many of us at work.

Why did Dropbox make an email client?

They didn't. They bought out a company that did, quite a while back actually.

The correct title should be: Plus 1 GB of Dropbox space (and Mailbox)

Email is the most difficult protocol to manage that is still alive these days on the internet, so no one can implement it besides three or two companies. It is difficult to understand why people like having these @gmail or @outlook names.

I don't use gmail, so mbsync + mu4e for me.

I tried Mailbox ... did not really work for me.

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