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Why "missing" though? On Windows 10, Mail is quite nice. On OSX there's Airmail. On Linux there's bupkis, but that's really not what Linux is for.
This desktop client appears to load the inbox interface and gmail interface in a iframe and has extra related functionality on the side . So it isn't just an email client. Looking at it I don't see how it is much Of a desktop client unless they added offline functionality .
It's not actually a desktop client. It's just a webapp in a thin chromium wrapper.
What about Thunderbird?
Unfortunately not maintained any more.
Wait, when did this happen?
From what I am reading it is being maintained. Is this the case or am I incorrect?
You are right! TIL Thunderbird is still being maintained!
Yep, but on another note if you don't need all of the features of thunder bird and you are looking for something self hosted check out http://www.rainloop.net/
Ahh yes, Bupkis: my grandmother's preferred Linux desktop mail client.
For me, the main dealbreaker of Windows 10 Mail is lack support for email aliases. One can forward multiple accounts to a single gmail account and select the "From" address when composing messages.
Looks great. But it makes me really wonder why somebody is doing Google's job.
It reminds me of Radiant[0], which does the same thing for Google Music.

Google has bet big on web apps. They are pushing hard to make the web app the way of the future. I don't have a problem with that, and to an extent I'm getting used to it (while simultaneously moving my clients in that direction like I've been doing for ten years), but in an age when it's still very transitional, it is nice to have these wrappers to make everything a little smoother.

If they published desktop apps, folks would never migrate. They would complain about the poor experience on the Chromebook, etc.

[0] https://github.com/radiant-player/radiant-player-mac

I'd hazard that google doesn't see a need. I like this but I can understand that they may feel that you don't get extra features and isn't worth the work to create and support the app/program. The likelyhood is that if they did make a desktop client that it would be something similar, i.e. it just loads the webpage in a nice looking window. Which chrome does a pretty good job of already.
Why would Google make a webapp in a chromium wrapper, if they can just stick to their web interface in chrome?
> Looks great. But it makes me really wonder why somebody is doing Google's job.

The same could then be said of any mobile app used to browse HN or Reddit I guess.

  google-chrome --app="https://inbox.google.com"
I think google already did their job.
I've been using Kiwi for a while now. I enjoy my email separate from my browsing. And it keeps work and personal email accounts close. I can't forget to open one and not the other.. etc.

Kiwi looks to be about the same as Wmail but without the Google Inbox. (and it is a pay product)

http://kiwiforgmail.com/

So it's just the website in a chromium wrapper? So I'd be downloading ~50mb for something that I already have in Chrome? I'm trying to find a feature it has that I can't get through Chrome...
> I'm trying to find a feature it has that I can't get through Chrome...

An individually dockable app with a badge icon showing unread messages?

And if you use something like Fluid.app you can create an app per email account and even have a separate app for your Calendar like me! Unfortunately Fluid.app is poorly maintained and based on Safari...
Check out https://github.com/jiahaog/nativefier, it's like fluid in that it builds a standalone app for any website, incl. support for badges and segregated cookies.
Ooh, thank you! This looks promising, I'll check it out!
I've used nativefier to create apps for Gmail (two separate accounts), facebook, trello, and soundcloud. Even though it feels ridiculous to create a huge app to just wrap a website, it works quite well.

For some odd reason I couldn't get the badges to work well for gmail though.

The badges work, just not very well; I noticed that it takes a long time for them to get displayed/refreshed. Like you, I created one for Google (mostly to keep tracking cookies segregated), Facebook and GMail, but I've switched to WMail because the new mail badge works flawlessly there (and I need a reliable new email indicator).
Perhaps a little more privacy? You can browse the web without being logged into Google.

I know you can have separate Chrome users, but this may separate concerns slightly more. Not sure.

So it's not an email client, it's some app exclusively for Gmail and Google Inbox (using OAUTH for authorization ), not that it lessen the value of the app in anyways but it's important to note.
That's more of a good thing than a bad thing for Gmail users: Gmail's search based inbox does not logically map to IMAP and Google don't have a full public API for Gmail.
> Wmail os open source.

There is a typo here.

I've used Mailplane for years - http://mailplaneapp.com

Yes, it is "just" a wrapper, but it's nice having Mail and Calendar in a separate dedicated app. I can restart my browser without impacting my mail, and the integration with the desktop (e.g. mailto: links just work, I can use quicklook on attachments, better drag and drop support, etc.) make it worthwhile.

(comment deleted)
haha I'm a huge fan of the vulcan salute icon!
Does anyone know if this is what Chromixium uses?
I use a mutt setup like this http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/the-homely-mutt/

Besides the efficiency of the CLI, I like having a local copy of my mail.

I use mbsync and alpine but obviously since alpine is just an interface to the local maildir I can hop between different mail clients without anything breaking.
Speaking of it, can Google deny access to one's email from a non-google client?
Many people use third-party email clients via POP, IMAP, or an application-specific password. Just think about all the people using Thunderbird, mobile email clients, etc. The day they stop permitting that is the day they no longer offer an email service.
Any ETA on the Windows version?
Looks like the Google API client ID and client secret are stored in clear text shipped with the released app:

  WMail.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/shared/credentials.js
, and this seems to be used in authentication with Google: https://github.com/Thomas101/wmail/blob/master/src/main/Auth...
I think "secret" is a misnomer here.

The process results in a client ID and, in some cases, a client secret, which you embed in the source code of your application. (In this context, the client secret is obviously not treated as a secret.)

https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2 (under "Installed Applications")

Interesting. Thanks for the link! I wonder why they still require a client_secret in installed application?
There's not really anything you can do about this unless you want Wmail to have to stand up a server to authenticate with, at which point you're no really getting any additional security because Wmail still needs to store some sort of credential on your machine for persistent login that an attacker could steal to authenticate with Wmail on their own machine.

An attacker would have to steal your access token stored locally on your machine to use with this public client id and client secret, and if you have software that's maliciously scraping credentials from your machine you already have a problem.

There's still a reason why e.g. the OSX Keychain, SSH private keys, etc. are stored encrypted-at-rest. I like the fact that I can create a cleartext backup of my hard disk and throw it in the trash, and the person who finds it won't be able to get my passwords off of it.
Electron apps are very big in size. It's like having multiple instances of Chrome running. Remind me of Java apps all over again.
This is even worse. While with Java you have to install one JRE instance, Electron duplicates whole browser for each app.
Are there any CLI gmail clients which can handle 2FA? I'd like to have a way to read my work email in emacs, but I'm pretty sure work would be unhappy about me putting an app-specific credential on my hard-drive without 2FA.