Yes, the keyboard shortcuts are available, but I am unable to see browser navigation shortcuts like 'command + left arrow' to navigate to the previous page.
Almost every mail client I've used doesn't handle (catch all) aliases/identities properly including responding with the correct address. Also much better search.
I know Fastmail isn't the hugest place in the world and the set of skills involved but it feels a bit insulting to roll this out rather than contribute into Thunderbird in a way to get what Fastmail feels is necessary out there.
Thunderbird has had a good number of QoL improvements, and the calendar plugins etc are quite niec. Just if one day search could... uhh... work, that would be nice
I am already using fmail3 [1] and before that fmail2 which is also a web wrapper but feels more native to mac than Electron apps. And I think it is written in swift. So I don't know why fastmail cannot do something similar after all these years.
I love Fastmail, but this feels like a waste of time. I'd rather just leave Fastmail open in a browser tab, rather than install Flatpak just to load an Electron app with the web client in it.
Understandably, as technologists we are in uproar at yet another Electron app due to the widely-accepted performance concerns many have with them. But if you don't want to run this, you can always just run it in the browser as before. Nobody is forcing you to install it.
I sometimes think we forget that Electron would have allowed them to ship this to customers super quickly, across all desktop platforms, and get a nice-looking application in to the hands of their customers (who probably have been requesting this for years).
Does thunderbird support the file storage, labelling, alias creation, and notes features as well?
I thought thunderbird was just for email using IMAP. Does it support JMAP?
And what about them making this has detracted from your experience as a Fastmail user? I've found the desktop site to be perfectly fine, and they recently addressed my primary complain with the mobile app by allowing emails to be saved offline. I haven't found anything worrying that I feel their dev time needs to urgently address that was ignored due to this. Fastmail just works.
As a paying user of fastmail I would like them to to focus on their mail "feature", which is sucking big time, instead of doing bells and whistles with "desktop apps"
While I really don't care about this new app since I'm very happy with their IMAP/JMAP support, there is a fact that you don't know at all. You have no visibility on the number of users asking for a desktop client. I adore Fastmail (subscriber for 14 years now and counting) and they have a history of shipping only what users want.
So perhaps you are upset, but I bet that this addresses a need from their user base.
I applaud Fastmail for this move. The average internet user is not you or me on HN and they have no idea what Thunderbird is. So why not make it easier for people to switch from the Big Thee email accounts that invade your privacy to Fastmail? Most people do not see apps as things that do multiple things (Facebook app for Facebook, Gmail app for Gmail, etc..) so that is what they understand. So give them a Fastmail app for Fastmail even on the desktop, which provides more usefulness that the web version. I say yay.
Going to post the unpopular opinion here, this is also good for them purely for deployments/sales.dont forget the common denominator of "open fastmail app on your windows computer" for the tech literate.
I'm sure there was some deal that didn't get completed because of this.
I find it rather strange that so many email providers have to develop their own "app".
There are so many good clients out there, and I'd rather have 1. The team focus on their core offering, and 2. the existing email client is for the same reason (limited developer time, and matureness) a much better choice for security
If AI is really making developers so much more productive, companies should invest that productivity into offering better technical solutions. This means native applications for each platform.
I’m not a customer of Fastmail, because the laws in Australia are very anti-privacy and Fastmail is at their mercy. But my mail provider has exactly the same problem: a lame web app.
This is not a “technical person” complaint. These so-called apps look and behave worse on macOS.
On the same boat as everybody else that this is electron based and not a great experience. I think from a business perspective this is just meant to satisfy those customers that are asking for a standalone app.
I would rather have more integrations with third parties rather than this.
My main problem is that I have to put a lot of effort to not use gmail for my business because most of third-parties (like CRMs) work only/better with gmail.
I don’t get the negative sentiment here. I know that as someone who uses a third party email client to use Gmail / Fastmail via manually configured IMAP I’m a very tiny minority. Most people probably use the web interface or the Gmail app on their phone.
Nothing wrong with offering an option for people who prefer a desktop app, you don’t have to feel like you are the target audience for everything.
Chief Product Officer of Fastmail here. I see a lot of comments here from people that don't appear to have actually tried using the app, which is a little disappointing; don't knock it 'til you've tried it! Happy to answer any questions, but to answer the main ones that are popping up:
# Why Electron?
Because it lets us build an app that works well across all major platforms with the resources we have available. Building an email/contacts/calendar app is a huge undertaking. Doing it from scratch on each platform is just not feasible for us.
With Electron, we can maintain a single code base across all platforms so we can move faster, and keep feature parity everywhere. More than that though, we believe it lets us build a really great experience on each of these platforms, while offering a consistent UI for our customers across all their devices. Honestly, we can never out-native Apple because by definition whatever they do is "native", even if it sucks (Liquid Glass on the Mac is … not great UX). If that's your primary consideration, you will always be better with Apple's own Mail app, so it's pointless us trying to build something in that space. (And instead we work to also make Fastmail the best service to use Mail.app with — which we believe it is!)
# Why would you use this instead of the webmail?
If you prefer to keep Fastmail in your browser, great! You can do so. But we hear from many customers that they would rather not have their email mixed in with their tabs. With a separate app you can see it in the dock, Cmd-tab to it, make it your default email app system wide etc. It also lets us integrate with the system, like the Mac menu bar and native context menus.
# Why would you use this instead of an IMAP client?
If you've ever used the Fastmail web interface you probably already know the answer, but for everyone else…
1. It's a lot faster. Compared to Apple's Mail.app for example (which is a good IMAP client!):
- It resyncs way faster when you open the app, and uses a lot less data (JMAP is so much more efficient).
- Moving between messages is quicker. With Mail.app there's often a slight lag between clicking a message and it rendering. In Fastmail, it's usually instant.
2. It's more powerful. We provide the best standards support out there, and are also working to make the standards better. But there's always going to be more that we can do when we control both the server and the client. With the Fastmail UI you can:
- Add private memos to emails
- Mute conversations to ignore replies
- Pin important messages to the top of your inbox
- Schedule messages to send in the future (and not need your laptop to be online then for it to work)
- See related emails when you open your contacts.
- Add events straight into your calendar
- And much more (https://www.fastmail.com/features/).
3. It's got much better search. (Yeah, this is kind-of just "more powerful", but I'm calling it out because search sucks in most email clients0.
# And finally…
This is just a choice. We hope this is something that some of our customers will love, but we're not backing away from our commitment to open standards and encourage everyone to find what works best for them.
Why not make an option to use third party JMAP providers (like selfhosted stalwart)? It would help push the JMAP client ecosystem - which could really use some help…
Long time Fastmail user. Very excited for this; normally I would care if it is an Electron app but because I want the same experience as iOS/web app, it probably makes the most sense to be an Electron app anyway.
I've been waiting for a FM desktop app that provides native notifications. Will this mean that iOS notifications from iPhone mirroring will be suppressed in favour of the native app?
Why bundle as a .zip instead of .dmg?
Will search work the same with offline use?
A few thoughts (no need to respond): I want all my messages available offline (and can confirm this is a setting), I want the same interface as the iOS app and the webmail app especially since they handle aliases and catch-all aliases including replies properly.
Edit: looks like when using iPhone mirroring, it doesn't detect that Fastmail is already installed on the mac, so you get duplicate notifications.
Every Electron thread goes the same way on HN. Engaging is a lost cause. As a Linux user, Electron is the only way many companies even acknowledge our existence. Getting native integrations without the native UI is always going to be better than nothing.
I like the idea of using the new app, but in the browser I can use ublock to remove the weird "Inbox Zero!" celebration. Is there any plan to allow that kind of empty inbox configuration in the app?
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 86.1 ms ] threadI haven’t had a chance to download this yet, but hoping that it has native keybindings. (Cmd+N) on mac for composing a new email or something similar.
I know fastmail’s built in keybindings are robust, but I can’t keep track of them all.
Just a webpage with a bundled web bowser (electron).
This is like the worst of everything. A terrible noncustomizable browser and a poor email client glued together.
Thunderbird has had a good number of QoL improvements, and the calendar plugins etc are quite niec. Just if one day search could... uhh... work, that would be nice
[1] https://fmail3.appmac.fr/
I sometimes think we forget that Electron would have allowed them to ship this to customers super quickly, across all desktop platforms, and get a nice-looking application in to the hands of their customers (who probably have been requesting this for years).
So why didn't it? The company launched two decades ago
There is already a fastmail desktop app. It's called thunderbird. And there are many more, for all possible tastes!
And what about them making this has detracted from your experience as a Fastmail user? I've found the desktop site to be perfectly fine, and they recently addressed my primary complain with the mobile app by allowing emails to be saved offline. I haven't found anything worrying that I feel their dev time needs to urgently address that was ignored due to this. Fastmail just works.
I'm sure there was some deal that didn't get completed because of this.
There are so many good clients out there, and I'd rather have 1. The team focus on their core offering, and 2. the existing email client is for the same reason (limited developer time, and matureness) a much better choice for security
I’m not a customer of Fastmail, because the laws in Australia are very anti-privacy and Fastmail is at their mercy. But my mail provider has exactly the same problem: a lame web app.
This is not a “technical person” complaint. These so-called apps look and behave worse on macOS.
My main problem is that I have to put a lot of effort to not use gmail for my business because most of third-parties (like CRMs) work only/better with gmail.
Fastmail team, how about a Gmail compatible API ?
Nothing wrong with offering an option for people who prefer a desktop app, you don’t have to feel like you are the target audience for everything.
# Why Electron?
Because it lets us build an app that works well across all major platforms with the resources we have available. Building an email/contacts/calendar app is a huge undertaking. Doing it from scratch on each platform is just not feasible for us.
With Electron, we can maintain a single code base across all platforms so we can move faster, and keep feature parity everywhere. More than that though, we believe it lets us build a really great experience on each of these platforms, while offering a consistent UI for our customers across all their devices. Honestly, we can never out-native Apple because by definition whatever they do is "native", even if it sucks (Liquid Glass on the Mac is … not great UX). If that's your primary consideration, you will always be better with Apple's own Mail app, so it's pointless us trying to build something in that space. (And instead we work to also make Fastmail the best service to use Mail.app with — which we believe it is!)
# Why would you use this instead of the webmail?
If you prefer to keep Fastmail in your browser, great! You can do so. But we hear from many customers that they would rather not have their email mixed in with their tabs. With a separate app you can see it in the dock, Cmd-tab to it, make it your default email app system wide etc. It also lets us integrate with the system, like the Mac menu bar and native context menus.
# Why would you use this instead of an IMAP client?
If you've ever used the Fastmail web interface you probably already know the answer, but for everyone else…
1. It's a lot faster. Compared to Apple's Mail.app for example (which is a good IMAP client!):
2. It's more powerful. We provide the best standards support out there, and are also working to make the standards better. But there's always going to be more that we can do when we control both the server and the client. With the Fastmail UI you can: 3. It's got much better search. (Yeah, this is kind-of just "more powerful", but I'm calling it out because search sucks in most email clients0.# And finally…
This is just a choice. We hope this is something that some of our customers will love, but we're not backing away from our commitment to open standards and encourage everyone to find what works best for them.
I'll try to answer any other questions as I can.
If I could sort by label, it'd be perfect.
Long time Fastmail user. Very excited for this; normally I would care if it is an Electron app but because I want the same experience as iOS/web app, it probably makes the most sense to be an Electron app anyway.
I've been waiting for a FM desktop app that provides native notifications. Will this mean that iOS notifications from iPhone mirroring will be suppressed in favour of the native app?
Why bundle as a .zip instead of .dmg?
Will search work the same with offline use?
A few thoughts (no need to respond): I want all my messages available offline (and can confirm this is a setting), I want the same interface as the iOS app and the webmail app especially since they handle aliases and catch-all aliases including replies properly.
Edit: looks like when using iPhone mirroring, it doesn't detect that Fastmail is already installed on the mac, so you get duplicate notifications.
Please add a staring functionality.
Thank you.