Neil Jhaveri, a former Apple engineer who worked on the company's default Mail app, has introduced a new Gmail client for macOS.
Available in beta, Mimestream is a native app written in Swift and designed with AppKit and SwiftUI for a clean, stock appearance. Jhaveri says the app is designed to be fast, lightweight, and use a minimal amount of disk space.
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Mimestream uses the Gmail API rather than IMAP to support more Gmail-specific features, such as categorized inboxes, automatically synced aliases and signatures, full labels integration, and search operators. Jhaveri plans to add more features over time, including Google Drive support, server-side filter configuration, and G Suite directory autocomplete.
Mimestream's advantages over using the Gmail web interface include support for multiple Gmail accounts with a unified inbox, system-level notifications, system-level Dark Mode support, swipe gestures, tracking prevention, and more.
Jhaveri says Mimestream only makes direct connections to Gmail and does not use intermediary servers, adding that the app does not collect or sell users' emails.
Mimestream is free for a limited time while in beta and will eventually be a paid app distributed through the Mac App Store. macOS Catalina or later is required. Jhaveri says an iOS and iPadOS version of the app is planned for the future.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)But I mean good for this guy - I’m sure it’s high quality, well produced software
Depends on the legal agreements - if any - they signed on the way in or on the way out. And whether any agreements are still in force, or have expired.Are ex-Apple engineers allowed to produce an application similar in nature to the one they originally worked on? Just curious.
If he's in California, there are additional worker protections in play as well - non-competes are out.
Mimestream is showing me the labels attached to a message very nicely so far.
We'll see how it goes, but the app is super lightweight (5.1 MB DMG!), was easy to setup with 5 accounts and so far so good.
Google apps are noted for the bad UX on every platform. It's part of their branding.Excellent. I hope this is a huge success. google apps on Apple devices are one big dumpster fire.