10 ms·

I used Nylas for a while and really liked it, until they they forced everyone to pay $7 per month to use it. Here's the original discussion: https://news.ycomb

I used Nylas for a while and really liked it, until they they forced everyone to pay $7 per month to use it. Here's the original discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11553738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11553738

romanovcode 10y ago
Yeah. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to default OS mail clients.
Fnoord 10y ago
> I used Nylas for a while and really liked it, until they they forced everyone to pay $7 per month to use it. Sorry, but that isn't a fair way of describing what occurred. Nylas is a startup, trying to figure out a business model which works for them. You're not yet forced to pay. If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. Now, they released a gratis version once more, called Nylas Mail, which is also open source. The backend is also open source. What this means is that they've adopted a freemium model, and you got approx half a year to still enjoy your Pro license. I haven't done a feature comparison between Mozilla Thunderbird (which I know is not everyone's preference but was my previous cross platform e-mail client), Nylas Mail, and Nylas Pro. If anyone knows one, please share. My main concern is the backend being hosted in US by a US corporation. I don't like my data being hosted by US corporations, on US soil, and I recommend non US-citizens/residents to care about this.
- karim 10y ago
  Hey – I'm an engineer at Nylas. To add to what you said, the newly released Basic edition does all email syncing client-side, and uses our servers for minimal things (i.e: auth).
  - maglavaitss 10y ago
    How about not using your servers for anything?
    - karim 10y ago
      Unfortunately, we have to use an intermediate server to use Google OAuth.
      - jamesgeck0 10y ago
        If a malicious party successfully attacked the Nylas auth servers, how much of my email data would they be able to get? All of it?
        Fnoord 10y ago
        The backend speaks SMTP, IMAP, and HTTP. It is basically a glue (or proxy) between SMTP/IMAP (including those protocols over TLS) and HTTP. Nylas Pro talks HTTP to the glue (I assume that is using TLS, so HTTPS). Nylas Mail also talks HTTP to the backend, but the backend runs locally, so you're self hosting the backend. I suppose this has a performance loss. (With Nylas Pro, you can set a separate backend server if you desire but that requires work. That is a really cool feature for a business though.) So I would assume you are hosed. The passwords need to be stored plaintext.
        jamesgeck0 10y ago
        I don't think the free version of Nylas Mail is storing IMAP passwords, plaintext or otherwise. For Gmail, at least. 1. You never enter them into the client. It uses Oauth to authenticate. 2. By the comment here, it seems that they're using Google's Gmail API. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417904
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Fnoord 10y ago
        Oh, it does save the password. Oauth makes sense that there's no password saved. A unique key is saved which is authenticated with Google. If this key leaks, you are hosed, too, but at least you can revoke that key. I tried grep mypasswd ~/.nylas-mail/* and grep said Binary file shared.sqlite matches. This did not occur in ~/.nylas it makes sense and it is inevitable, a client like Thunderbird suffers from the same. It can be circumvented by saving the password encrypted and decrypting it using a master password. That is akin to how LastPass and Mozilla save their cloud data. Using containers etc would also lower the threat. In a way its good the password is saved locally. The engine also runs locally. It moves the threat model to the client, away from Nylas servers. Kudos.
- notwhereyouare 10y ago
  > If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. If you didn't, you had to pay.
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    True, if you did not have a NylasID before May 1st 2016.
- OJFord 10y ago
  > If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. Well, uh.. that didn't quite go that way for me. The Pro 'transition' was a miserable experience that made me stop using it altogether* - it literally popped up asking me if I wanted to subscribe to Pro, and if I said 'no' (thinking I'll just continue non-Pro) the whole app quit. * Coincidentally I tried it out again (seemed to get a 14day trial even though I'd used it before) a few days ago. There's still lots I like; the Basic tier is exactly what I needed really - last year when it suddenly held my emails hostage (slight hyperbole of course, there were still copies on the server).
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about your problem with the transition. Did you attempt to contact customer support about this? My experience was I received a coupon via e-mail at june 15 2016. I upgraded the same day. But I also still use other e-mail clients to access my mail e.g. from my phone. So I would not be locked out of my e-mail if Nylas quit working that same day.
e0m 10y ago
Now it's free! Nylas Mail Basic was designed exactly with this in mind. It's a free client, syncs locally, and does not include a lot of the Pro features that power users save a lot of time with. On the flip side, we've designed Nylas Pro (and its price point) for users who are coming from the productivity world of ToutApp or YesWare. The goal with Pro isn't to merely be another Thunderbird or Mac Mail. We're focused on building new powerful workflows for people who live all day in their mailbox, calendar, and address book. (I build Nylas Mail)
frik 10y ago
Hmm, it's open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylas_N1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylas_N1 https://github.com/nylas/N1 https://github.com/nylas/N1

romanovcode 10y ago

Yeah. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to default OS mail clients.

Fnoord 10y ago

> I used Nylas for a while and really liked it, until they they forced everyone to pay $7 per month to use it. Sorry, but that isn't a fair way of describing what occurred. Nylas is a startup, trying to figure out a business model which works for them. You're not yet forced to pay. If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. Now, they released a gratis version once more, called Nylas Mail, which is also open source. The backend is also open source. What this means is that they've adopted a freemium model, and you got approx half a year to still enjoy your Pro license. I haven't done a feature comparison between Mozilla Thunderbird (which I know is not everyone's preference but was my previous cross platform e-mail client), Nylas Mail, and Nylas Pro. If anyone knows one, please share. My main concern is the backend being hosted in US by a US corporation. I don't like my data being hosted by US corporations, on US soil, and I recommend non US-citizens/residents to care about this.

karim 10y ago
Hey – I'm an engineer at Nylas. To add to what you said, the newly released Basic edition does all email syncing client-side, and uses our servers for minimal things (i.e: auth).
- maglavaitss 10y ago
  How about not using your servers for anything?
  - karim 10y ago
    Unfortunately, we have to use an intermediate server to use Google OAuth.
    - jamesgeck0 10y ago
      If a malicious party successfully attacked the Nylas auth servers, how much of my email data would they be able to get? All of it?
      - Fnoord 10y ago
        The backend speaks SMTP, IMAP, and HTTP. It is basically a glue (or proxy) between SMTP/IMAP (including those protocols over TLS) and HTTP. Nylas Pro talks HTTP to the glue (I assume that is using TLS, so HTTPS). Nylas Mail also talks HTTP to the backend, but the backend runs locally, so you're self hosting the backend. I suppose this has a performance loss. (With Nylas Pro, you can set a separate backend server if you desire but that requires work. That is a really cool feature for a business though.) So I would assume you are hosed. The passwords need to be stored plaintext.
        jamesgeck0 10y ago
        I don't think the free version of Nylas Mail is storing IMAP passwords, plaintext or otherwise. For Gmail, at least. 1. You never enter them into the client. It uses Oauth to authenticate. 2. By the comment here, it seems that they're using Google's Gmail API. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417904
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Fnoord 10y ago
        Oh, it does save the password. Oauth makes sense that there's no password saved. A unique key is saved which is authenticated with Google. If this key leaks, you are hosed, too, but at least you can revoke that key. I tried grep mypasswd ~/.nylas-mail/* and grep said Binary file shared.sqlite matches. This did not occur in ~/.nylas it makes sense and it is inevitable, a client like Thunderbird suffers from the same. It can be circumvented by saving the password encrypted and decrypting it using a master password. That is akin to how LastPass and Mozilla save their cloud data. Using containers etc would also lower the threat. In a way its good the password is saved locally. The engine also runs locally. It moves the threat model to the client, away from Nylas servers. Kudos.
notwhereyouare 10y ago
> If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. If you didn't, you had to pay.
- Fnoord 10y ago
  True, if you did not have a NylasID before May 1st 2016.
OJFord 10y ago
> If you had a Nylas ID back when Pro was announced you got a gratis year of subscription. Well, uh.. that didn't quite go that way for me. The Pro 'transition' was a miserable experience that made me stop using it altogether* - it literally popped up asking me if I wanted to subscribe to Pro, and if I said 'no' (thinking I'll just continue non-Pro) the whole app quit. * Coincidentally I tried it out again (seemed to get a 14day trial even though I'd used it before) a few days ago. There's still lots I like; the Basic tier is exactly what I needed really - last year when it suddenly held my emails hostage (slight hyperbole of course, there were still copies on the server).
- Fnoord 10y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about your problem with the transition. Did you attempt to contact customer support about this? My experience was I received a coupon via e-mail at june 15 2016. I upgraded the same day. But I also still use other e-mail clients to access my mail e.g. from my phone. So I would not be locked out of my e-mail if Nylas quit working that same day.

e0m 10y ago

Now it's free! Nylas Mail Basic was designed exactly with this in mind. It's a free client, syncs locally, and does not include a lot of the Pro features that power users save a lot of time with. On the flip side, we've designed Nylas Pro (and its price point) for users who are coming from the productivity world of ToutApp or YesWare. The goal with Pro isn't to merely be another Thunderbird or Mac Mail. We're focused on building new powerful workflows for people who live all day in their mailbox, calendar, and address book. (I build Nylas Mail)

frik 10y ago

Hmm, it's open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylas_N1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylas_N1 https://github.com/nylas/N1 https://github.com/nylas/N1