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I was. No problems with it at all other than the native iOS Fastmail app was useless without a data connection. You couldn’t do anything offline. Also it’s diff

by iasay 4y ago

I was. No problems with it at all other than the native iOS Fastmail app was useless without a data connection. You couldn’t do anything offline. Also it’s difficult to export all your data from calendars and contacts. And there is no notes API or back capability at all. I’m now using apple iCloud+ for all of this as it is basically free for me anyway and everything works offline.

giancarlostoro 4y ago
> You couldn’t do anything offline. This is awful especially since data can be spotty on mobile, but I noticed other mobile mail apps have this issue. I prefer when my email client caches the emails so it doesnt matter where I am, I can at least look at a historic account of things.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Isn't that called POP instead of IMAP? It makes some sense that you need to be online to see your messages stored online.
  - giancarlostoro 4y ago
    Probably true, but POP to my understanding also deletes the emails from the server. Not sure of your technical background but I think of a list and you "pop" and item off of it.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Deleting is a setting in your email client.
  - 8ytecoder 4y ago
    Both POP and IMAP can work offline. Point of data - iOS mail works perfectly when you’re offline and syncs the changes when you get back online. These protocols were designed during the days when data was at a huge premium. Fastmail’s own app seems like a mobile app interface to their website than a real mail client. I have setup iOS Mail to download and keep a copy of last 30 days but use fastmail for most day to day stuff.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      As a person with an older device of smaller capacity constantly being reminded by the OS of the small amount of space remaining, I'm quite happy to not have that data cached. That's me though, and we all like different things. Just pointing out that while you might prefer the offline, I prefer not. As a dev, these are the things you flip a coin and know you're going to not please everyone and move on to the next item.
  - mmh0000 4y ago
    POP and IMAP are just transfer protocols and don't dictate what the client does with the mail once received. IMAP should always be used for various reason, the biggesting being: POP is a real disaster if you have multiple clients trying to use the same mailbox. There is no way to sync message state (read,unread,flagged,replied,...) across clients. Clients randomly delete mail from the server side.
nicolaslem 4y ago
> Also it’s difficult to export all your data from calendars and contacts. They have standard protocols for accessing all the data they store. Exporting everything can be done by connecting a client with IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV. > And there is no notes API. Notes are available as IMAP and JMAP messages.
- iasay 4y ago
  There were some serious issues with CalDAV originally which made me doubt the reliability of that. Particularly with authentication and tokens to third party services. As for notes via IMAP that must be new because it said in the documentation to copy and paste the notes out.

by iasay 4y ago

giancarlostoro 4y ago

> You couldn’t do anything offline. This is awful especially since data can be spotty on mobile, but I noticed other mobile mail apps have this issue. I prefer when my email client caches the emails so it doesnt matter where I am, I can at least look at a historic account of things.

dylan604 4y ago
Isn't that called POP instead of IMAP? It makes some sense that you need to be online to see your messages stored online.
- giancarlostoro 4y ago
  Probably true, but POP to my understanding also deletes the emails from the server. Not sure of your technical background but I think of a list and you "pop" and item off of it.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Deleting is a setting in your email client.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  Both POP and IMAP can work offline. Point of data - iOS mail works perfectly when you’re offline and syncs the changes when you get back online. These protocols were designed during the days when data was at a huge premium. Fastmail’s own app seems like a mobile app interface to their website than a real mail client. I have setup iOS Mail to download and keep a copy of last 30 days but use fastmail for most day to day stuff.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    As a person with an older device of smaller capacity constantly being reminded by the OS of the small amount of space remaining, I'm quite happy to not have that data cached. That's me though, and we all like different things. Just pointing out that while you might prefer the offline, I prefer not. As a dev, these are the things you flip a coin and know you're going to not please everyone and move on to the next item.
- mmh0000 4y ago
  POP and IMAP are just transfer protocols and don't dictate what the client does with the mail once received. IMAP should always be used for various reason, the biggesting being: POP is a real disaster if you have multiple clients trying to use the same mailbox. There is no way to sync message state (read,unread,flagged,replied,...) across clients. Clients randomly delete mail from the server side.

nicolaslem 4y ago

> Also it’s difficult to export all your data from calendars and contacts. They have standard protocols for accessing all the data they store. Exporting everything can be done by connecting a client with IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV. > And there is no notes API. Notes are available as IMAP and JMAP messages.

iasay 4y ago
There were some serious issues with CalDAV originally which made me doubt the reliability of that. Particularly with authentication and tokens to third party services. As for notes via IMAP that must be new because it said in the documentation to copy and paste the notes out.