4 ms·

We're building what you want. https://marcoapp.io https://marcoapp.io

by isaachinman 2y ago

Avamander 2y ago
Your link does not work?
- isaachinman 2y ago
  Apologies, on mobile. Fixed.
mmooss 2y ago
I'd love it - email could use serious tools and refinement - but so many questions: Is it local or hosted? What is the story with privacy? Do you use an existing application (like a Thunderbird fork) or something you created? Can you / will you integrate other messaging such as SMS, even WhatsApp, etc.? RSS?
- isaachinman 2y ago
  Great questions. 1. It is _both_ local and hosted. The client itself is fully offline-capable, including proper full-text search (single digit ms), writing drafts – anything you would expect an email client to do. The "hosted" bit is to ensure rapid synchronisation across multiple clients (ie your desktop and mobile). 2. Some metadata is hosted in pg to facilitate cross-platform synchronisation, as mentioned. This is encrypted at rest on a provider with SOC 2 Type I certification. Further symmetric encryption (AES-256) of sensitive columns is also done. We're well aware that security is the most important aspect of this product and is our primary focus. 3. We've not forked Thunderbird. Marco has been built from the ground up, both on the FE and BE, and has been a monumental task. 4. We have no immediate plans to add SMS/WhatsApp/RSS. If those interest you, you might have a look at Missive. We understand that storing email metadata is potentially a turn-off to some, but is actually the key driver to an entirely new email experience. It means that a Marco client itself is virtually stateless (save for some lightweight metadata) and syncs instantly across N number of clients – it runs on web/OSX/Windows/Android/etc, and changes propagate between them instantly. New client setup happens via Marco in a proprietary way on the order of seconds and doesn't take hours to sync via IMAP. We're building this for ourselves. Thunderbird is "alright". Apple Mail is "alright". Superhuman is decent, but ridiculously expensive and Google/Microsoft only. Missive is fairly decent (and also stores metadata), but is built for team collaboration, not individual use.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    > New client setup happens via Marco in a proprietary way on the order of seconds Do you consider this your "ActiveSync" and if so what do you see as the differentiating features/capabilities?
    - isaachinman 2y ago
      Genuinely had to look that up. Not familiar with Microsoft speak. From a quick look, it indeed looks similar. Although I imagine Microsoft's implementation is filled with cruft. We use Replicache + Orama. _All_ data is fully offline on the client and synced to the BE when network is available. Orama handles indexing and full text search, filtering, sorting, etc, all in single-digit ms. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!
corndoge 2y ago
It says "all platforms" but does not list Linux. Is Linux support planned?
- isaachinman 2y ago
  Yes, Linux support is planned.
scosman 2y ago
How does it compare to Apple Mail? That’s my reference local email client.
- isaachinman 2y ago
  Apple Mail was actually the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I wrote a blog post about our reasoning here: https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction
slightwinder 2y ago
Good luck with that, but as a first reaction I must say, what I see on that side is not that impressive. It's just the same feature-set & interface all over again. It's not selling me any reason why I should be more interested in this, than in all the other clients already available. Granted there is very little on that side, but I hope if you really start from scratch, you will also look more outside the box of the established mail clients. Think about how RSS Feed readers are working and the interfaces they offer, think about task&note-managment-tools are working and what they offer. For example, why is there no mail client with a kanban-board-view, allowing to organize mails by status or tags. Why is there no client with a social media feed-interface or even a tweetdeck-like view, allowing to observe multiple mail sources in parallel. This is the kind of innovation I'd like to see in a new mail client. Not just a bit better performance and new colors.
- isaachinman 2y ago
  Yes, we've started from scratch. A detailed explanation for our reasoning can be found here: https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction TLDR: There are _no_ IMAP-primitive truly cross-platform email clients in existence, except for Missive, which is built for team collaboration. We are building something net new. The content on the website is indeed a minimal representation and the actual alpha product has matured quite a bit beyond what you see there. The kanban suggestion is brilliant, I have made a note of that.

We're building what you want. https://marcoapp.io https://marcoapp.io

Avamander 2y ago

Your link does not work?

isaachinman 2y ago
Apologies, on mobile. Fixed.

mmooss 2y ago

I'd love it - email could use serious tools and refinement - but so many questions: Is it local or hosted? What is the story with privacy? Do you use an existing application (like a Thunderbird fork) or something you created? Can you / will you integrate other messaging such as SMS, even WhatsApp, etc.? RSS?

isaachinman 2y ago
Great questions. 1. It is _both_ local and hosted. The client itself is fully offline-capable, including proper full-text search (single digit ms), writing drafts – anything you would expect an email client to do. The "hosted" bit is to ensure rapid synchronisation across multiple clients (ie your desktop and mobile). 2. Some metadata is hosted in pg to facilitate cross-platform synchronisation, as mentioned. This is encrypted at rest on a provider with SOC 2 Type I certification. Further symmetric encryption (AES-256) of sensitive columns is also done. We're well aware that security is the most important aspect of this product and is our primary focus. 3. We've not forked Thunderbird. Marco has been built from the ground up, both on the FE and BE, and has been a monumental task. 4. We have no immediate plans to add SMS/WhatsApp/RSS. If those interest you, you might have a look at Missive. We understand that storing email metadata is potentially a turn-off to some, but is actually the key driver to an entirely new email experience. It means that a Marco client itself is virtually stateless (save for some lightweight metadata) and syncs instantly across N number of clients – it runs on web/OSX/Windows/Android/etc, and changes propagate between them instantly. New client setup happens via Marco in a proprietary way on the order of seconds and doesn't take hours to sync via IMAP. We're building this for ourselves. Thunderbird is "alright". Apple Mail is "alright". Superhuman is decent, but ridiculously expensive and Google/Microsoft only. Missive is fairly decent (and also stores metadata), but is built for team collaboration, not individual use.
- Spivak 2y ago
  > New client setup happens via Marco in a proprietary way on the order of seconds Do you consider this your "ActiveSync" and if so what do you see as the differentiating features/capabilities?
  - isaachinman 2y ago
    Genuinely had to look that up. Not familiar with Microsoft speak. From a quick look, it indeed looks similar. Although I imagine Microsoft's implementation is filled with cruft. We use Replicache + Orama. _All_ data is fully offline on the client and synced to the BE when network is available. Orama handles indexing and full text search, filtering, sorting, etc, all in single-digit ms. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

corndoge 2y ago

It says "all platforms" but does not list Linux. Is Linux support planned?

isaachinman 2y ago
Yes, Linux support is planned.

scosman 2y ago

How does it compare to Apple Mail? That’s my reference local email client.

isaachinman 2y ago
Apple Mail was actually the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I wrote a blog post about our reasoning here: https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction

slightwinder 2y ago

Good luck with that, but as a first reaction I must say, what I see on that side is not that impressive. It's just the same feature-set & interface all over again. It's not selling me any reason why I should be more interested in this, than in all the other clients already available. Granted there is very little on that side, but I hope if you really start from scratch, you will also look more outside the box of the established mail clients. Think about how RSS Feed readers are working and the interfaces they offer, think about task&note-managment-tools are working and what they offer. For example, why is there no mail client with a kanban-board-view, allowing to organize mails by status or tags. Why is there no client with a social media feed-interface or even a tweetdeck-like view, allowing to observe multiple mail sources in parallel. This is the kind of innovation I'd like to see in a new mail client. Not just a bit better performance and new colors.

isaachinman 2y ago
Yes, we've started from scratch. A detailed explanation for our reasoning can be found here: https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction TLDR: There are _no_ IMAP-primitive truly cross-platform email clients in existence, except for Missive, which is built for team collaboration. We are building something net new. The content on the website is indeed a minimal representation and the actual alpha product has matured quite a bit beyond what you see there. The kanban suggestion is brilliant, I have made a note of that.