3 ms·

Ask HN: multi-account WEB email client?

• e12e 14y ago
  I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Do you want a webmail system that allows you to access multiple email accounts? Or do you want a ready made service that allow you to check various email accounts? I believe both gmail and hotmail will gladly accept your account credentials and check your other email accounts? Or did you want a html5ish web app that stores your email in your browser, and talks to imap and pop3 servers ?
  • trienthusiast 14y ago
    The second ! Imagine firefox, but as a website. I log on to firefox.com (imaginary) and get access to all my inboxes
    • smectos 14y ago
      I'm interested in this too.I was thinking of it more like an online Thunderbird.I couldn't find anything.
      • trienthusiast 14y ago
        yes when i said firefox i meant thunderbird. but really, any decent email app for mobile phone would do.
        • e12e 14y ago
          I'm not sure, but I think web browser are limited to talking http over the network, so you would need a proxy some where to allow for this -- architecturally similar to eg: http://engineering.linkedin.com/javascript/vncjs-how-build-javascript-vnc-client-24-hour-hackday I've thought a bit about writing an email client (for the console, really -- but also thought about what would work on an Android phone) -- and I think making your own protocol and a server that proxies that protocol to imap/pop would be the way to go. As far as I can tell this is how gmail works, and I seem to recall the original author of the SUP email client went in a similar direction on a new project (but I can't find the link atm). I really don't like the idea of a "fan in" structure, where a proxy will end up knowing all usernames/passwords for every user's every email account. It would be better to have the "app" speak imap/pop -- but as I understand it -- implementing a useful subset of IMAP is not a trivial and makes ponies cry.