8 ms·

FastMail app for iOS and Android now available

129 points by robn_fastmail 12y ago

chimeracoder 12y ago
I've been no waiting for this for so long! I have been using K9, and I love using a FOSS email client, but having native Fastmail support is just so much better. The native AOSP email app, for example, doesn't even allow you to choose which email address to send from when replying (that, or it's so hidden that I was unable to find it.) Unfortunately, like most AOSP apps, it's been effectively deprecated in favor of the Google alternative (Gmail) so it's unlikely to get any better anytime soon. I'm also so glad to see that they are releasing on both platforms simultaneously. Having used both an iPhone and an Android, I find it very frustrating when a product is released on one but not the other[0] [0] Yes, I understand why startups choose to do this. We had to decide which platform to support first at my startup, so I understand the tradeoff involved. But as a user, it's still frustrating.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  It was actually a really interesting development process. We already had the web app, and our main UI developer is an Apple guy, so he took on the iOS version. Meanwhile I'm primarily a Linux guy and work on FastMail's backend services, but also an Android user, so I did the Android version. What it meant is that the other guy could make supporting UI tweaks as he needed, and I could make supporting backend tweaks as needed (eg push system integration), but we had to come together a lot to find the similarities and differences between the two platforms and do changes for each other. It became a bit of a competition and we both were working very fast. We had something we could use every day in less than a month and we each learned a huge amount about the other person's area of speciality. I'm fairly confident if we did just one app first we would have gone much slower and made some bad architectural decisions that would have hurt when we got onto the next platform. If we ever do a third platform client it'll be really easy.
  - gohrt 12y ago
    Fastmail is part of the open web. So why a proprietary client, instead of joining in with K9?
    - brongondwana 12y ago
      It's basically our existing web client, but hooked in to Google's notification service. What we are hoping to do (quite soon) is switch to pure JMAP for the app's communication to the server - http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ At that point, k9 will be able to get the same great push notification system and efficient updates by implementing a JMAP backend.
  - zik 12y ago
    Thanks for your work on the android app. I've just tried it and it seems great so far.
dsl 12y ago
It seems to only be a slick wrapper around the website. No options, no unread message count on the icon, no ability to easily switch between mail and calendar... I love FastMail, and can't wait to see where they go with a 2.0 release.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  It _should_ have an unread message count on the icon. But yes, the iOS version's only significant feature over the regular web app is the addition of realtime push notifications. The Android app has a lot more right now, mostly because the web app experience has been pretty terrible in the stock Android browser so there was a lot more work needed to get it up to scratch. Of course we'll keep working on it; we've got loads more plans :)
  - dsl 12y ago
    Ah ha! It didn't update until I got a new email. Let me know if you need beta testers!
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      Ahh yes, I can see why that would happen. I'll file an internal dev ticket, thanks.
joelrunyon 12y ago
Finally. The web app seemed to have pretty limited functionality.
girvo 12y ago
Well done! I love FastMail, and am very glad that I switch from GMail. However, one of the best parts of FastMail is that it's just proper IMAP at the end of the day, so while I'm sure some people are going to love this app, I personally don't have much of a use for it.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  Fair enough, we love IMAP too, and there's no way its going anywhere. We've always cared about standards compliance and client choice, so use what you like and be happy! :)
  - coned88 12y ago
    How does that new Australian law allowing manipulation of data effect fastmail?
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      There are no new laws (yet). But lets not get into this discussion here. Contact privacy@fastmail.com with your questions and we'll be happy to respond to them.
      - lancewiggs 12y ago
        Actually - I'd really like an answer to that as well. A public answer.
        rufugee 12y ago
        Totally agree. Things like that should be discussed in public, not buried in individual emails.
        robn_fastmail 12y ago
        My point was more that this is a thread about the new apps, not about our privacy policies. If you want to start a new thread somewhere I'd be happy to comment on it.
yfefyf 12y ago
Can't wait for their `Device contacts integration`.
hendry 12y ago
Pity they can't just get contacts working with the IOS mail client. Even more a shame since their Web app is pretty good.
- brongondwana 12y ago
  We're working on that as well, it's just taking a little longer than the app did, so we released the app first.
  - nichodges 12y ago
    That's awesome news. Now the app is here this was the final drawback of using Fastmail.
jpope 12y ago
Awesome work fastmail team. I'll give it a try but, I doubt it'll replace K-9 for me. Any plans on open sourcing the app(s)?
- jpope 12y ago
  actually, nevermind. I see (at least on android) that all this bacially is a webview of the default mobile interface. (which works quite nicely by the way...)
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    There's more in there than just the webview: all the push channel and notification stuff, a JMAP client, a Gravatar client and cache, sharing stuff, smartwatch hooks, etc. That said, none of it is particularly interesting or difficult. No plans to open source it at the moment, but we might if there was sufficient demand.
swartkrans 12y ago
I have been using fastmail for a month now after switching from gmail. I quite like it, but the two drawbacks are that it's just a little bit more likely to let spam in than gmail, even with aggressive spam options enabled, and with fastmail I'm missing out on the growing gmail ecosystem (Streak, Dropbox mailbox app, others). It's fine though, I really am happy to be paying for an email service instead of depending on Google. I am quite happy with everything else. Really easy to set up and integrate. Works well with Android's email app and Mail.app. The webmail isn't terrible but I just use it to report spam. Having an Android app now is super exciting.
- brongondwana 12y ago
  We're talking to Dropbox about mailbox app - hopefully it will support us soon, as with everything it's a matter of engineering resources. We're also talking to many companies about a better API for everyone - the draft spec is at http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ - it's based on the API that our app already uses.
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    That's great to hear. Regarding the Android app having just checked it out, my first request, if you're taking them, is multiple account support. I can only log into one fastmail.com account at a time with what is here now. The reason I have two accounts is because I have two domains that get emails. Otherwise seems like a solid app. I'll probably start using this as my calendar app. :) http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ seems pretty awesome, I guess I can use that to build my own fastmail app integration? Thanks for all the hard work on fastmail!
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      > That's great to hear. Regarding the Android app having just checked it out, my first request, if you're taking them, is multiple account support. I can only log into one fastmail.com account at a time with what is here now. The reason I have two accounts is because I have two domains that get emails. Yep, its high on the todo list for a future update. > http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ seems pretty awesome, I guess I can use that to build my own fastmail app integration? That's the intent, though we're not there yet.
aladine 12y ago
Wonderful! I wait for it quite a long time. it has already have good interface in safari iOS, but I prefer a handy app
robert_h 12y ago
I might give this a go. I'd probably want a passcode option like Boxer to use permanently though.
- ForFreedom 12y ago
  Boxer has a passcode to open the app? Cloudmagic has one
cvburgess 12y ago
I really wish that Mailbox would accept any IMAP provider - I use Mail.app solely for my FastMail at the moment.
chrisblackwell 12y ago
I would love FastMail to add tags or labels. That is the one primary feature making me still forward my FastMail email to Gmail. I love having email in my inbox already labeled (or tagged) so I can have context. For example, one of the companies I work for uses purple in their logo. So I tag all emails from them with their company name, and add make it purple.
- swartkrans 12y ago
  What's the benefit of using fastmail if you just forward to gmail?
  - caiob 12y ago
    Exactly my thought. ha!
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    To drop Gmail in the future when Fastmail reaches feature parity.
- grault 12y ago
  In FastMail you could already search based on some of the email headers, like from:thatpurplecompany.com (or has:attachment, https://www.fastmail.fm/help/receive/search.html https://www.fastmail.fm/help/receive/search.html) and then you could save the search.. It's visually not that rich, but it solves your problem. Tagging (for me) is more about ad-hoc grouping. As giving it a thought right now it's even hard for me to come up with a realistic use case.
pwnna 12y ago
Is 2FA only sign in with app password (google like) support coming anytime soon? This is the only reason why I haven't switched yet.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  We're hoping to overhaul our authentication system next year. App-specific passwords is on our list.
bruce_one 12y ago
Have you got/had any thoughts about making the Android app available through avenues other than the Play store? (eg Aptoide or similar, or even just a link to the apk) I have Fastmail and support for Android apps; but no Play store access... (And if it was a concious decision not to, any particular reason? :-) )
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  The main feature of the Android app is push notifications, which requires Google Play Services. A version of the app without push notifications is pretty much identical to just using the regular web app in Chrome Android, so there didn't seem to be a lot of point doing distribution via other means (with the extra maintenance overhead that brings). If there's enough demand for something else then we'll be happy to revisit this.
  - bruce_one 12y ago
    That's a pretty excellent reason :-p It's no stress, as the web client is excellent - was just partly wondering whether it had been considered :-)
  - bad_user 12y ago
    That's odd. I remember the K9 email client working on a phone with CyanogenMod and without Google Play or the other Google services and I was getting notifications on new emails. Maybe my memory is failing me. But what are Android apps that are published on Amazon's Appstore or on F-Droid doing for push notifications? Also, what about offline access? Is the Android app functional in offline mode? I don't know how many people are using Androids without Google Play on it, but those of us that do use Android without Google Play would appreciate a version installable from somewhere else. If you've got the resources that is, no pressure :-) And as a suggestion, given that this is just a packaged web interface, it would be awesome to see it published for Firefox Mobile / Firefox OS. They apparently do expose an API for push notifications for example - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Simple_Push_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Simple_Push...
mbesto 12y ago
Does FastMail have push for native iOS Mail.app yet?
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  No, and it won't happen unless Apple open up their IMAP push channel. Now that our app is released we're unlikely to pursue this further.
  - mbesto 12y ago
    Cool, thanks for the update!
  - Osmium 12y ago
    There are free and open source implementations of Exchange ActiveSync that would allow native push support on iOS. Any particular reason you haven't pursued this?
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      Protocol and implementation complexity, the need for patent licensing and our desire to use standard protocol wherever possible.
eridius 12y ago
I'm bummed that this is a brand new iOS app with no legacy history but it still doesn't add a button to use extensions at the login page. I use 1Password to store my login information, and it's a much better first-run experience if I can trigger the 1Password extension to login.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. We'll look into it for a future update.
bigphishy 12y ago
What isn't there to love about fastmail?
- moretrees 12y ago
  Bad Support? Australia based?
  - josteink 12y ago
    Bad support? Compared to Google? Come on. Nothing is worse than Google as far as support goes. The only humans I've ever talked to there was when they erroneously charged me 10-100x as much as they should for my adwords campaign. Put enough money on the table and they are willing to talk, but that's about it.
    - moretrees 12y ago
      Why are you comparing it to google? It's pretty obvious Google offers no support. Fastmail.fm provides bad support and that is a fact.. They themselves know it and say so. They're trying to get the time down to 24h but as it is right now, it's bad.
ForFreedom 12y ago
Is there an app password protect as in CloudMagic? What is the one good reason for me to opt fastmail?
- girvo 12y ago
  > What is the one good reason for me to opt fastmail? It's not Google. For some people, that's not a good reason, but for me it is. The fact that it's super fast, very powerful, and are an Australian company (I live in Australia, so things are very fast) are merely bonuses :)
  - bruce_one 12y ago
    > (I live in Australia, so things are very fast) I'm pretty certain the Fastmail servers are in New York; so that's a bit of a funny reason ;-)
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      Haha. Yeah, they're in New York. Our offices are in Australia though, so its in our best interests to make sure things go fast! I can only imagine what it must be like for people actually in the US :)
      - ForFreedom 12y ago
        1. Does your app have a passcode to open? 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam?
        robn_fastmail 12y ago
        > 1. Does your app have a passcode to open? No. We'll look into it. > 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam? Yes, tap the message while open and use the "report spam" or "not spam" button (the shield icon).
mirsadm 12y ago
Is there any way to sync my contacts/calendar such that they are available outside of the Fastmail app? For me that is the only reason I haven't completely switched over to Fastmail. There doesn't appear to exist a nice solution on Android to do that.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  Any CalDAV connector for Android will do the job. We recommend CalDAV-Sync: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.caldav.lib https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.calda... Once we have CardDAV available, then we'll be recommending CardDAV-Sync.
  - joelrunyon 12y ago
    Any option for ios?
    - nmjenkins 12y ago
      iOS supports CalDAV natively. Just follow the instructions at https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/iphone.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/iphone.html (scroll down for calendar section).
sasas 12y ago
Please be aware FastMail is subject to Australian law. [1] The government is scrambling to pass laws for mass surveillance [2] and controversial data retention laws. [3] [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-scrambles-authorize-mass-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privacy-advocates-say-australia-is-breaking-new-ground-in-data-retention http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privac...
- vincentkriek 12y ago
  What other email host would you advice that is on better law?
  - TheSisb2 12y ago
    Honestly, none. :/
  - danchristian 12y ago
    https://runbox.com https://runbox.com
- bad_user 12y ago
  I find such warnings to be distasteful. Especially given that most people are using Gmail, or Outlook / Office365, or Yahoo! Mail, all of them coming from companies that can be and have been coerced by the NSA, without the people finding out about it until those leaks. In fact, as a European citizen, I would be more comfortable with an Australian company, than with a US-based one, simply because the governmental agencies in non-US countries are less competent than the US is at mass surveillance. But the fact of the matter is ... if you do not encrypt your email on the client-side, you can't expect privacy protections from a global enemy that has the resources for MITM attacks. All the protection you can hope for is against local enemies (organized crime syndicates, competition, etc.) So here we have a smaller player that's competing against big companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo and the first comment is about fear mongering about some laws that haven't even passed yet and targeting a company that has nothing to do with it. Don't take this the wrong way, but seeing this from a community of entrepreneurs is disappointing.
joneil 12y ago
On Android I keep getting "Sorry, legacy Guest/Member accounts are not supported. Please upgrade your account to use the FastMail app". I only signed up a few months ago, and can't find any options for an upgrade. Help? (p.s. Excited to try it out!) Edit: I am using a custom domain (a few different business accounts) if that is relevant.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  Please contact support. That's definitely not right.
  - joneil 12y ago
    Done, thank you!
yottah 12y ago
Sure, Australian government will soon spy on you if you use Fastmail. But every other mail provider is spied on by US government at least. And Australia is an enlightened first world country so unless you're doing something illegal, you might as well consider it better than being spied on by US government.
zw 12y ago
Thrilled to see FastMail tastefully and respectfully grow their ecosystem. I can see that, at least for the iOS app, it's pretty much a web view wrapper; I'm willing to give it a pass for the most part because FastMail's webapp is one of the best I've used… ever. Even still, as a green-fields iOS app, I'd expect to see a little more in the way of embracing features that are now native. We have notification actions, extensibility, file sharing, and a Pebble SDK too, y'know. Still, keep up the good work! You'll have my dollars as long as you're not Gmail.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  > We have notification actions, extensibility, file sharing, and a Pebble SDK too, y'know. Apart from the Pebble SDK, most of those landed in iOS 8. We were already in testing at the time it came out and our lead developer was preparing to travel, so we decided it was better to release rather than wait a few more months. Of course there will be updates. We want to do lots more with the app; this is just the beginning :)
stormbrew 12y ago
So, hosting email has two hard parts: - Spam filtering incoming mail. - Sending mail in a way that the other end will accept. The actual IMAP server part I'm happy to host myself, but these other two parts take up too much time. Right now I use gmail to do these two things, but it's imperfect for a lot of reasons. Would FastMail be a better choice for this? Or are there better ways to outsource these hard parts? I feel like there should be a reliable service that does just those bits, but I've never found one.
Osmium 12y ago
Really really glad to see this. Lack of push notifications on iOS has long been a sore point for me with FastMail. Still don't understand the technical or legal issues behind not offering Exchange compatibility as many of their competitors do though. That would allow push notifications with the native Mail app.
unicornporn 12y ago
FastMail looks tempting. But, excusez-moi, it seems quite expensive for what (you seem to) get. I have an email archive that's around 20GB on server. That would cost me $120 a year. Right now I'm paying for a Dreamhost account. For around $100 a year I get "unlimited" storage, IMAP access, Roundcube access and support for domains. And this is only besides all the shared hosting features has never let me down so far. I know FastMail is dedicated to delivering email/calendar only and that they are famous for an elegant service. But seriously, how fancy can email be?
- pluma 12y ago
  I'm not sure what Dreamhost's e-mail offering is like, but I chose FastMail over running my own e-mail server because I'm not enough of a sysadmin to be confident in setting up and maintaining my own e-mail server without opening it up to abuse (there are enough involuntary spam relays already). When I compared the major e-mail providers at the time, FastMail won because it was the closest to running your own server in terms of configurability (but much easier), it provided a great web UI (not as important for me personally, but some people don't use native clients), it was somewhat open about its technical infrastructure and it was doing one thing and one thing only (i.e. providing e-mail/calendar/contacts services).
  - e12e 12y ago
    Actually, with any reasonable smtp server, the defaults these days are pretty good -- so email abuse/open relay isn't the problem it once was. The hurdle (if any) these days is making sure email you send isn't flagged as spam, and to a lesser extent to avoid receiving spam (I say lesser, but then I've been running greylisting from day one, which is a minor nuisance, in and off itself). That said, using a good service (like fastmail) vs running your own will always be a trade-off -- and it's perfectly reasonable to not run your own email.
    - pluma 12y ago
      Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web server and SSH, I'm not even entirely sure what software I need or should use (when there are multiple alternatives) to set up a fully working e-mail server. Add to that messing with cryptic configuration files while reading about the dangers of doing it wrong and the general impression is that you shouldn't be touching any of it unless you fully understand it all. As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago.
pluma 12y ago
Finally! I've been hoping for this for years now. Let's hope it's as user friendly as their mobile website.

129 points by robn_fastmail 12y ago

I've been no waiting for this for so long! I have been using K9, and I love using a FOSS email client, but having native Fastmail support is just so much better. The native AOSP email app, for example, doesn't even allow you to choose which email address to send from when replying (that, or it's so hidden that I was unable to find it.) Unfortunately, like most AOSP apps, it's been effectively deprecated in favor of the Google alternative (Gmail) so it's unlikely to get any better anytime soon. I'm also so glad to see that they are releasing on both platforms simultaneously. Having used both an iPhone and an Android, I find it very frustrating when a product is released on one but not the other[0] [0] Yes, I understand why startups choose to do this. We had to decide which platform to support first at my startup, so I understand the tradeoff involved. But as a user, it's still frustrating.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
It was actually a really interesting development process. We already had the web app, and our main UI developer is an Apple guy, so he took on the iOS version. Meanwhile I'm primarily a Linux guy and work on FastMail's backend services, but also an Android user, so I did the Android version. What it meant is that the other guy could make supporting UI tweaks as he needed, and I could make supporting backend tweaks as needed (eg push system integration), but we had to come together a lot to find the similarities and differences between the two platforms and do changes for each other. It became a bit of a competition and we both were working very fast. We had something we could use every day in less than a month and we each learned a huge amount about the other person's area of speciality. I'm fairly confident if we did just one app first we would have gone much slower and made some bad architectural decisions that would have hurt when we got onto the next platform. If we ever do a third platform client it'll be really easy.
- gohrt 12y ago
  Fastmail is part of the open web. So why a proprietary client, instead of joining in with K9?
  - brongondwana 12y ago
    It's basically our existing web client, but hooked in to Google's notification service. What we are hoping to do (quite soon) is switch to pure JMAP for the app's communication to the server - http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ At that point, k9 will be able to get the same great push notification system and efficient updates by implementing a JMAP backend.
- zik 12y ago
  Thanks for your work on the android app. I've just tried it and it seems great so far.

dsl 12y ago

It seems to only be a slick wrapper around the website. No options, no unread message count on the icon, no ability to easily switch between mail and calendar... I love FastMail, and can't wait to see where they go with a 2.0 release.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
It _should_ have an unread message count on the icon. But yes, the iOS version's only significant feature over the regular web app is the addition of realtime push notifications. The Android app has a lot more right now, mostly because the web app experience has been pretty terrible in the stock Android browser so there was a lot more work needed to get it up to scratch. Of course we'll keep working on it; we've got loads more plans :)
- dsl 12y ago
  Ah ha! It didn't update until I got a new email. Let me know if you need beta testers!
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    Ahh yes, I can see why that would happen. I'll file an internal dev ticket, thanks.

joelrunyon 12y ago

Finally. The web app seemed to have pretty limited functionality.

girvo 12y ago

Well done! I love FastMail, and am very glad that I switch from GMail. However, one of the best parts of FastMail is that it's just proper IMAP at the end of the day, so while I'm sure some people are going to love this app, I personally don't have much of a use for it.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
Fair enough, we love IMAP too, and there's no way its going anywhere. We've always cared about standards compliance and client choice, so use what you like and be happy! :)
- coned88 12y ago
  How does that new Australian law allowing manipulation of data effect fastmail?
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    There are no new laws (yet). But lets not get into this discussion here. Contact privacy@fastmail.com with your questions and we'll be happy to respond to them.
    - lancewiggs 12y ago
      Actually - I'd really like an answer to that as well. A public answer.
      - rufugee 12y ago
        Totally agree. Things like that should be discussed in public, not buried in individual emails.
        robn_fastmail 12y ago
        My point was more that this is a thread about the new apps, not about our privacy policies. If you want to start a new thread somewhere I'd be happy to comment on it.

yfefyf 12y ago

Can't wait for their `Device contacts integration`.

hendry 12y ago

Pity they can't just get contacts working with the IOS mail client. Even more a shame since their Web app is pretty good.

brongondwana 12y ago
We're working on that as well, it's just taking a little longer than the app did, so we released the app first.
- nichodges 12y ago
  That's awesome news. Now the app is here this was the final drawback of using Fastmail.

jpope 12y ago

Awesome work fastmail team. I'll give it a try but, I doubt it'll replace K-9 for me. Any plans on open sourcing the app(s)?

jpope 12y ago
actually, nevermind. I see (at least on android) that all this bacially is a webview of the default mobile interface. (which works quite nicely by the way...)
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  There's more in there than just the webview: all the push channel and notification stuff, a JMAP client, a Gravatar client and cache, sharing stuff, smartwatch hooks, etc. That said, none of it is particularly interesting or difficult. No plans to open source it at the moment, but we might if there was sufficient demand.

swartkrans 12y ago

I have been using fastmail for a month now after switching from gmail. I quite like it, but the two drawbacks are that it's just a little bit more likely to let spam in than gmail, even with aggressive spam options enabled, and with fastmail I'm missing out on the growing gmail ecosystem (Streak, Dropbox mailbox app, others). It's fine though, I really am happy to be paying for an email service instead of depending on Google. I am quite happy with everything else. Really easy to set up and integrate. Works well with Android's email app and Mail.app. The webmail isn't terrible but I just use it to report spam. Having an Android app now is super exciting.

brongondwana 12y ago
We're talking to Dropbox about mailbox app - hopefully it will support us soon, as with everything it's a matter of engineering resources. We're also talking to many companies about a better API for everyone - the draft spec is at http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ - it's based on the API that our app already uses.
- swartkrans 12y ago
  That's great to hear. Regarding the Android app having just checked it out, my first request, if you're taking them, is multiple account support. I can only log into one fastmail.com account at a time with what is here now. The reason I have two accounts is because I have two domains that get emails. Otherwise seems like a solid app. I'll probably start using this as my calendar app. :) http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ seems pretty awesome, I guess I can use that to build my own fastmail app integration? Thanks for all the hard work on fastmail!
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    > That's great to hear. Regarding the Android app having just checked it out, my first request, if you're taking them, is multiple account support. I can only log into one fastmail.com account at a time with what is here now. The reason I have two accounts is because I have two domains that get emails. Yep, its high on the todo list for a future update. > http://jmap.io/ http://jmap.io/ seems pretty awesome, I guess I can use that to build my own fastmail app integration? That's the intent, though we're not there yet.

aladine 12y ago

Wonderful! I wait for it quite a long time. it has already have good interface in safari iOS, but I prefer a handy app

robert_h 12y ago

I might give this a go. I'd probably want a passcode option like Boxer to use permanently though.

ForFreedom 12y ago
Boxer has a passcode to open the app? Cloudmagic has one

cvburgess 12y ago

I really wish that Mailbox would accept any IMAP provider - I use Mail.app solely for my FastMail at the moment.

chrisblackwell 12y ago

I would love FastMail to add tags or labels. That is the one primary feature making me still forward my FastMail email to Gmail. I love having email in my inbox already labeled (or tagged) so I can have context. For example, one of the companies I work for uses purple in their logo. So I tag all emails from them with their company name, and add make it purple.

swartkrans 12y ago
What's the benefit of using fastmail if you just forward to gmail?
- caiob 12y ago
  Exactly my thought. ha!
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  To drop Gmail in the future when Fastmail reaches feature parity.
grault 12y ago
In FastMail you could already search based on some of the email headers, like from:thatpurplecompany.com (or has:attachment, https://www.fastmail.fm/help/receive/search.html https://www.fastmail.fm/help/receive/search.html) and then you could save the search.. It's visually not that rich, but it solves your problem. Tagging (for me) is more about ad-hoc grouping. As giving it a thought right now it's even hard for me to come up with a realistic use case.

pwnna 12y ago

Is 2FA only sign in with app password (google like) support coming anytime soon? This is the only reason why I haven't switched yet.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
We're hoping to overhaul our authentication system next year. App-specific passwords is on our list.

bruce_one 12y ago

Have you got/had any thoughts about making the Android app available through avenues other than the Play store? (eg Aptoide or similar, or even just a link to the apk) I have Fastmail and support for Android apps; but no Play store access... (And if it was a concious decision not to, any particular reason? :-) )

robn_fastmail 12y ago
The main feature of the Android app is push notifications, which requires Google Play Services. A version of the app without push notifications is pretty much identical to just using the regular web app in Chrome Android, so there didn't seem to be a lot of point doing distribution via other means (with the extra maintenance overhead that brings). If there's enough demand for something else then we'll be happy to revisit this.
- bruce_one 12y ago
  That's a pretty excellent reason :-p It's no stress, as the web client is excellent - was just partly wondering whether it had been considered :-)
- bad_user 12y ago
  That's odd. I remember the K9 email client working on a phone with CyanogenMod and without Google Play or the other Google services and I was getting notifications on new emails. Maybe my memory is failing me. But what are Android apps that are published on Amazon's Appstore or on F-Droid doing for push notifications? Also, what about offline access? Is the Android app functional in offline mode? I don't know how many people are using Androids without Google Play on it, but those of us that do use Android without Google Play would appreciate a version installable from somewhere else. If you've got the resources that is, no pressure :-) And as a suggestion, given that this is just a packaged web interface, it would be awesome to see it published for Firefox Mobile / Firefox OS. They apparently do expose an API for push notifications for example - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Simple_Push_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Simple_Push...

mbesto 12y ago

Does FastMail have push for native iOS Mail.app yet?

robn_fastmail 12y ago
No, and it won't happen unless Apple open up their IMAP push channel. Now that our app is released we're unlikely to pursue this further.
- mbesto 12y ago
  Cool, thanks for the update!
- Osmium 12y ago
  There are free and open source implementations of Exchange ActiveSync that would allow native push support on iOS. Any particular reason you haven't pursued this?
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    Protocol and implementation complexity, the need for patent licensing and our desire to use standard protocol wherever possible.

eridius 12y ago

I'm bummed that this is a brand new iOS app with no legacy history but it still doesn't add a button to use extensions at the login page. I use 1Password to store my login information, and it's a much better first-run experience if I can trigger the 1Password extension to login.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback. We'll look into it for a future update.

bigphishy 12y ago

What isn't there to love about fastmail?

moretrees 12y ago
Bad Support? Australia based?
- josteink 12y ago
  Bad support? Compared to Google? Come on. Nothing is worse than Google as far as support goes. The only humans I've ever talked to there was when they erroneously charged me 10-100x as much as they should for my adwords campaign. Put enough money on the table and they are willing to talk, but that's about it.
  - moretrees 12y ago
    Why are you comparing it to google? It's pretty obvious Google offers no support. Fastmail.fm provides bad support and that is a fact.. They themselves know it and say so. They're trying to get the time down to 24h but as it is right now, it's bad.

ForFreedom 12y ago

Is there an app password protect as in CloudMagic? What is the one good reason for me to opt fastmail?

girvo 12y ago
> What is the one good reason for me to opt fastmail? It's not Google. For some people, that's not a good reason, but for me it is. The fact that it's super fast, very powerful, and are an Australian company (I live in Australia, so things are very fast) are merely bonuses :)
- bruce_one 12y ago
  > (I live in Australia, so things are very fast) I'm pretty certain the Fastmail servers are in New York; so that's a bit of a funny reason ;-)
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    Haha. Yeah, they're in New York. Our offices are in Australia though, so its in our best interests to make sure things go fast! I can only imagine what it must be like for people actually in the US :)
    - ForFreedom 12y ago
      1. Does your app have a passcode to open? 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam?
      - robn_fastmail 12y ago
        > 1. Does your app have a passcode to open? No. We'll look into it. > 2. Can I move mails from spam to inbox and from inbox to Spam? Yes, tap the message while open and use the "report spam" or "not spam" button (the shield icon).

mirsadm 12y ago

Is there any way to sync my contacts/calendar such that they are available outside of the Fastmail app? For me that is the only reason I haven't completely switched over to Fastmail. There doesn't appear to exist a nice solution on Android to do that.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
Any CalDAV connector for Android will do the job. We recommend CalDAV-Sync: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.caldav.lib https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.calda... Once we have CardDAV available, then we'll be recommending CardDAV-Sync.
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  Any option for ios?
  - nmjenkins 12y ago
    iOS supports CalDAV natively. Just follow the instructions at https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/iphone.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/iphone.html (scroll down for calendar section).

sasas 12y ago

Please be aware FastMail is subject to Australian law. [1] The government is scrambling to pass laws for mass surveillance [2] and controversial data retention laws. [3] [1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/legal/privacy.html [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-scrambles-authorize-mass-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/australian-government-... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privacy-advocates-say-australia-is-breaking-new-ground-in-data-retention http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/16/privac...

vincentkriek 12y ago
What other email host would you advice that is on better law?
- TheSisb2 12y ago
  Honestly, none. :/
- danchristian 12y ago
  https://runbox.com https://runbox.com
bad_user 12y ago
I find such warnings to be distasteful. Especially given that most people are using Gmail, or Outlook / Office365, or Yahoo! Mail, all of them coming from companies that can be and have been coerced by the NSA, without the people finding out about it until those leaks. In fact, as a European citizen, I would be more comfortable with an Australian company, than with a US-based one, simply because the governmental agencies in non-US countries are less competent than the US is at mass surveillance. But the fact of the matter is ... if you do not encrypt your email on the client-side, you can't expect privacy protections from a global enemy that has the resources for MITM attacks. All the protection you can hope for is against local enemies (organized crime syndicates, competition, etc.) So here we have a smaller player that's competing against big companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo and the first comment is about fear mongering about some laws that haven't even passed yet and targeting a company that has nothing to do with it. Don't take this the wrong way, but seeing this from a community of entrepreneurs is disappointing.

joneil 12y ago

On Android I keep getting "Sorry, legacy Guest/Member accounts are not supported. Please upgrade your account to use the FastMail app". I only signed up a few months ago, and can't find any options for an upgrade. Help? (p.s. Excited to try it out!) Edit: I am using a custom domain (a few different business accounts) if that is relevant.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
Please contact support. That's definitely not right.
- joneil 12y ago
  Done, thank you!

yottah 12y ago

Sure, Australian government will soon spy on you if you use Fastmail. But every other mail provider is spied on by US government at least. And Australia is an enlightened first world country so unless you're doing something illegal, you might as well consider it better than being spied on by US government.

zw 12y ago

Thrilled to see FastMail tastefully and respectfully grow their ecosystem. I can see that, at least for the iOS app, it's pretty much a web view wrapper; I'm willing to give it a pass for the most part because FastMail's webapp is one of the best I've used… ever. Even still, as a green-fields iOS app, I'd expect to see a little more in the way of embracing features that are now native. We have notification actions, extensibility, file sharing, and a Pebble SDK too, y'know. Still, keep up the good work! You'll have my dollars as long as you're not Gmail.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
> We have notification actions, extensibility, file sharing, and a Pebble SDK too, y'know. Apart from the Pebble SDK, most of those landed in iOS 8. We were already in testing at the time it came out and our lead developer was preparing to travel, so we decided it was better to release rather than wait a few more months. Of course there will be updates. We want to do lots more with the app; this is just the beginning :)

stormbrew 12y ago

So, hosting email has two hard parts: - Spam filtering incoming mail. - Sending mail in a way that the other end will accept. The actual IMAP server part I'm happy to host myself, but these other two parts take up too much time. Right now I use gmail to do these two things, but it's imperfect for a lot of reasons. Would FastMail be a better choice for this? Or are there better ways to outsource these hard parts? I feel like there should be a reliable service that does just those bits, but I've never found one.

Osmium 12y ago

Really really glad to see this. Lack of push notifications on iOS has long been a sore point for me with FastMail. Still don't understand the technical or legal issues behind not offering Exchange compatibility as many of their competitors do though. That would allow push notifications with the native Mail app.

unicornporn 12y ago

FastMail looks tempting. But, excusez-moi, it seems quite expensive for what (you seem to) get. I have an email archive that's around 20GB on server. That would cost me $120 a year. Right now I'm paying for a Dreamhost account. For around $100 a year I get "unlimited" storage, IMAP access, Roundcube access and support for domains. And this is only besides all the shared hosting features has never let me down so far. I know FastMail is dedicated to delivering email/calendar only and that they are famous for an elegant service. But seriously, how fancy can email be?

pluma 12y ago
I'm not sure what Dreamhost's e-mail offering is like, but I chose FastMail over running my own e-mail server because I'm not enough of a sysadmin to be confident in setting up and maintaining my own e-mail server without opening it up to abuse (there are enough involuntary spam relays already). When I compared the major e-mail providers at the time, FastMail won because it was the closest to running your own server in terms of configurability (but much easier), it provided a great web UI (not as important for me personally, but some people don't use native clients), it was somewhat open about its technical infrastructure and it was doing one thing and one thing only (i.e. providing e-mail/calendar/contacts services).
- e12e 12y ago
  Actually, with any reasonable smtp server, the defaults these days are pretty good -- so email abuse/open relay isn't the problem it once was. The hurdle (if any) these days is making sure email you send isn't flagged as spam, and to a lesser extent to avoid receiving spam (I say lesser, but then I've been running greylisting from day one, which is a minor nuisance, in and off itself). That said, using a good service (like fastmail) vs running your own will always be a trade-off -- and it's perfectly reasonable to not run your own email.
  - pluma 12y ago
    Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web server and SSH, I'm not even entirely sure what software I need or should use (when there are multiple alternatives) to set up a fully working e-mail server. Add to that messing with cryptic configuration files while reading about the dangers of doing it wrong and the general impression is that you shouldn't be touching any of it unless you fully understand it all. As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago.

pluma 12y ago

Finally! I've been hoping for this for years now. Let's hope it's as user friendly as their mobile website.