
Gmailify: The best of Gmail, without an gmail address - livingparadox
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/gmailify-best-of-gmail-without-gmail.html
======
andybak
So mixed messages again. Is 'Inbox' the next-gen Gmail interface or a hobby
project that will get closed down in a year? Momentum has slowed and I've
become so dependent on it's workflow I'd be gutted if this was the case.
However - I don't believe Google will maintain two email clients in
perpetuity.

On past experience - they'll fold the functionality of one into the other -
partially and imperfectly leaving users irritated once more.

Still - it's not like I'd be safe from this anywhere else. Products from
smaller companies are in constant danger of aquihire shutdowns or similar.

And open-source has still yet to produce UX that's much better than 'parity
with the mainstream from a few years ago'.

~~~
Numberwang
I have the same fears but from the opposite end. I need gmail in my life, and
cannot understand why anyone would want Inbox at all. It shows my emails
(fewer than in gmail) and combines it with a subpar task manager (in a world
of subpar task managers) and wrecks on this "smart" categorization system
which is just there for devious purposes and most importantly I cannot trust
to do it's job properly.

I fear for gmail. I still hurt from google reader being removed. I would have
paid £10 a month for google reader had they just asked.

~~~
Mikeb85
Meh. I use Inbox, it's my default on all devices. It's pretty smart at
filtering out social/ad crap, the search bar is more prominent and works very
well, and it's got a nice, simple interface. It's different, but IMO far
better.

~~~
easygenes
I use Inbox on mobile and rarely load it in the browser. I spent a few months
traveling the world last year and it generally did a great job keeping my
travel related emails nicely categorized automatically.

~~~
faizmokhtar
Yup, I truly love this feature. Aside from categorizing, it will even displays
all the infos like hotel check-in, train arrival, etc in a timely manner.

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grinich
If folks are looking for an open source alternative to this, you should
consider N1 and the Nylas sync engine.

With N1, you can run the entire stack yourself, or use our hosted version.
Plus, N1 is built to be extended by developers using JavaScript, so you can
build anything you want into it.

More here: [https://nylas.com/n1](https://nylas.com/n1)

(I work at Nylas.)

~~~
m6w6
That really looks sweet! But glancing over the FAQ, it's not clear to me if it
doesn't do IMAP&SMTP with the big players, or if it doesn't feature IMAP&SMTP
at all?

~~~
spang
N1 supports connecting to all the major email providers, as well as pretty
much every obscure IMAP server run by your ISP! What's pointed out in the FAQ
is just that it uses a cloud service component (also open source!
[http://github.com/nylas/sync-engine](http://github.com/nylas/sync-engine))
that we developed first to make it easier to build clients.

~~~
kuschku
Warning to anyone trying to self-host:

Despite N1 calling their cloud engine "open source", the authentication part
isn’t – and isn’t included.

If you set up the open source variant yourself, you’ll end up without any
authentication.

~~~
vamega
When you say authentication, do you mean the cloud engine doesn't authenticate
against your email providers, or that the desktop client doesn't authenticate
against the cloud engine?

~~~
kuschku
I mean that there is no password between desktop client and the open source
cloud engine – anyone can log in to it just like that.

The tokens to auth are world-readable under /accounts or /n

~~~
kentonv
This sounds like a job for Sandstorm.io...

~~~
grinich
Or like any firewall, Nginx config, VPN, etc. Everyone picks a different way
to do it, so it's not included in the default sync engine.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Does linking another e-mail to my Gmail mean that Google will go harvest all
of the e-mails from the Inbox of that account in order to deliver targeted
ads?

I ask because I don't want to link my 15 year-old Hotmail account to it if
that's the case. I'll just stay with the web client.

~~~
huac
it almost certainly will, as it includes google now cards (which are built off
data mining for your interests)

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Animats
Aw, I thought it was going to be a way to get the functionality of Gmail
without Google.

~~~
sp332
Which functionality?

~~~
currysausage
Just an example: As far as I can tell, they are still the only provider that
gets conversation view "right."

~~~
krrrh
fastmail is pretty close.

~~~
sleepyhead
I think the FastMail webapp is better than Gmail.

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andersonmvd
"Gmailify : The best of Gmail, without an gmail address" because for Google
doesn't matter if you use @gmail or not. What matters is the permission to
read your inbox and harvest your messages. Please prove me I'm wrong.

~~~
awqrre
of course that is why... how could they provide these features otherwise...

~~~
cyphar
By providing a free software, self-hostable version of GMail. It's not going
to happen, but that's what they could do to "provide the same features".

~~~
awqrre
That would be nice but that is not Google's business model ...

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jakebasile
This means that Yahoo and Outlook users have access to Google Now email-based
cards before those of us using Google Apps.

~~~
tssva
Google Apps supports Google Now email-based cards. It needs to be enabled by
your Google Apps administrator.

~~~
msh
I have never been able to get email based cards for my domain account.

How did you set it up?

~~~
tssva
Instructions are at
[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2938260?hl=en](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2938260?hl=en).
Even though the setting is under Android Settings it does also enable Google
Now for iOS.

------
xd1936
They already had this, only without the server-side processing for Spam
filters and Google Now features. The Gmail app in Android has had the ability
to bring in other email accounts for months; This seems like the next logical
step. Super cool option to have.

I wonder if those of us who already have third-party email accounts in the
Gmail app will be automatically upgraded to this.

------
pritam2020
Yahoo mail has done it last year. They even have this on the web client on
desktop. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/10/yo-dawg-i-heard-you-like-
ya...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/10/yo-dawg-i-heard-you-like-ya..).

------
ForHackernews
Shorter: "Let us read your email, even if you don't use a gmail address."

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chrisamiller
I assume that under the hood, they've just set up Gmail as an IMAP client that
accesses your other account?

~~~
Artemis2
Given the specificity of the providers they list, they are probably using
their APIs instead of IMAP, which is a lot easier.

~~~
obelisk_
Or they've just whitelisted said providers after having either verified that
providers IMAP implementations comply with IMAP standards, or they've
whitelisted said providers because those providers were big enough that it was
worth the trouble for Google to work around issues with those providers IMAP
implementations.

------
ocdtrekkie
I think it's kind of demonstrative of where Google's at with privacy now, that
they don't see fit to mention the practical reality that this involves Google
indexing and data mining all of your email from another provider. Many of us
can make that common sense leap, but in the past Google respected your privacy
at least to mention it outright.

------
herbst
I just want to add that you can email forward your domains (for example
included free in namecheap domains) and use mailgun to send from them all
within Gmail/Inbox. That way you can manage multiple different domains at one
place comfortably. (And like the main argument in the article get the superb
spam filter)

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eachro
One of my aunt uses a yahoo mail account that I periodically maintain for her.
It's unbelievable how much spam makes it through their filters. I'm talking
about stuff that ends up in your inbox, not your spam folder. I'm looking
forward to gmailifying it for her.

~~~
tgb
OTOH, I get emails sent to my spam box in Gmail despite being replies to
messages that I sent to people that I conversed with multiple times before.

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Johnie
I wonder how this actually works.

It seems like for Gmail to provide this functionality, it needs to copy your
external email to Google's servers and do server side processing.

I can't imagine that it does spam protection, Google Now cards, and search all
client side.

~~~
Selfcommit
Seems pretty straight forward - pretend you signed up for a Google account and
also had that account connect to your other email addresses (Like people have
been doing for years, and arguably one of gmail's best features)

Now just rebrand it without the visible requirement of having a Google
Account. I wouldn't be surprised if you're still getting a Google account in
the process, it's just not advertised.

~~~
Hurdy
When you go through the sign up flow you can select whether you want to
Gmailify your address into an existing or a new Google account. We make it
very explicit that all your mails are being copied into Google servers.

By the way, while Gmail always has offered ways to just "import" your messages
from a third party address, with Gmailify you get a full two way sync, so you
can e.g. keep using the Yahoo UI and your changes will show up in Gmail.

~~~
OxO4
I do not seem to have the option to gmailify my address. Is the feature
restricted to specific providers? If yes, are there any plans to support
Office365 addresses?

~~~
Hurdy
It's currently limited to consumer accounts on Outlook.com and Yahoo.

------
levesque
After reading this I tried to install an exchange account on my gmail app. It
asked for a bunch of extra permissions for the specific exchange account,
including the permission to "Erase all data" from the telephone, resetting it
to factory settings. Not gonna happen.

From what I gather those permissions were requested by the exchange server, so
my university would be the one to blame. Why a server would ask for this
permission is beyond me.

~~~
Sumaso
Default permissions are the ability erase everything. It actually requires
work to remove those permissions.

Probably just your exchange admin doesnt have an incentive to change the
settings.

~~~
duaneb
> Default permissions are the ability erase everything.

This can never go wrong.

~~~
magicalist
thankfully it's not true

------
madspindel
Is it using Push-IMAP? Because your IMAP accounts in your regular @gmail.com
account often has a delay like 30 minutes or more.

~~~
SXX
That delay you talking about depend on how often you get new mail on
particular account as gmail trying to not check account every minute if it's
only get mail once a week. Though delay can be really low if you get new mail
every few minutes.

And you can artificially decrease it by setting simple script that would send
some random mail to that account and then just filter it on gmail-side.

------
gloves
Honestly, I only use gmail because I have to - I find outlook a far better
interface.

------
danpalmer
I still don't quite understand what's great about Gmail. Everyone goes on and
on about how amazing it is, and I'm sitting here having to refresh the page
every 5 mins because it won't update, or it's lost a toolbar button.

Inbox is worse for me (although I realise probably not for most) because
automated emails are usually _really_ important for me as they are telling me
something stopped working, but emails from people might not be that important
because I get hundreds a day.

Between the issues with the Gmail web client, and the problems I have with
Inbox, the whole "Gmail" product is one of the worst products that I have to
use, and I try to distance myself from it with good email clients as much as I
can.

~~~
derwiki
Clearly you haven't had the privilege of using Lotus Notes ;-) My anecdotal
counterpoint: Gmail is one of the most reliable products I regularly use.

~~~
derefr
Man, if I could "Gmailify" my Notes inbox (without breaking some IBM
proprietary-data rule) that'd be heaven. Verse doesn't come close.

~~~
derwiki
Almaden had a research project called BlueMail which was pretty good.
Naturally, it wasn't encouraged outside of Almaden.

------
tonylemesmer
Its not working for me on my own hosted email. There is no "gmailify" option.
Am I missing something or does gmailify ONLY work for hosted-non gmail
accounts e.g. Yahoo, Outlook etc. ?

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jlarocco
Ugh, I really hate to complain about this, but " _an_ gmail address" in the HN
headline is hurting my brain.

Is it at all possible to make it "an @gmail address" to match the article?

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praveenster
Will there be relevant ads on the side for gmailified email from other
providers?

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tinhangliu
I will try it now and share my experience here

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Touche
No support for JMAP accounts?

~~~
grinich
Do any providers actually support JMAP right now? (Genuinely curious.)

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anonfunction
So it's android only?

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muddi900
Can run a gmail instance on my own server? No? Well thanks but no thanks.

~~~
richardboegli
That would be AWESOME, but will never happen.

~~~
muddi900
Going by the score I am getting, we are in the minority.

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finishingmove
"Gmailify links your existing account to Gmail" \-- okaaay. At least it's
stated clearly in this case. The whole merge-with-Google thing (which they've
also been known to do as opt-out, albeit not in this particular case) is
exactly the reason why I'm avoiding a lot of Google's services, and why I
respect (and trust) Microsoft more in recent years. It just saddens me that
Outlook for Android is so bad in some things, it's basically unusable (e.g.
you can't follow links from emails).

