
Show HN: A personal Gmail - jubari
Hey guys,<p>so I've been building my own Gmail for the past few weeks and would like your feedback.<p>Find a preview here: http://i.imgur.com/UDz2y.png
(Mouse cursor is over the "REPLY" button, to show the hover-effect)<p>The app you see in the screenshot is what I've been using in the past week and it starts to feel better than the gmail interface.<p>Just a quick explanation:<p>- It's conversation-based like Gmail.
- Conversations with new emails are on the left.
- Conversations may be labeled ... based on predefined filters or manually.
- Every conversation stays in the left sidebar until marked "Done" or "Pinned".
- Done emails are accessed through the "check"-button next to the "MailApp"-logo.
- Pinned emails are moved to the right sidebar. This is basically a to-do list or for future reference.
- Both sidebars may be filtered by attributes or labels.
- The "list"-icon, next to the filter in the left sidebar, gives you the classic gmail list in the center-panel.<p>Some technical background:<p>- It's build with Rails and PostgreSQL.
- E-Mail sending/receiving is based on the MailGun infrastructure.
- Turbolinks (https://github.com/rails/turbolinks) and Memcache for a speedy UX.
- All mail data is saved in a multi-tenant PostgreSQL db and for backup purposes in a IMAP mailbox on MailGun.
- Hosted on heroku.<p>I'm quite happy with the app by now and only go back to Gmail for older emails.<p>So my BIG QUESTION right now:
Would you even consider using the app, in case I'd make a commercial product out of it?
Would you pay for it?<p>Searching HN yielded that quite a few people are looking each month to leave Gmail (for various reasons),
but of course there are quite a few gotchas with my approach, especially considering trust-issues.<p>Let me hear what you think.
======
maratd
> Would you even consider using the app, in case I'd make a commercial product
> out of it?

No.

I use Google because of the stuff that happens in the background, that I never
see. Their infrastructure, SPAM blocking, Android app, intrusion detection,
seamless support for custom domains, filtering and search, etc.

GMail looks like a simple app, but it's actually a herculean effort on behalf
of Google, a multi-billion dollar company. There's a reason they have very
little competition in that sector.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You say that like Gmail is the market leader here, they're not. Most of the
features you mentioned do exist in other services and other services do have
features that Gmail doesn't. The OP can definitely make a business out of
email, it is far from a solved problem.

~~~
k3n
> You say that like Gmail is the market leader here, they're not.

They are as far as I'm concerned. I'm curious, though, who you do consider to
be the market leader? I'm going to have a hard time keeping my composure if
you say Hotmail (or "Live" mail), Yahoo, or something similar.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
In terms of users they obviously are the market leader. I use Outlook.com
personally and consider it to be overall better than Gmail. I'd gladly debate
this if you'd like.

Never the less, my original point was that all of these Gmail strengths that
you think are very important are obviously not very important to people using
Yahoo or their ISP webmail. The idea that everyone uses Gmail and any
competitor must compete feature-by-feature is just incorrect.

~~~
27182818284
"obviously are the market leader"

Gmail only just recently (October 2012) overtook Hotmail.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Typo on my part, meant to say that Gmail isn't the market leader in terms of
users, Yahoo is.

------
hyphyphyph
Open source the app. There's a huge lacking in _good_ web based open source
mail clients. Fill it. Offer a pay-for premium hosted version. Have us pay for
service, not software.

If you released this, assuming it doesn't suck balls, I'd be running it
immediately. I'm currently using Rackspace for my email hosting; check them
out. They're good, good be better. ;)

~~~
jubari
Haha, thanks for your frank words. I actually like your idea for 2 reasons:

1) OpenSource would definitely improve the quality of the app while still
maintaining a way to profit from my work.

2) Finally giving back to OpenSource. Always felt kinda bad I haven't
contributed much to a great community.

~~~
jimktrains2
There is definatly a lot of service you could provide even if the app is open
source. As GP said, hosting and infrastructure, but also better spam
filtering, taking not get and remove domains from spam lists (SPF, DomainKeys,
checking your domain and custom domains against spam lists and notifying the
owner, &c).

Also, a nice export to S3 or a tar.gz or something would be nice if you were a
private service.

~~~
jubari
I already backup all incoming mail as JSON on my Dropbox and plan to do the
same periodically as MBOX. I'm not entirely sure what to do with the JSON,
though. It's a "leftover" from my first prototype, where I stored ALL DATA on
Dropbox.

------
davedx
I've had similar thoughts to you, and it looks like a good start.

However, for me, one of the main reasons I'm dissatisfied with GMail these
days is the clutter and UX. Unfortunately your app looks too similar to GMail
for me to find it an improvement.

For me, the ideal GMail killer would be _simpler_ with more clearly labelled
user controls (i.e. less cryptic symbols and more standard UI buttons).

It would also have separate FORWARD and REPLY buttons. (Why on earth these
most used buttons are in a drop-down is beyond me).

Don't get me wrong - I think you're onto something - I just think you need to
be very careful which parts of GMail you copy, which you improve, and which
you axe completely.

If you could deliver a non-bloated, snappy GMail I would consider paying for
it. I would probably prefer a cloud solution though (like GMail) because I
hate setting up my own email.

Good luck with it!

~~~
bti
I had the same problems with GMail's UX until I (1) turned on button labels so
that buttons displayed the action word instead of symbol and (2) learned
GMail's keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard shortcuts were the biggest help
because now I barely ever need to take my hands off the keyboard to perform
standard actions.

------
old-gregg
Wow, very nice! Please reach out ot me: ev@mailgunhq.com I want to make sure
you're not paying too much for Mailgun. We love smart and ambitious customers.

~~~
farmdawgnation
I just want to say that things like this have instantly added to the respect I
have for Mailgun as a company. I know that's unrelated to the OP, and I may
get down voted for this, but I feel as though for as much as a complain about
an absence of good customer service - I would be remiss not to acknowledge it
when I see it.

Thank you.

~~~
jubari
I'm with you.

I have had a few questions/issues during development and the live-support was
simply brilliant. Meanwhile I switched 2 of my Rails apps from Sendgrid to
MailGun.

------
peteforde
Here are the first three questions:

1\. Is this something you host, or something I host? 2\. How are you handling
searching existing mail, tech wise? 3\. Does this start to slow down after you
have 10k emails in it?

If this supports custom domains and is plugged into decent spam filtering, I'd
take a closer look at it.

~~~
jubari
1) Considering the hosting: It's currently basically a SaaS.

I initially had a prototype, which used Dropbox-as-a-Database. Basically I
stored all emails and metadata (labels, etc) in a private dropbox in JSON-
format. It actually worked, but the performance was so bad, that I ditched
this approach.

2) PostgresSQL comes with a great full-text search. It's not perfect right
now, but it does it job.

3) Honestly, no idea :)

Spam filtering is done by MailGun. CustomDomains are a must, of course.

------
driverdan
It looks quite nice. I'd pay for an alternative to Gmail. Here are my
suggestions / needs.

* Shortcut keys, preferably the same as Gmail but customizable

* Custom domains

* Both IMAP and ActiveSync support

* Everything stored in an encrypted state, no back doors, privacy and security as core components of your service

* The same or more storage space as Gmail provides

------
overshard
This app looks incredible but I have absolutely no interest in using a Gmail
look alike without all the Gmail features aka android integration, amazing
spam blocking, etc, etc, etc (this list could be extensive and most other
people have already covered it).

You have the looks down but what you need to seriously focus on now is the
back-end and how you might be able to bring all the gmail features people love
along.

~~~
jubari
Absolutely. I'm quite happy with how it looks (thanks btw), but such a mission
critical app requires a well though-out backend. I'm not even sure that
hosting the data myself (on heroku postgresql) is even a viable option.

------
abcd_f
I'd pay in a tune of $100 for an installable version of this, but would never
consider using it as a service.

PS. Though you could probably license it to smaller, well-established email
service providers like pobox.com.

------
karatehammer
I would consider using the app and I would pay for it.

The primary motivator for me to change from Gmail is the privacy, security
issues. So long as you make for sure everything is encrypted and I only have
the key to unlocking that, I would switch in a heartbeat.

------
mootothemax
Arguably the one thing missing from Gmail right now is the ability to pick up
the phone and speak to someone when something isn't working.

If you can offer that level of support at the same time, I can't see any
reason for a company not to give you money.

Oh, and don't be discouraged by the people saying "no, never!" You can use
third parties for handling spam, and it'll be easy enough to get mail onto
peoples' phones via IMAP or Exchange. The thing to remember is that plenty of
techies will say "no" because they see email as a free service. Regular
consumers - and companies in particular - will be much more open to giving you
money.

~~~
jubari
Thanks for the kind words.

Actually: Most of the points you raise have been solved. MailGun has (as far
as i can tell after a week of usage) a great spam filter and supports IMAP.

To be honest: I wouldn't even consider building the email infrastructure part
myself.

~~~
mootothemax
_To be honest: I wouldn't even consider building the email infrastructure part
myself._

Good plan, especially when there's no good reason to do so.

In all honesty, I didn't go over the technical details you provided in any
detail; I just got a bit upset reading the number of "I wouldn't pay for
that!"-type responses.

The thing is, I've previously seen a lot of people here claim that there's no
money in time tracking tools, or any other market when, plainly, these markets
_do_ make a large amount of money. I want to emphasize that any pricing advice
here should be taken with a pinch of salt. And when it comes to people who
would never pay for a given service, discarded entirely ;)

------
heavymark
To me, this looks like a reskinned Gmail. If it were that, then yes I would
use it as it's an improvement over the current layout, albeit marginal.
However, there are no ads which Gmail needs and imagine if Gmail didn't need
adds they would use their real estate more wisely as in your design.

I use Chrome, which allows you to add styles to custom.css to override the
look of any website. As such I'm able to add my own styles to customize the
look of Gmail to look cleaner, hide ads and customize like in your mockup. If
you package the new look as a Browser Plugin to restyle Gmail, then yes I
would use it, but now I would not pay for it.

If you are attempting to recreate gmail itself, then also no I would never use
it. Because once again this only offers an improvement in design. Gmail is
great compared because of Google. Aka, best spam prevention, far better than
Apple, Yahoo and Outlook and scaleability and up-time. There is simply no way
you can compete with the resources Google has. Which is why even Apple who has
incredible resources and Money and amazing design sense still can't compete
with Gmail's infrastructure and servers.

There is a market for retheming however, whether in the web interface or
through Apps such as with Sparrow.

So in reality stick with theming Gmail and be aware that Gmail can change
their look at any time and that you won't get any direct money out of it but
will get your name out there. Good luck.

------
welker
I think people are leaving google because of privacy concerns. Providing a new
service does not change anything from the privacy perspective.

Privacy concerned people want to host their own mail server.

Cheers, Jan

------
hosay123
I'd consider paying for a clone of Gmail classic, but their new UI sucks IMHO.
Another compelling feature I'm looking for is the ability to self-host. It's
clear that many governments and cloud service providers don't consider hosted
data "really all that private", despite best intentions. It only takes a
single national security letter to remind us why it's nicer to have our data
reposed locally.

~~~
jubari
Right, I totally understand that the people who leave Gmail for privacy
concerns, most likely would host their own mail.

------
sspiff
This looks really well done, but as a consumer I wouldn't trust a small-timer
(no offense) with something as ubiquitous as my email.

As a company looking to self-host, however, your product looks very appealing,
but then your battling other players than just GMail. I think in the corporate
sector, it would be very hard to dislodge Outlook, which is a shame really.

~~~
jubari
This is actually my biggest concern, so no offense taken:

Despite Google's privacy policy and ad behaviour (yadda yadda), they ARE still
a trustworthy company, regarding uptime , backups and everything technical.
Though I remember them losing quite a few accounts about a year back. But
still, your point is very valid. Why would anyone trust a small company (or
even single hacker) to maintain your precious emails.

~~~
sspiff
I think some of the things that could help are:

* A very straightforward exit strategy: make it easy for users to at least extract their mail from your service, if they host it on your servers, and want to have an offline backup.

* Offer an option to license for self-hosting: hosting their own email could take away their fear of uncontrollable downtime.

------
heliostatic
I do pay $40/year for Fastmail because I like having a service I pay for that
is separate from anything Google offers. I still use Gmail day to day, but the
new Fastmail interface is pretty damn good.

I would definitely pay for a premium email service, but design alone wouldn't
be enough for me. The key factor in my decision was trust/reliability.

------
AdamGibbins
The reason I'm using GMail (as opposed to FastMail) is primarily their
terrific integration with Android. The excellent GMail app, the contact and
calendaring syncing.

I'd really love to use Fastmail, but I see no way I could sync my contacts in
a seamless way.

I can't see how your solution would solve this, so no, I would not use.

------
cmer
I personally would use it on top of something reliable like Fastmail. I mainly
use Gmail over IMAP and it's painful slow and glitchy.

If what you're building could give me a great UI on top of Fastmail for when I
want to use the web, and access to some kind of self-hosted archive, I'd
probably go for it.

~~~
jubari
I pointed out further down, that my initial prototype ran completely on
Dropbox. Right now, I backup all incoming mail instantly to Dropbox in JSON
format for backup purposes.

I might want to look into a "on top of X"-solution. Thanks.

------
ommunist
If you can give a trial, and nice transition option, as well as backup option
to mbox format, I'd pay around the same rackspace is asking for managed email.
[Added on a second thought]: I'd also consider to pay a license fee for a
domain or several domains for client websites.

------
greenwalls
Very cool idea. I'd like to use the app but my main concern is spam blocking.
Maybe you can partner with someone like Cloudmark? I think Cloudmark has an
API or something you can use to block spam effectively.

------
nmcfarl
Clickable: <http://i.imgur.com/UDz2y.png>

Also: Turbolinks: <https://github.com/rails/turbolinks>

------
aniketpant
Yes. I would surely love to use this as an email client if it works well with
my Google Apps account.

And I would definitely be willing to pay a nominal amount for a year long
license or a lifetime license.

What I like about your app -

* UI

* Well thought-out panels

* Utilization of white space

What you can possibly work on -

This is one feature that is not there on GMail and I really really crave for
it. Sometime I feel the need to create a _note for myself_ for a specific
email I have received. But I can't do that. It would be a great addition to
the Mail App.

------
kevinSuttle
Kudos on making a slick looking product. I'd say that if your UI was less like
GMail, I'd consider using it. If it was just that, a UI for _any_ web mail
from any domain, like a Mail.app for the web, I'd definitely pay for it.

And to anyone who says they use Gmail for Security: They're an advertising
company who openly mines and sells your personal data. Exactly _how_ is that
safe?

Keep on working man. Doing good.

------
morisy
I'd use it, and pay for it, if you gave me direct and private access to my
data, hosted on a third-party. Control and portability are a huge concern of
mine, and one of the reasons I'm terrified about keeping my data life with
Google where I can get locked out with zero notice.

THe design looks great, and I'd love to see a host that helped me negotiate
ways to protect my privacy and portability.

------
bgnm2000
The UI looks good - but its not even remotely intuitive.

I had to read your entire post to figure out what the right side bar is. Its
very difficult to just focus on the main content (which is what the user
should actually care about). Also the title seems disjointed and un-connect
from the email, I had difficult determining if they were related, or if the
title was some other kind of reminder.

------
deleted_account
Are you kidding me? A "Show HN" to an imgur link of a photoshopped UI? Be
honest, this is thinly (poorly) veiled ad for New Relic.

~~~
jubari
It's an actual app I've been using for a week now. Apart from the local dev
database (wouldn't want to show my actual incoming emails), that's how it
looks right now in my browser.

I chose the NewRelic newsletter because it somewhat fit the color scheme. So
there's that...

------
oldgregg
Looks good. I would love to see this as a Rails engine so I can just drop in a
messaging system for users of my existing apps.

------
hchinchilla
I would use it if I could host it on my own server and run it on top of Gmail
using IMAP and Postgres as a cache.

I could pay 30-50$ for it, but I think this would be even more awesome as an
OpenSource solution, your product rocks compared to other alternatives as
SquirrelMail, and you can always offer a hosted plan as a way to make money
from it.

------
swastik
I would definitely try it out if something can match Google's spam filters and
search.

From a first look, I like the UI however, in my opinion, there's way too much
white and it's not intuitive enough. I'd definitely add a little bit of
colour, but it looks like a very good start.

You have nailed the visual appeal though. Great job on that!

------
SeppoErviala
You should disable images in mails by default (the way gmail does it) or at
least add an option for disabling them. Images are usually used to track if
and how many times you read the mail.

You're also missing the chat.

As for your question. I would not consider switching from gmail or paying
money for an email client.

------
MojoJolo
I will use it because of the UI (but for free). I love the simplicity. I'm
also happy that you are using your own product. It's a good start that you
satisfy needs with it.

If it has a very special feature, or will revolutionized the email, I'm sold!
And I might pay for a subscription.

------
canttestthis
How did you make the layout? Graphics design is my biggest weakness, all my
webapps look like the design is made in Paint. And yours is so clean, the
fonts are good, everything looks so professional.

~~~
jubari
Hey thanks.

I make extensive use of <http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/> (a godsend for
hackers), though I use it more as a style-guide and rebuild most parts myself.

and for icons:

<http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome/>

The font is "Open Sans": <http://www.google.com/webfonts>

The ui/ux evolved in this app, which means I started with the bare minimum
requirements (it looked bad. really bad) and continually improved the "look &
feel" as needed. No photoshop involved.

It's still not finished, but it has come a long way :)

------
tUrG0n
Open source it. There is more value in it. You'll attract devs who want to use
it and give back to it.

Is that you btw: <https://github.com/jubari> :)

------
jubari
As a quick intermission:

This is a GREAT discussion regarding the state of webmail. Although my app
clearly isn't "there yet" (regarding going public), I'm having a great time
reading your comments.

------
rileyt
This interface looks really good, but as previously stated, there are a lot of
behind the scenes features (security, spam filter and keyboard shortcuts) that
keep me with gmail.

------
webbruce
This is awesome! Forget the haters and keep building it. I don't think I would
pay more than $5/mo but I like the direction you're going.

------
bdiallo
Hi,

I haven't seen all of your user interface to give my opinion, but I know that
Sparrow (sparrowmailapp.com) had a nice one. They've even been bought by
Google.

My 2 cents

------
eoy
I'd like it if it was turned into as a drop-in webmail solution, I haven't
seen any on the market that look even remotely as good.

------
zlotty
I have no read on market size, but it seems like there are apps that would
benefit from having a fully-baked, built-in email tool.

------
cmelbye
This sounds interesting. I'd have to play with a working demo to know if its
something I'd use and pay for, I'd love to see that.

------
malcolmmcc
I'd definitely at least try it out. I don't have a lot of bones to pick with
gmail but an awesome UI can often convert me.

------
eoy
I'd rather like it into as a drop-in webmail solution, I haven't seen any on
the market that look even remotely as good.

------
general_failure
I would use this if you gave me a product that I can use to run my own mail
(and not a service)

------
testimoney
No, I would not pay for a different design and a few extra features of
gmail...

------
david927
Put an email in your profile, so that people can reach out to you.

~~~
jubari
Done. I've only been lurking & upvoting until now, so thanks for the heads up.

------
gauravvgat
It is a nice attempt, but I wouldn't pay for it. Used to gmail :p

~~~
jubari
Fair enough :)

------
nachteilig
Nice design, but I don't see myself paying for it.

------
maverik22
A lot of people here seem to like gmail.

Well gmail sucks. Its slow, buggy, now has a bad user interface and is
generally not what it used to be.

It was awesome when it was first released, but there is better now,much
better.

We now have outlook.com(the new hotmail) which is just awesome in every way.

And we have fastmail which I don't use, but the new ui is really
groundbreaking.

I left gmail the day outlook was released; funny thing is I didnt even realize
how much gmail sucked until I moved.

~~~
hnriot
This reads like a bot trying to pass a Turing test? The grammatical structure
is so robotic. Obviously also a total pile of stinking anecdotal nonsense.

You switched to Outlook, well, good for you. Something tells you you wouldn't
recognize a good from bad ui if it bit you on your SCSI cable.

------
vishalsankhla
I like it, I think people will adopt it if it was a Chrome plugin that
converted Gmail into this UI. Their infrastructure and your skin. You could
charge for some features for power users that Gmail does not have.

~~~
jubari
I like your idea as it would eliminate a few of my "bottlenecks". I will check
out if a chrome plugin might just do that, OR even see how
<http://www.streak.com/> accomplished their goals. Haven't looked into that,
yet.

------
Goranek
Awesome UI, but I wouldn't pay for it. Email is and should be free

~~~
codva
Gmail isn't free. You are paying with data about yourself, your habits, your
medical conditions, your employment, etc.

~~~
tzumby
How about paying a one time license fee and install the app on your own
server/get your own Mailgun account etc. That way you have more control over
your data.

