
Show HN: Turn an email to a web page - mailpin
http://mailp.in/c8cN1BEb
======
mike-cardwell
So I tested this with
[https://emailprivacytester.com/](https://emailprivacytester.com/). I didn't
get an automated response with a link. However, I noticed that somebody had
viewed the email using an iPhone. So I scanned my logs to grab the referer
from the callbacks and it was:

[http://mailp.in/dashboard/reply/*ID*](http://mailp.in/dashboard/reply/*ID*)

Where I replaced the actual id with " _ID_ ". So I copied the ID from that
referrer and visited:

[http://mailp.in/*ID*](http://mailp.in/*ID*)

It seems you don't strip out quite a lot of stuff, including script tags and
meta refresh tags.

If you want to contact me about any of this, my details are at
[https://grepular.com/#contact](https://grepular.com/#contact) (I am the
author of [https://emailprivacytester.com/](https://emailprivacytester.com/)
if you hadn't guessed)

~~~
mailpin
Thanks for your testing! We have fixed the script / meta tag strip problem. We
keep improving our code base, making sure emails are rendered correctly on web
pages. We won't use user data for anything else.

------
daviding
Nicely done. Feedback:

\- Where's your privacy policy detailed? With the nature of the service
(gathering email addresses etc) you could head-off lots of questions with
that.

\- A default serif font drags anything down. For me personally I'd prefer
another font.

\- You sensibly replace emails, but other links like 'unsubscribe' remain
intact, which could be problematic (don't worry, you'll still get your costco
emails although it can sometimes lead to real emails/names).

\- I guess grouping and parsing is the next step, i.e. process them and
provide features around them a la tripit. Is that the direction you might take
it?

~~~
mailpin
Thanks for your feedback!

"Where's your privacy policy detailed? With the nature of the service
(gathering email addresses etc) you could head-off lots of questions with
that."

We haven't worked out a formal privacy policy ... but of course, user privacy
is our top priority! We won't use user emails for anything else. In fact, from
the post page, you can't find your email address.

"A default serif font drags anything down. For me personally I'd prefer
another font."

We are still improving on the UI ... We would appreciate if you tell us your
preferred font :)

"You sensibly replace emails, but other links like 'unsubscribe' remain
intact, which could be problematic (don't worry, you'll still get your costco
emails although it can sometimes lead to real emails/names)"

We also take care of unsubscribe part if the unsubscribe url contains your
email address.

"I guess grouping and parsing is the next step, i.e. process them and provide
features around them a la tripit. Is that the direction you might take it?"

Definitely there are many possibilities to explore from what we have right
now. We'd like to hear users comments / critiques / suggestions first.

~~~
daviding
Just to clarify what I meant by the 'unsubscribe' part, many newsletters (like
your Costco example from the OP) contain an unsubscribe link without an email
but with a unique id in the href. When clicking this you often get to a page
that then lets you unsubscribe and sometimes also see who the address was
subscribed too, which defeats the purpose. I'm not sure what would be the
ideal solution, but you could hit it with a hammer and remove all hrefs from
the content in the email DOM, or perhaps parse explicitly for unsubscribe
links (harder, as they vary, a bit of NLP etc). Alternatively, just consider
the page as 'not for hostiles', in that the user should only share with people
who wouldn't hunt for mischief in the first place.

For next steps and parsing, it really depends on if you want to store a user
graph your end, i.e. do you want to also initiate the 'share' and know who is
looking at the link? If you do then the features go in one direction
(collaboration, conversations, actionable stuff) but if you don't want that
then it's sort of a different animal (formatting, i.e. galleries, content
suggestions and the like).

For a font, Helvetica Neue or anything in that family is all the rage ;)

~~~
mailpin
Thank for your insightful feedback! It's really really helpful! We'll think
through it :)

------
bambax
Good! I created a similar thing last year when Posterous died; it sill exists
and although it never got any traction I still use it for my blog; it's called
urgeous.com and has an API that lets users use it as a service (posts can be
displayed from your own domain while being hosted by Urgeous).

Your positionning is certainly superior though, because 'mail2web' is simpler
and more fun than 'yet another blogging platform that uses email'...

I never got around to turning attachments on because I was afraid of the
hosting costs; how do you plan on dealing with those?

~~~
mailpin
Thanks for your support!

"I never got around to turning attachments on because I was afraid of the
hosting costs; how do you plan on dealing with those?"

As long as users don't delete their posts, we keep them (including
attachments) there. If we are running out of storage space, we can add more
machines :)

~~~
jon2512chua
Are you guarding against malicious users who send automated emails containing
large attachments?

~~~
hngiszmo
… like sharing the latest block busters …

------
stevekemp
I'd be curious what your approach is to handling porn submissions, be they
legal or not? (i.e. I don't see anything about reporting illegal images, like
most gallery-hosting sites have.)

Also how will you handle spam? Just post it regardless unless or until volume
becomes excessive?

------
zavi
This is great. One use case: my grandma who struggled to learn how to use
email can now make websites.

~~~
mailpin
Thanks! Our goal is to keep it simple. It's just like many things in life,
it's always harder to decide what not to do than deciding what to do.

------
_asciiker_
Very good idea, I'll use it. just a heads up though.

Abusers will abuse, and it seems that you are only going to consider
restrictions and security overall after it happens.

Set some alerts so you at least get a warning before the server goes down.

~~~
mailpin
Thanks! Will do!

------
Theodores
_" This picture shows how we created this page:"_

(Checks picture...)

Picture contains:

 _" This picture shows how we created this page:"_

Picture of picture contains...

...there it breaks. But you were on to something recursive for a while.

~~~
chrislusf
haha, interesting..., chicken and egg problem.

------
Flolagale
Nice! We've been working on a similar project
[http://jokund.com](http://jokund.com) You just send an email and any Cc'ed
people is subscribed to your blog. Would love some feedback. By the way, we
also open sourced an npm module to handle inbound emails and post them to a
webhook of your choice
[https://github.com/Flolagale/mailin](https://github.com/Flolagale/mailin)

~~~
shutton
Looks really good, very nice design.

~~~
Flolagale
Thanks! Feel free to use it and share any other comments or remarks!

------
mooreds
Awesome! I blogged about people sending emails with content that didn't have
an associated URL recently (and how that pained my heart):
[http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1441](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1441)

And mailp.in solves that issue perfectly. If someone sends you an email that
is chock full of content that should be shared, just mailpin it.

One question: how long are the URL and the content preserved?

~~~
mailpin
Thanks!

"One question: how long are the URL and the content preserved?"

You decide. If you don't delete it yourself, it'll be there forever. And it's
private. You decide who to share with. You decide whether to keep it or not.

We will commit to improving mailpin, making it a robust and useful service.

------
bdirgo
I know not logging in is the basic premise of your website, but I'd also like
to be able to read more than just the one post I found written by that author.
Rather than search his tweets, and facebook posts, and any emails he's ever
sent me for a mailp.in link.

Is there a way you can have sub-domains such as [username].mailp.in/[post
address]

Perhaps the username is a hash of the email address to keep the privacy of the
user. Not a deal-breaker but it'd be nice.

------
techsupporter
One request: PLEASE don't use highlighting-pops-up-text add-ins. They
immediately get blocked on my end and are an annoying user experience.

~~~
joekrill
This is a HUGE pet-peeve of mine because I have a habit of selecting text
while I'm reading. And I'm definitely not alone. I don't understand why sites
continue to do this.

~~~
mailpin
Your voice is heard. We've removed the highlighting plugin. Sorry for your
inconvenience.

------
nathancahill
Thread.is tried to do this a couple years ago. Gone now. Not sure there's a
good use case for it.

Archive:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20121118205935/https://beta.threa...](http://web.archive.org/web/20121118205935/https://beta.thread.is/)

Twitter: [https://twitter.com/threadhq](https://twitter.com/threadhq)

~~~
prawn
I used Posterous a fair bit to do blogging by email when abroad. Attach photos
from my phone and it auto-created a gallery. Saved a lot of time.

~~~
paulgb
Ditto. The best part was that offline "just worked": I could compose the post
in GMail and it would send once I had a signal.

------
ssivark
Cool stuff! :-)

Feedback:

"The created web page is private to you."

If I understand the system correctly, isn't that misleading? Once you share
the link with someone, they could share it with the whole world. I.e. you
share full control with every person you share the link with. Kinda like the
privacy you get with email (no more) so maybe @mailpin could correct the
description to reflect that.

~~~
funkyy
Imgur says exactly the same - your Images are private and its up to you if
share them. I cannot imagine situation where someone shares a link and expect
the content to be private any more...

------
teemonasty
It must be so fun to look at the breakdown of the company or university email
addresses that you are getting emails from

------
roryhughes
It would be handy if you could attach a js or css file to the email which
would be used in the published page.

~~~
gnicholas
This is an excellent idea—I've received many requests from people who want to
be able to use the BeeLine Reader browser plugins to read their email. This
would accomplish that goal. Even without a JS/CSS helper, this is still really
awesome because people can use this tool in combination with our browser
plugins. Please contact me (nick@BeeLineReader.com) if you end up allowing
JS/CSS helpers so that we can work with you to make ours compatible. Thanks
again for this awesome product!

~~~
umurkontaci
I'm sorry, you have written a very similar message to the comments section of
the given link. It smells spam.

~~~
Kiro
What do you mean? Yes, he posted another message endorsing mailp.in in the
comments and here he's reaching out for a collaboration. I don't see why it
would be spam just because he's mentioning his product.

~~~
umurkontaci
Seems like I am getting downvoted for some reason. Let me clarify a bit of
things here. The product he is talking about is a browser plugin, which is
something that claims that speeds up reading by coloring the sentences.

This has no relation whatsoever with the OP's product. It is saying, "Hey
great stuff! Check out my unrelated product in the link, maybe we can
collaborate."

I doesn't smell spam; it is spam.

~~~
Kiro
I don't agree. He purposed how they could collaborate. Bee Line Reader is a
great tool which a lot of people on HN use and not something random. I
definitely see how it could be used with mailp.in.

------
INTPenis
Does anyone know which library this uses to convert mails to HTML?

I'm wondering because I need something for a devops project that can show spam
inline in a webpage. Obviously this is dangerous because it could spread
malware so what could mailp.in be using to avoid spreading malware like this?

------
ChrisNorstrom
Sweet! Thank you. I just used your service apply for PIEPDX Startup Incubator
just a few seconds ago. I needed a quick way to create an online photo gallery
and just emailed the pics to p@mailp.in. Private by default, no account
needed, and easier than min.us

------
stanmancan
This is a neat idea. It would be cool to somehow allow you to add a list of
recipients that should receive the link once it's pinned, but I guess that
takes away from the simplicity of it.

~~~
hngiszmo
like if you receive a mail that was not only to p@mailp.in, you could send the
generated link to those people in CC.

I'm not sure what to use this for though. Who would look at the website when
it just contains what was in the mail a minute ago anyway?

------
tlogan
Can you add so that people can append their emails / attachments to the
existing page? Even SMS messages? You can add twitter message to it latter
on...

------
sudheendrach
This is bad
[https://www.google.co.in/search?q=site%3Amailp.in](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=site%3Amailp.in)

~~~
mailpin
Thanks for pointing this out. All these google indexes are gone.

------
scoj
I like the idea. I can't think of a specific use-case for me yet, but email
integrated apps are often pretty cool and make for easier adoption.

~~~
mailpin
We (as developers of mailpin) use the services ourselves:

1\. Ad hoc image album. Put a bunch of images as attachments in an email and
send to p@mailp.in to create a simple page.

2\. Forward company receipts to p@mailp.in and create a page, and share the
link in coworkers ... (this sounds weird ... but it works well for us ...)

3\. Forward marketing spams to create page, and publicly share such pages to
denounce those spammers :)

4\. Forward paper acceptance latters or other letters to create pages, and
share them to show off -- vanity!

5\. Ad hoc blogging ... Don't want to have an account, don't want people to
follow me. But occasionally, we still want to say something and share to
Friends that we really trust.

6\. Create a playlist of youtube videos. Put a bunch of youtube links and send
to p@mailp.in. A page with embedded videos will be created. We don't have
youtube accounts ... sorry ... but still want to share a bunch of videos with
friends ...

7\. Tweet more than 140 characters. Create a page with short url, and tweet!

There would be more use cases. The point is, we want something dead simple. No
registration, no app (well, email client is still needed ...), and private.

~~~
scoj
Thanks for the update of what went through your minds. Keep track of how
customers use it. You will likely be surprised by what actually is done with
it.

------
yitchelle
Great Idea. Can you add a time limit functions on the generated webpage? The
generated webpage will be deleted after x number of days.

------
bussiere
Do you know if google index your pages ? and how it can find all the pages or
links ?

~~~
mailpin
If you put your link to public places like hacker news, then google will find
it.

If you simply create a post page and keep it to yourself or share in a closed
social network (e.g., IM, facebook private group ...) that cannot be indexed
by google, then you are good.

That said, you decide to what degree you want to share your page.

~~~
nickconfer
This is not correct. With Google now having Chrome and other tools, there are
many ways for Google to find out a URL exists.

You may want to send a follow up email with a quick link for the user to add a
noindex meta tag to the page, or even password protect it.

~~~
mailpin
Thanks!

We just did a release to address this problem. Now, <meta name="robots"
content="noindex"> is added for each single page.

------
bussiere
Email is for me a convenient way to pass data. And client are more easy to
manage or interact with emails.

And one of the best is that you can keep your data with emails an
decentralised it.

Very nice works, the idea is pleasant i'am thinking on a private open source
network. Would you mind if i use your idea ?

~~~
bussiere
I am thinking that it could be a way to make a extended kind of mailing list.

A maling list where you can publish things more easily ....

~~~
bussiere
And again what please me is tahat oy decentralised the things why not make
comment for a post with emails too ?

Did you read this ?
[http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf](http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf)

------
bgroins
Just a heads up, you left the unsubscribe active in the sample Costo email.

~~~
gphilip
And the email address to which Costco sent the email is also visible.

------
melvinmt
Cool hidden feature: it obfuscates any email address mentioned in the post.

~~~
hngiszmo
slippery slope. if it obfuscates this, it implies it is meant for certain
types of sharing that would also other things to get obfuscated.

~~~
pjc50
I'm not clear what you mean, could you explain?

------
jqm
"You email client is your editor"

Should be "Your email client...."?

------
bussiere
Do you plan to implement tweeter card format for the post ?

~~~
mailpin
Yes, we do.

------
milkers
I want to see the mailp.inception on the image attached!

------
hashbanged
What are the restrictions on attachment sizes?

~~~
mailpin
For now, we really don't have any restriction on attachment size. We accpect
whatever you are allowed to send for your email account.

But definitely we have alerts and closely monitor to prevent something bad
happens.

------
rpgmaker
This passed the instapaper test, thanks!

------
socrates1998
This is really cool!

