GMail Meets the Desktop [Update]
The people that follow my personal tech-blog might already know about Mailplane, but I thought it was time to spread the word about Mailplane to a more mature crowd. Mailplane is a Mac OS X application that has Google Mail (Gmail) meet the desktop. It combines the power of a conventional desktop application (like Mail.app) with the flexibility and quality of an online email client.
Explaining the origin of the idea is best let to Ruben Bakker, the creator of the application:
“I really love Gmail. It is superior to Outlook and MS Exchange I experience at work: The Outlook Webclient is a joke, I get more spam than normal messages and server space is so limited I constantly must delete messages” …. “But I missed quite a few features that Mail.app and other traditional mail clients offer. Gmail with its browser interface just didn’t reach my desktop. For example uploading an attachment involved too many steps: Exporting the image from iPhoto, somehow resizing the picture and then attaching it by using the ‘Choose file’ button.”
So what does Mailplane really offer? For me the features and advantages are simple:
- Gmail in it’s own application, instead of hanging around in my Safari, in a tab that I never close.
- Integration with iPhoto, making it possible to simply email a photo from iPhoto, just as you would do with Mail.app. No templates though, so no nice photo emails as you can send from Mail.app.
- Drag and drop attachments. Just drag and drop any file from your desktop straight into Mailplane as an attachment. Way easier than the web browser method. No support for folders though (would be nice to have it auto-zip folders (especially .app folders).
Mailplane runs on Tiger (no Leopard support yet as I tested yesterday) and even already supports iPhoto ‘08. It currently comes in multiple languages, with a Dutch version being added soon. I took the honor of localizing this app to Dutch, making this my first localization project. I hope it’s not too bad as my Dutch has degraded since my move to the UK.
For now it is free, but there are plans to license the application. I am hoping this price will stay low as I don’t see many people want to pay for something that is normally free. The current version is at 1.51 and is clearly still in Beta, including some bugs and lots of features to be added. That said I expect that Ruben will make future revisions of this app more and more interesting for people who want to use Gmail as a desktop app.
If you want an invite for the Beta, than drop me an email with your details on cbetta[at]gmail.com.
Update: Ruben just announced version 1.51 which comes in 6 more languages, including Dutch.
Reinier http://zwitserloot.com
September 3rd, 2007But does it make my mail available and searchable offline?
That’s the ONLY reason I pop my gmail into Mail.app.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
September 3rd, 2007No it doesn’t. I think we will have to wait for some cool apps from Google themselves to do that.
tijs http://tijs.org/
September 4th, 2007So what do you win over simply reading and sending gmail using Mail.app? This has worked flawlessly for me for years and insted of being locked into gmail and i can use gmail, pop accounts, smtp and whatnot in the one (searchable) app.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
September 4th, 2007Basically you get some of the features that GMail has and Mail.app doesn’t, I personally love Gmail (and therefore hate Mail.app) because it has labels, online spam protection, and conversation view. Espescially the last issue really didn’t make me want to go back to Mail.app as it simply doesn’t present long conversations in a simple matter.
But honestly, it is every person for himself. I can think of a whole lot of people that would be happy enough with either Gmail or Mail.app, but I personally found this mix to be very interesting, bringing me best of both worlds.
Reinier http://zwitserloot.com
September 4th, 2007You can coaxe Mail.app to do convo view (select ALL folders on the left, then make sure threaded view is enabled, and there you have it!
Another reason to use gmail itself instead of popping into Mail.app is that reading stuff in Mail.app won’t mark anything in gmail as ‘read’ - you can’t interact in any way with those emails you are popping.
With a notebook I virtually never find myself using the gmail site, so Mail.app works for me. But if this gmail.app thing adds offline availability and searching, I’m there.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
September 4th, 2007I know that trick in Mail.app, but honestly: it does not give conversation view. Conversation view is all about he-said, she-said, he-replied. It automatically removes parts of an email that I already read, and therefore makes it very easily readable.
tijs http://tijs.org/
September 4th, 2007yeah that is a nice gmail feature. the threaded mode in mail.app is mostly useless. still doesn’t fit in my workflow though, but like you say to each it’s own. for spam i use the excellent spamsieve btw, which (according to it’s own stats) has been 99.1% correct.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
September 5th, 2007@tijs: so what is your total solution? what email client and what mail provider?
tijs http://tijs.org/
September 12th, 2007Mail.app and several email accounts; both gmail and mixed smtp and pop accounts for each of my online ‘personas’ if you will. The smtp and pop accounts are hosted by the hosting companies for each of these company and personal projects (Mainly Joyent hosting). Address Book serves as the main storage for contacts, synced to my nokia mobile and to gmail every once in a while. It’s not exactly high tech but i have one location where all my mail comes in which serves me well for search and backup purposes and all my accounts have an online interface, gmail of course but the other accounts each have web interfaces too. Since i always carry a laptop i hardly ever use those though.
I might switch to something ‘exchange like’ for my business mail when i start reading mail on my phone but i’m dragging my feet on this one as i think it will have a mostly negative influence on my social life