Shortwave

Productivity

email client

SHOW HN2022

224points
123comments
#237of 2,570 in 2022
Top 10%of 2022 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

11 positive, 35 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 30 critical, out of 79 comments about the project. Thread score -0.27.

Idea: 3 for, 12 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 7 againstExecution: 1 for, 4 againstPricing: 0 for, 3 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clean, Inbox-like design and fast interface

    From 3 comments
    • I've been using it for 5 minutes. It's like Google Inbox was brought back from the dead and I mean that in the best possible way. <3 Since we're pitching feature requests, dark…
      lytedev on HN
    • Love email apps! Congrats. Honestly, it will be really hard get me to leave Front. I have never used a more productive app for my personal workflow - especially with a team. This…
      TIPSIO on HN
    • I am trying this out and I like the grouping and 'marking is done' feature. To be honest, you can't do much worse than the default gmail interface and ui, there is so much low…
      mosselman on HN
  • Bundles grouping feature is useful

    From 2 comments
    • Love email apps! Congrats. Honestly, it will be really hard get me to leave Front. I have never used a more productive app for my personal workflow - especially with a team. This…
      TIPSIO on HN
    • I dearly hope you take some ideas from Hey, especially multiple inboxes with individualized behavior. I recently set my Gmail up to work as closely to this as can be achieved and…
      tern on HN

Objections

  • Works only with Gmail, not other providers

    From 3 comments
    • I note the tagline says "Enjoy your inbox". This is liable to create the impression the service is platform-neutral, but it is not. It relies solely on the Gmail API? I don't use…
      YPPH on HN
    • This is gmail only, yes? Should that not be reflected in the title?
      bradknowles on HN
    • It seems like an absolutely critical flaw to build a business entirely dependent on another company's proprietary service, which also is technically a competitor.
      ocdtrekkie on HN
  • Privacy concerns about syncing email to servers

    From 2 comments
    • > We collect information that alone or in combination with other information in our possession could be used to identify you (“Personal Data”) as follows: > Email Data: we…
      rpadovani on HN
    • The product looks great. One question: does it sync everything to shortwave servers? If I download the desktop app, will everything still be synced to the servers? I'd be fine…
      owaislone on HN
  • Paid price too high for personal use

    From 2 comments
    • I am one of those Google Inbox refugees and this definitely piques my interest. The pricing does not really make sense for personal user ($9/mo for a email client). Could you…
      etcet on HN
    • This looks great, congrats - it’s great to see innovation and creativity in the email space. I’ve just got through my first week with Superhuman, which I’ve found really…
      rabscuttler on HN
  • Lacks IMAP support and local client option

    From 2 comments
    • I'll add in a vote for IMAP support. I am anti-Google in almost all regards. Currently I use FastMail as my email provider, and Mail.app as my client. I pay for FastMail, and…
      josephwegner on HN
    • I'm in the process of leaving Google ... I'd love desktop and mobile clients that work with my email servers via IMAP and SMTP.
      smoyer on HN

Requests

  • IMAP or other provider support

    From 3 comments
    • I'll add in a vote for IMAP support. I am anti-Google in almost all regards. Currently I use FastMail as my email provider, and Mail.app as my client. I pay for FastMail, and…
      josephwegner on HN
    • Always great to see people innovating on email clients, everyone is different and would have they own best way to manage their email for themselves. So any new option is always…
      samwillis on HN
    • I'm in the process of leaving Google ... I'd love desktop and mobile clients that work with my email servers via IMAP and SMTP.
      smoyer on HN
  • Dark mode

    From 1 comment
    • I've been using it for 5 minutes. It's like Google Inbox was brought back from the dead and I mean that in the best possible way. <3 Since we're pitching feature requests, dark…
      lytedev on HN
  • Delete button

    From 1 comment
  • Multi-account support

    From 1 comment

Questions

  • How does it differ from Superhuman and Hey

    From 2 comments
    • This looks great, congrats - it’s great to see innovation and creativity in the email space. I’ve just got through my first week with Superhuman, which I’ve found really…
      rabscuttler on HN
    • By looking at the screenshot, I can see that it's more complex than Hey, which is the service I'm currently using and am very happy with. I hope this data point helps, somehow.…
      haolez on HN
  • Does all mail sync to Shortwave servers

    From 1 comment
    • The product looks great. One question: does it sync everything to shortwave servers? If I download the desktop app, will everything still be synced to the servers? I'd be fine…
      owaislone on HN
  • Support for PGP or personal certificates

    From 1 comment
    • Congratulations on the release!!! Do you support/plan to support personal certificates or PGP somehow? It will be fantastic to bring those functionalities to the mainstream.
      mcs_ on HN

Alternatives named

  • Superhuman

    From 1 comment
    • This looks great, congrats - it’s great to see innovation and creativity in the email space. I’ve just got through my first week with Superhuman, which I’ve found really…
      rabscuttler on HN
  • Hey

    From 2 comments
    • This looks great. Wish you all the best. I moved on to Hey, which took a page from you all in respect to bundles/views, but I did make the Google Inbox sun my cover art. :)…
      1123581321 on HN
    • By looking at the screenshot, I can see that it's more complex than Hey, which is the service I'm currently using and am very happy with. I hope this data point helps, somehow.…
      haolez on HN
  • Mailspring

    From 1 comment
    • There is mailspring which I have been using for some time - it has a nice modern interface which imho is much better than thunderbird as well as most of the web interfaces of…
      lf-non on HN
  • Front

    From 1 comment
    • Love email apps! Congrats. Honestly, it will be really hard get me to leave Front. I have never used a more productive app for my personal workflow - especially with a team. This…
      TIPSIO on HN
  • FastMail

    From 1 comment
    • I'll add in a vote for IMAP support. I am anti-Google in almost all regards. Currently I use FastMail as my email provider, and Mail.app as my client. I pay for FastMail, and…
      josephwegner on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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