Kagi Mail: Suggestions Based on My Personal Email Experience

kirkmc

I didn't read the entire thread, but I did read what @Vlad said about email being one of the core features of Kagi. As for me, using email since 1994 and registering my first domain in 1995, I've been through the ringer with different email services, as well as self-hosting email with providers who hosted my domains.

For the past few years, I've been using Runbox, which provides a good alternative to other email services. It would take a lot to get me to change - especially because email is essential for my work as a freelancer, and switching email providers can be problematic - but I understand the importance of getting people to understand that Gmail is shit, and any free email is probably shit (exception for Apple, since they don't use ads, collect data, etc.)

I think a lot of Kagi users are in my situation, but then we're not the target demographic. We're early adopters of a new paradigm, and it's the second wave who could be sold by search and email together.

User234sdf

I was delighted to read that you want to offer an email service. None of the existing ones are great. The biggest issue I experience is the interplay between email and calendar. Only Google does that well, and most systems only work within the same technology platform (Google, MS Exchange, iCloud etc).

IMHO If Kagi wants to offer a great email service, it needs to be well integrated with invites/calendaring.

Thanks for reading!

Accepting invites from other systems
Showing status of acceptance in calendar
Updating calendar appointments when invite updates come in
Sending out updated invites of user changes appointments
Etc.

wickerbox1234

User234sdf I strongly agree that a functional calendar that plays nice with other services is a must.

I would also like to have sub calendars (colour coded) that can be shared with other users (e.g., family). Of course, an accurate search functionality would also go a long way 🙂

Following other calendars (e.g., work calendar so I can see all events together) also very important.

DonReba

DanielVPT Thunderbird is developing an email service, as well. It looks to me like Kagi and Thunderbird will be competing for the same kinds of people as customers. Thunderbird's email will have JMAP support.

madhatter

I'd like to add another +1 for email aliases and custom domains.

At the moment, I use Fastmail and make generous use of the unlimited custom aliases feature. It's a kind of "lock in" they have because almost no one else offers unlimited custom aliases without having to explicitly create* them in advance. However, if Kagi offered these two things, I'd be quite happy to switch my email to Kagi as well.

[* The way it works in Fastmail is if you have email@customdomain.ext, you can just send an email to any_alias_here@email.customdomain.ext and it goes to the inbox of email@customdomain.ext. You can also send emails from the alias]

beetstabasco

madhatter

madhatter I'd like to add another +1 for email aliases and custom domains.

At the moment, I use Fastmail and make generous use of the unlimited custom aliases feature. It's a kind of "lock in" they have because almost no one else offers unlimited custom aliases without having to explicitly create* them in advance. However, if Kagi offered these two things, I'd be quite happy to switch my email to Kagi as well.

[* The way it works in Fastmail is if you have [email@customdomain.ext](mailto:email@customdomain.ext), you can just send an email to [any_alias_here@email.customdomain.ext](mailto:any_alias_here@email.customdomain.ext) and it goes to the inbox of [email@customdomain.ext](mailto:email@customdomain.ext). You can also send emails from the alias]

A little tricky to set up but, Infomaniak has a catch-all address. You can then set up a redirect to your main address inbox. One downside is this doesn't allow sending from that address.

However, Infomaniak does support aliases (which then allows sending from that alias).

FWIW, just today, I set all this up on Infomaniak. I have no affiliation with them other than as a user of their email service. I will warn that there are some flaky things in the mail UI.

EffortsFrom

+1 for aliases and custom domain support

My 2 cents for the Kagi Email work-in-progress: Shortwave is by far the best email UI for my needs. Take a look in case you haven't used it. The way its labeling works it revives and improves on the email bundles from old-day Google Inbox. Similar emails such as promotions, order receipts etc are grouped together, and can be snoozed, archived etc together as a group. This makes a huge difference in keeping the Inbox clean. Snooze functionality and interacting with emails via UI and the normal search bar are also great. It works only on Google Mail as the underlying email provider afaik, though.

Their AI assistance is mostly useless to me, the idea of being able to use LLMs for inbox search, discovery is very attractive. However, Shortwave's usefulness and accuracy for this is more miss than hit and I get better results just using their regular search.

I don't see myself switching email providers, but as others also pointed out, am using Apple's Hide My Email regularly.

etwas

To also add my thoughts to the conversation:

I am also currently using fastmail and love how easy and simple labelling and using multiple aliases is with them (I can just send emails to a new one and they are caught in a wildcard folder, or get labeled based on it, depending on how I set it up for that alias, but wildcard by default)
Being able to pin emails to the top of the overview and setting reminders for emails in x hours/days/... is a charm. Some things just need to be done at a later time and that keeps one from forgetting to do so.
In terms of AI I think I'd prefer it to be more low-key. I see limited use having it in my own inbox, at max for summarizing long emails or getting input on longer conversations. In compose mode I'd prefer it to be more of a proofreading tool than a tool to write full emails. I'd prefer if it gives me pointers on whether what I wrote is concise, flags whether I missed a point in a reply and stuff like that.
The look and feel of the inbox is incredibly important to me and has a big impact on my own productivity. I personally prefer smaller, more condensed designs with a rather extensive preview shown upfront, for example. I think being able to choose from a number of styles and/or being able to style/move/extend/reduce the layout to match ones taste is also quite important to make working with the mail clients more comfortable.

leftium

carl Here's a suggestion: Click the name or avatar of a sender/receiver to get a list with all mails to/from them. Would be immensely practical.

A related feature I have never seen in any email client is sorting contacts+conversations by last message date. So the contacts list basically becomes an index of all your conversation threads grouped by contact, with more important contacts naturally sorting to the top.

This seems to be the norm in chat apps. In Facebook messenger (and KakaoTalk), I almost never use the contacts list. The list of my chats has become the de facto contact list because it is sorted by recency. So the important contacts naturally "bubble" to the top. (The alphabetically sorted list of contacts has too many "dead" contacts to scroll through.)

Here is an old HN thread asking for this exact feature in Thunderbird:

Please someone. Just listen. All my email problems will be solved if you just make a plugin for Thunderbird that groups all emails (recieved and sent) according to who they're from and to. If I had cancer and the make-a-wish foundation asked me what I wanted, that's what I would ask for. That exact thunderbird plugin.

To be more exact, You know how message boards work? There's a forum which contains threads and those threads contain replies to the thread. Everytime there's a new reply in one of the threads, that thread gets bumped up to the top of that forum. Imagine that every contact you email or or every contact that emails you, is a thread, and all your emails are replies in that thread. That way everything's grouped under some kind of contact. And previous conversations are easy to find.

Gaeilgeoir

leftium I have never heard of this being implemented in mail client I have know, but this seems like a killer feature.

the_real_urusaiyatsu

leftium Hey.com email has something like this. Files attached to the thread are also surfaced at the top of the list. Plus Collections - emails in a timeline, Workflow - simple kanban.

BigTechMustBurn

… AI …

Can we please NOT have AI in everything.

0xGingi

My biggest ask would be SMTP Relay, as that's the only thing keeping me on Proton Business, to reduce risk you could do what Proton does and lock it behind needing to contact support to access.

beetstabasco

Supporting JMAP would be a nice feature that few other providers support (maybe only currently Fastmail and Topicbox).

Dustin

beetstabasco They are already supporting JMAP 😻

beepboop

amazingefren I currently use two domains. There are tons of use cases to have.

My hope is that they don't severely limit the number of custom domains. Proton Mail only permits 3 custom domains on their unlimited plan which is frankly laughable for something named "Unlimited". Ditto their 15 alias limit, for such an expensive plan, the limits are ridiculous.

I have 8 domains which I receive e-mail for, which might seem incredibly excessive, but it was due to being able to pick up nicer variations of my name over time. It's sensible to have some type of limit but please don't be stingy like Proton Mail.

Additionally, users should really be encouraged to onboard with a custom domain to assuage fears of "What happens if Kagi Mail disappears in a year?" Since then they remain in control of their e-mail addresses and it really doesn't matter as much if the product ultimately fails.

I'd be curious to see how this pans out, though personally I'm pessimistic of the chances of success. There's a lot of competition in the e-mail provider space, vs something like search engines where Kagi has a much easier time standing out. I'd much rather see the time and effort invested in really fleshing out Kagi Assistant personally, as that tool is incredibly useful but feels barebones at present.

madhatter

beepboop

Have you seen how Migadu does it? They don't limit by number of mailboxes (or domains) but the volume of emails for that account. I think it's an excellent way to do it:
https://migadu.com/pricing/#are-the-prices-and-limits-per-mailbox-or-account

kirkmc

beepboop I don't use Proton, and am not defending them, but each custom domain and each alias is an account. (Yes, aliases are a bit different, since they're not full accounts, but still.) You can imagine a lot of people setting up hundreds of aliases, and that would impact the servers' performance. And it would likely attract spammers.

hectorhenryhawkins_33838_86567

Reading this thread feels like same thing I've read a thousand times. Lots of people saying why they don't want something and how it will fail. After the AMA I have a better sense of what Kagi is trying to do. I don't want to hear your individual use case why you don't want it. Leave this to people who want to see a fully integrated internet ecosystem that is founded on privacy.
I use a mix of at least 5 email apps, both free and paid. I use it to manage who sees what I want. Kagi Mail would be another layer in this hiding my activity on the web.
What I want is a system that can find what I want, and surface it up exactly how I want it. That's what AI is good for now - the great summariser. Emails, contacts, files, dates, simple to follow conversations.
I want it to act like my second brain. All my info goes in, Kagi helps me find it.

Requisite2354

I'd like to add to the pile of people that is currently using Proton and am looking to switch. I agree with a lot of the sentiment in the original post here, and may accept mail that's not E2EE, but think that at least an option to encrypt emails older than X days old would be great especially in today's hostile climate in the US. Other than that, itching to switch and would be willing to pay extra for the mail service!

DanielVPT

I think it would be interesting for Kagi Mail to have a federated system.

carl

DanielVPT

Good news: E-Mail is federated, it has always been federated.

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