Kagi Mail: Suggestions Based on My Personal Email Experience

Dustin

beetstabasco They are already supporting JMAP 😻

Gaeilgeoir

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

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.

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.

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.

InCaseOf

I self host my email through mxroute I would love the option to use kagimail as a "front end" for my email hosted elsewhere, thanks!

InternetChunk

kirkmc I don’t know the specifics but yes custom domains and aliases are different. My understanding is that domains are actual full mail inboxes while aliases only work for forwarding an email to your real mail.

Unless you have your own business or manage other people’s domains I see no reason for anyone to ever have more than a couple domains - at that point just use an alias?

However, aliases are VERY useful especially when you value your privacy - I do and use mail aliases now for most of my websites and sign up services except e.g. bank etc. I see no reason for using aliases to ever cost money - SimpleLogin boughr by Proton, I don’t know why it’s not free, DuckDuckGo has a 100% free mail alias creator which I use for now (no better option) and I combine it with Bitwarden (I’d much more prefer a built in alias creator AND a password manager in one but alright). I don’t know the specifics but if aliases are only used for forwarding email to your actual inbox and there are a lot of free alias creators out there (+ secure ones) then I don’t see a world where aliases have to cost money to use.

jstrider

As a satisfied Proton user I would still entertain the idea of Kagi Mail. I'm someone that will find the best product for the job but I prefer to have a cohesive solution to search, browser, and email.

InternetChunk

I would definitely like to see Kagi Mail when it is ready, absolutely do not rush anything. However, it has to be up to the high security and privacy standards of the industry. I would also really like optional AI (while also making sure AI in email doesn't compromise email security and confidentiality).

I'm using a secure email provider but I am definitely willing to switch if Kagi Mail is a good, secure, user oriented product. Keep it up guys!

Felensis

While I generally love the idea of Kagi Mail and having more services out of one hand I'm currently subscribed to Posteo (posteo.de) which is a German Mail provider with top notch privacy, security and sustainability standards for only 1€ / month. Kagi would've need to be on par with what they offer at the minimum to letting consider me switching.

jstrider

What would a Kagi Mail domain look like? Kmail? Kagimail?

InternetChunk

jstrider I’d like to see options to choose different domain names e.g.: @kagi.com, @kagimail.com, @kagi.mail .. etc

kirkmc

In my experience, custom domains map to aliases. So I have a custom domain on my email provider, and it maps to myname@provider.com. I've seen this with other providers in the past.

DonReba

I love Kagi search, but this talk about creating an "ecosystem" sounds like trying to trap users like me, creating incentives for Kagi to enshittify.

Besides, I just don't see anything Kagi could bring to the table. The question from the "Kagi roadmap 2025" announcement — "Why can you not search through your emails in your search engine (and AI assistant), and why can you not access search while writing your email?" — is not one I have ever asked.

[deleted]

Just wanted to add my two cents.

I think you could call me a "power user" – I remember times before "social media." I ditched Google years ago.

Kagi Search was needed because Google has a monopoly and destroyed the search experience. I appreciate Kagi's search results, ranking domains, custom CSS, redirects... Those are functions I use daily and haven't found in any other search service, so they're one of the main factors why I decided to pay for Kagi.

But with email, that's not the case. There are many email providers that have been doing this for decades.

From https://blog.kagi.com/first-three-years:

Why can you not search through your emails in your search engine (and AI assistant), and why can you not access search while writing your email?

Why would I want to search my emails in a search engine?

Why do all email AI assistants focus on summarizing and writing emails?

Why would email even have "AI"? There are many issues with "AI," from ethical to privacy to ecological concerns...

How about instead being able to ‘filter all messages from John Wick and label them as work’?

You can't do that? I can... I can even set them to delete after X days, so I only have important emails instead of hundreds of thousands...

Am I the only one who still emails myself when I want to put something on my to-do list?

Yes?

Why don’t email products recognize this important pattern of user behavior and give it the prime spot that it deserves?

Because that's not what email is for?

Email has been conceived to connect humans, and now it is more about connecting spam and spammers to you.

Not true. SpamAssassin does a great job. For years I haven't had any issues with spam...

You're not gonna make anything better than, say, Fastmail, which has been doing it since before Google even thought about Gmail...

Vlad

[deleted] Thanks for this 🙂

the_real_urusaiyatsu

[deleted] And horses are perfectly fine so why bother with these new fangled car things? It's the people who see beyond the now and what is possible that bring progress. You seem to be the power user exception - your use case is not the only one, and you're not where the money is, it's the millions of average users who just want to be end users in systems that work.

kirkmc

[deleted] Good points all. I do understand that some people have pried other features into email, such as sending themselves an email to put something on a to-do list. I think you're wrong in thinking only one person does that.

Email is pretty basic, and should stay that way, IMHO. If you use email for your work, however, that's different. You'll have an email client in your company that does a whole bunch of things, such as adding meetings to calendars, etc. But that's not email; that's a communication and collaboration platform. I think there's a risk in trying to bring enterprise solutions to individual users. They do too much, and are too complicated.

« Previous Page Next Page »