Allow opt-out from Mailspring ID

[OmeGak]

Edit by Maintainers: You can find a more complete response to this question on our Knowledge Base here: https://foundry376.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003141552-What-is-a-Mailspring-ID-and-why-do-I-need-one-

Feature Request?
I'm not interested in the features Mailspring ID brings. Would it be possible to use Mailspring without Mailspring ID? I believe all necessary features for a fully-working open source email client are built-in, so why forcing to use Mailspring ID? This, along with mailsync not being open source (#24), kinda defeats the purpose of the Mailspring client being open source. Well, besides the fact that anybody can make a fork of this project and disable the feature.

Does this feature exist in another mail client or tool you use?

Thunderbird.

---

It seems there is now a fork, started by @notpushkin, that removes Mailspring ID. Updating the issue to give it some visibility to the comment that announces it:

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

[RussH]

+1

[lamixer]

I find myself again searching for a Linux imap mail client that works for me (decent feature set, and attractive on Gnome 3) and discovered Nylas mail and the recent forks thereof. I would like to use Mailspring as my email client but don't want to send my email to a third party -- that's why I run my own email server!

So, long way to say, +1.

I doubt it would hurt your business model and maybe some 'imap-only' users will help you improve the client further.

[mmarif4u]

I was about to create an issue for this and saw this one. Thanks for creating one.

And yes i agree it totally defeat the purpose of using own mail server if i am going to be dependent on third party server for few features.

[ldartez]

i am also not interested in mailspring ID and i would like to opt out.

[step21]

FWIW, as far as I know, your email is not sent to a third party. Let alone, because hosting costs would prob be much higher if they were.
While I cannot speak for @bengotow etc, it seems that for now Mailspring requires the id. I shared many of the concerns mentioned, when the emails were actually stored on the server, as with the original N1 client. For everybody else, you could try NylasMailLives which is in the process of not requiring an ID (or maybe has already removed it by now) and might in the future use the sync-engine from Mailspring or a similar one if possible. And also fixed many bugs already.
Also, Geary just very recently released 0.12 with many improvements. This might be not entirely on-topic, but before trying to argue about business models or another fork, maybe it is best to revisit the alternatives that are there and might move in a direction that is more suitable to you and perhaps help improve them.

[bengotow]

Hey folks! Thanks for filing this—I actually debated what to do about the "Nylas ID" concept when I forked Nylas Mail and ended up keeping something similar in place. This is great feedback.

The ID concept in Mailspring is a bit different than in Nylas Mail: Mailspring stores your mail credentials securely on your machine in the keychain / keyring, and does not send your email credentials to the cloud. All email sync is done on your computer. (This may change in the future as new features launch, but it will always be opt-in per the Privacy Policy.) Your Mailspring ID stores small bits of metadata used for snoozing, send later, read receipts, etc., and also allows for feature rate-limiting, which can be removed by purchasing Mailspring Pro.

I know you're not interested in the features provided by the Mailspring ID, and that's totally fine! I'd really love for you to use Mailspring as your mail client even if you just want a prettier Thunderbird.

That said, Mailspring is intended to be a /product/ as well as an open source project. If everything works out, revenue from Mailspring Pro (which competes with subscription products like Mailbird, Rapportive, Mixmax, etc.) will allow me and others at F376 to allocate time to maintaining it indefinitely. Maybe one day we can find another sponsor like Nylas (which spent upwards of $2.5M developing Nylas Mail) or Mozilla to remove the financial concerns, but for now Mailspring needs to target paying customers with great pro features so I can continue working on it full-time. The Mailspring ID is a core component of these Pro features and a lot of exciting stuff on the roadmap, like team templates, read receipt analytics and shared folders. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to remove the Mailspring ID and make the mail client better for you, because it pulls us further away from doing a great job on the pro features for paying users that will ultimately make this a long-lasting open source project.

Hope that helps! I'm going to flag this as a wontfix for now, but I welcome everyone's thoughts and feedback here. As I dig into the pro feature development a bit more, I'll revisit this to see if we could make login optional.

[mmarif4u]

Yes, the sync i am sure everyone is aware of, the only few features which need the id are tracking, pro etc. The thing is to not create another id in the process and use the app like TB/Geary etc.

@step21 thanks for the mentions. From this thread, i guess id(not tested yet) is not required anymore for NML.

@bengotow making login optional would be great, but that totally depends on your business model in the future.

For now i will try NML, and see it that fits. If not yet, i will stick to TB(old is gold sometime).

[step21]

Just two (subjective/my point of view) observations on business models -
I was wondering, have you thought of combining e-mail hosting with the client subscription? This probably was more applicable to the original 'N1' client, but the most annoying thing for me was always to have another intermediary, between me and my mail server/provider that not only stores the mail (in the case of N1) but also wants to be paid. Whereas if I could for example pay to set my mx records accordingly or use @mailspring-mail.com or similar, this would have been easier to justify a then at least for that account, you pay for e-mail but also get the client. (obv also doesn't apply to many accounts that you cannot control etc)
Second, while I guess most businesses like subscriptions, because they are recurring, the 'problem' is that so many companies, especially 'digital' ones are doing that. So in a sense, there is a new category of utilities that many people pay for, which can quickly add up and is in this case almost without limit. And while I like to have my utilities, as people do, I think that probably most people do not like paying for them, especially if they are adding up and seemingly only getting more. Sorry if this is maybe too off-topic/meta, but as we are on the topic of subscription I thought it fit.

[shibacomputer]

All I want is a beautiful email client. I've loved everything about Nylas N1 and, now, Mailspring but this was and continues to be a dealbreaker for me . On one hand I am so thrilled that the project continues in this new form, but that I can't opt out of Mailspring ID means that I can't support this project. I urge you to seriously consider alternatives for 'basic' email use that don't include any of the features that require joining a third party service.

Either way, good luck!

[jGleitz]

If Mailspring ID is a showstopper for some people, and Mailspring ID is a way to generate income from the project, wouldn’t it be an option to offer the opt-out from Mailspring ID against payment? To me, it seems like this would open another stream of income from people that can not be reached by the current business model, without losing any potential of the current business model.

Or would none of the people interested in this issue be willing to pay for Mailspring’s development?

[shibacomputer]

@jGleitz Personally, I'm very willing to pay for Mailspring in some form, even as a reasonably priced subscription. I'm not willing to send any email activity to a third party service.

[philfreo]

Mailspring stores your mail credentials securely on your machine in the keychain / keyring, and does not send your email credentials to the cloud. All email sync is done on your computer. (This may change in the future as new features launch, but it will always be opt-in per the Privacy Policy.) Your Mailspring ID stores small bits of metadata used for snoozing, send later, read receipts, etc., and also allows for feature rate-limiting, which can be removed by purchasing Mailspring Pro.

You made a point in your website's documentation to say what isn't sent to the cloud. However you should be more explicit about exactly what is sent to your servers.

[egrueda]

In the end, there's absolutely no need to store anything in any server, that's beyond the target of an email client.
An email client cannot create that mandatory dependance with a 3rd party, it's really insane if you have an email provider and you still depend on another company and your data (whatever) will be in their servers.
IMHO, forcing users to be full dependant without need is not the way. This could be a nice mail client, but developer's goals are above user's needs, so it will never become extended.
You must respect user's privacy and independency, but it seems mailspring's core was built against all of that :-(

[ldartez]

@egrueda, agreed! Hopefully things will become more sensible down the road.

[muuuh]

I also hope there will be an opt-out possibility for the analytics package. Don't know what's happening here.
https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring/blob/master/app/internal_packages/analytics/lib/analytics-store.es6#L94

[step21]

@muuuh I'd say it sends the name and address you registered with, for analytics I guess.

[gitbobbed]

Just adding support to the idea of having a paid version of Mailspring specifically for those users that don't want to have to create a Mailspring ID to use the tool.

I honestly don't have a problem with them having an ID that lets them offer useful features that wouldn't be possible otherwise, but understand that others might not want to. Maybe offer it for a one-time payment without the Pro features?

Also support the idea of a reasonable monthly subscription service for the Pro features.

[gyunaev]

I support the (cheaper) subscription idea for non-Pro users. Something which might be valuable is ability to opt out of analytics/telemetry - the old saying is "if you're not paying for the product, YOU are the product" - but I'd prefer to pay for it and NOT be a product.

Another issue this may also address is viability of the company, which would in turn improve Pro subscriptions. As someone using Link Tracking from another platform, frankly I'd need to be VERY sure the company doing link tracking is still in business for at least a year after the campaign starts (I still receive tracking from some emails we've sent in 2010!!!). Some of the marketing campaigns have long-lasting effect and cost lots of money - and if the company which tracks my links decide to stop doing business, this would be a major blow.

[OddDev]

Even if I'm using Pro I need to create a mailspring ID, correct?

[gitbobbed]

Quick question: are snoozed e-mails supposed to sync across different instances of Mailspring tied to the same Mailspring ID? Like, if you have Mailspring installed in your laptop and desktop, will a message resurface on either of those automatically? Or only if I open the instance in which the e-mail was originally snoozed?

[jGleitz]

Even if I'm using Pro I need to create a mailspring ID, correct?

That’s correct. One proposal we made in this issue is to offer disabling Mailspring ID against a fee.

[OddDev]

How about making the ID optional when on pro? Can be sold as a pro feature and fits seamlessly.

[step21]

@gitbobbed if you want an answer, make a new issue or write directly to support, this thread seems like the wrong place to ask.

[Goddard]

I liked it until I found this out. Real bummer for me. Clearly the meta data must be valuable for you to consider it an option for free/open users. Usually open source projects operate a community version and then a corporate/business version. You are employing that along with meta data collection?

[jsamr]

@bengotow

I'm in favor of opt-in ID too. But if you want to keep those ID mandatory, at least you should guarantee some PII protection to users, which is not yet the case (see below).

If everything works out, revenue from Mailspring Pro [...] will allow me and others at F376 to allocate time to maintaining it indefinitely.

If you aim at maintaining indefinitely, I suggest you shall remove this paragraph from your privacy policy document, which I find disturbing:

Information Disclosed in Connection with Business Transactions. Information that we collect from our users, including PII, is considered to be a business asset. Thus, if we are acquired by a third party as a result of a transaction such as a merger, acquisition or asset sale or if our assets are acquired by a third party in the event we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, some or all of our assets, including your PII, may be disclosed or transferred to a third party acquirer in connection with the transaction.

[step21]

As I see it, with some legal knowledge, this is just informing you of what would happen in such a case. Even if it was not there, it would probably still take place in the case of the events described therein.

[notpushkin]

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

[s-kris]

@notpushkin Thank you!

[XGhozt]

One way to solve this might be to sell something we could host ourselves. I'd be willing yo buy a server license that has a limit to the number of users (or price per user). This way we can keep all these features and not stress about privacy concerns and you can still get funding from license / use.

[raphaeljolivet]

Hey broth/33/rs, tell me what you think. https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

Wow Nice !
I'll watch this.

I can't wait to test it.
I did not use Mailspring so far due to the required account.

[notpushkin]

@raphaeljolivet Nightly builds are on the way but for now you can npm run build!

[beppe9000]

I still use last version of Opera Mail and I'm in the process of migrating to something more modern.

I can use Opera Mail long after Opera went out of business because it did not have a dependency on external back-end to run. And it wasn't even open source... until the sauce leaks.

I look forward to when Mailspring will be resilient enough to be able to "just work" (from scratch) when the back-end dies, in order to fully migrate to it. It was awesome until it asked for signup.

IMHO is fine to want control over the product by doing a closed-core model, but doing that in conjunction with mandatory back-end reminds me of planned obsolescence... 😒

[pgramme]

This is a no-go for me too... I installed it, opened it and uninstalled it without using it when I realized about the mandatory account. Although this is not directly related, an additional bad smell for me is the fact that Mailspring's website does not honor Do not track requests.

A pity: the app design seems great !

[Bugsbane]

@notpushkin Thrilled to see someone take up the cause. Way to go! I'd suggest not including "Mailspring" in the project name in case they decide to be as big d bags legally as they've been on the privacy front. This stuff takes a lot more effort and angst to change later when the project is more established and lawyers are invloved. Might I suggest "Mailibre" as a name?

[beppe9000]

@Bugsbane I think here is a better place for discussing that.

[bossmon]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.

[alexanderadam]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.

And you missed the free fork that doesn't need an ID and was mentioned in the comment over yours?

[renguer0]

I erased this application once I saw an ID was required.
Me too. I'm in Windows.

[Bugsbane]

Just making sure that you saw the post just above about the fork of Mailspring that removes the need for an ID, and aims to be more privacy friendly. You can checkout Mailspring-Libre here.

[aquelehugo]

I was searching for a cleaner alternative to Thunderbird and Mailspring seemed awesome. But also, one of the reasons of using a mail client in the first place is to get away from GMail ads and unify my inbox with Protonmail for more personal mails.

I am more concerned about privacy now and knowing that Mailspring team doesn't care about it at all is disappointing :/

I will try the free version tough. Thank you @notpushkin

[cloventt]

I too obliterated this app as soon as I realised it had a mandatory login. Much happier with the libre version mentioned further up in this thread.

[OddDev]

On a side note, Geary is worth a look if you seek a sleek minimal mail app.

[alexanderadam]

This is a dead project and dead product unfortunately, and we need to find an alternative. Any suggestions?

I have absolutely no idea why people are ignoring all comments pointing to @notpushkin's fork Mailspring-Libre.

It's mentioned every few comments and should be difficult to miss.

[lamixer]

true @alexanderadam but not an alternative for those who use Mailspring's services (which isn't me, but is valentt), as the app is hooked into service offerings from them.

[securityopa]

I would recommend using Thunderbird and a theme called Montrail: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/monterail-dark-2-0-for-tb-68/ Thunderbird is a robust mail client with an outdated interface. This theme will make it look way better and way more usable. Consider donating to thunderbird .. this would help them to keep up with this project.

[alexanderadam]

not an alternative for those who use Mailspring's services (which isn't me, but is valentt), as the app is hooked into service offerings from them.

This doesn't make any sense at all.

This issue here is literally called "Allow opt-out from Mailspring ID". Thus this particular issue would be absolutely irrelevant for people who definitely want to continue using Mailspring services.

[lamixer]

@alexanderadam Indeed. @valentt posted a link to his issue 2231 in numerous other 'issues' such as this one and I have been commenting on both so the comment I made is not relevant to this issue. Perhaps he should not have posted in this thread as it is full of people like me, Mailspring client fans but avoiders of Mailspring (ID) services.

[CodeMouse92]

We are in the process of migrating issues to Discourse, which can better facilitate discussion and discovery, and so GitHub Issues can focus on issues that are confirmed and slated for resolution in the near term. Learn more about the changes here.

As part of this, we've migrated this issue to Discourse:

https://community.getmailspring.com/t/mailspring-without-mailspring-id/64/3

Please consider joining that community and continuing the discussion there! Bonus: if you join and reply to the issue, the moderators can make an effort to reassign the post to you, so you get the credit for it.

We're closing and locking the issue here as part of this migration. Rest assured, this doesn't mean the issue is being discarded or ignored.

We hope to see you on Discourse soon!

-The Mailspring Team

[CodeMouse92]

Great news! Mailsync is now open source! 🎉 In addition to this, we will be making Mailspring ID optional this year. This change is actually quite significant and involved, but it's perched right at the top of our priority list.

Learn more here: https://community.getmailspring.com/t/a-free-open-source-future-for-mailspring/484