Why the Lack of a Strong, OSS, Mail App?

The past couple of years, we've seen an immense improvement in the performance of LLMs, which has made it easier than ever to develop software. This subreddit is proof of that. Every day, there is a new clipboard manager, dictation app, or ChatGPT wrapper.


My question is: why do we never see any new mail apps? I have tried dozens of mail apps over the years, and I have not found one good app that's free, open source, has a good UI, good UX, and just works. I don't even need any groundbreaking features or anything. I just want something that looks nice, is fast, is nice to use, and can be used as a daily driver.


You might mention Thunderbird, but it's very clunky/bloated, not native, looks horrible, and is very complicated.

You might also mention Mailspring, but the UI is also very outdated. It is fast, but my email is something I look at every day and I want to feel good when reading it.


Is there any mail app that actually checks all of these boxes that I'm missing?

https://redd.it/1wvvphk
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Tinycast: My experience reporting a bug to the developer

I’ve recently replaced Raycast with Tinycast, a very RAM-efficient, vibe-coded Raycast-clone. I’ve come across a bug regarding the hyperkey feature (it randomly stops working) so I reported it on github.com/abue-ammar/tinycast/issues

The next day the topic was closed with a comment from the developer, saying he has never experienced the bug himself, bragging that the app has 50k users and that nobody else had reported the issue. I congratulated him for the app and stated that it has already replaced Raycast for me, which took up to 800 MB of RAM.

However, I kept experiencing the issue (happened again just a few minutes ago). Another user also commented that he had the same bug. I’ve received an email notification about this comment. The next day, the comment was deleted by the repository owner.

After experiencing the bug multiple times today, I’ve commented again, asking if the dev needed logs or what else I could do. I’ve attached a screenshot of the comment by the other user, proving that the issue is not unique. Then the whole issue was deleted. Apparently I’ve hurt the ego of a guy who cloned Raycast

https://redd.it/1wvx9n5
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Alfred 6 announcement

# First Alfred 6 Sneak Peek: Alfred UI

Alfred 6 is full of new features and improvements, starting with Alfred UI.

Workflows have gained superpowers with a new, fully macOS native UI toolkit to efficiently craft impressive but lightweight experiences within Alfred

https://www.alfredapp.com/v6/

https://redd.it/1wvy53v
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Pricing and viability of indie apps post-AI
https://redd.it/1wvyd4s
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Relaunching Relinq - an app that instantly converts music links between streaming platforms, now also available as an iOS app

https://redd.it/1ww063c
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The macos launcher scene is cooked

So I just saw the tinycast dev post in this subreddit and I feel like finding a:
\- native
\- open source
\- comparable to raycast in terms of feature parity

Launcher has become impossible. The closest is getting 2/3 in the above requirements.

While tinycast does satisfy all 3, the dev seems to be egoistic and idk if I want to support that.

I myself have my own launcher but it’s not very comparable in terms of feature parity so I’ve stopped maintaining it.

However, the options I know off:
\- Tuna (closed source)
\- Supercmd v2 (closed source)
\- Vicinae (not native UI)
\- remaintain rustcast / my own launcher - not native UI
\- Raycast (not native or open source anymore)
\- thunderstorm (part of droppy) - closed source? (i’m not sure if it is, but it lacks feature parity rn)
\- Look (is native UI, doesn’t look like native UI)
\- Spotlight (lacks features)

And there’s like a gazillion other launchers and basically all of them are vibecoded, which I’m not against, but if it has extensions, I would like security and idk how secure AI written code is, but from what I’ve heard.. it’s not very secure.

And yes while forking tinycast is always an option, I don’t think it’s right to do that. It doesn’t sit right with me to use the code of someone who’s not responding to bug reports correctly, and it’s probably just going to lead to more and more issues over time.

If someone is willing to make an open source launcher with swiftUI, I wouldn’t mind paying for it atp.. at max freemium it.

https://redd.it/1ww3cd2
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[OS] In case you're looking for a simple & native app to open your .md files on Mac
https://trylightmark.com/

https://redd.it/1wvzdk0
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Phosphor: a menu bar screen utility suite with a feature that eases the flash when you switch from a dark app to a bright one

https://redd.it/1ww8cdh
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Tinycast Contributing experience

https://redd.it/1wwbnmt
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Q Space Pro now have Sync browsing (currently in Beta)

https://redd.it/1wwdkrx
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Have I found my macupdater replacement? maybe!

I tried latest for a while and I did not see it completely replacing macupdater for me. then floodtide (https://bhopstudio.com/floodtide) came around and I decided to give it a spin and I have been with it since the beta and I run it in parallel to macupdater and its now almost catching all that macupdater does for me.

I use it mostly to know which apps have updates ready and for some apps I let the floodtide app do the update and it has worked well.


I believe this might be my permanent replacement for macupdater and I suggest more people try it out and let Raffi the dev know about missing apps. He is working quite hard (daily updates) to cover everything smoothly. Raffi is extremely responsive as well. You can even report apps not covered through the UI.


I am not affiliated with Raffi, but I did get a promo code from him as an academic in India (due to pricing concerns). That has not influenced my sharing this post. I have been doing this for many other apps - only when they actually meet my needs!!

https://redd.it/1wwf61a
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Default Folder X alternative?

I am slowly replacing apps I use from Setapp with free/one-time payment apps.

The last one left is Default Folder X. I use it to quickly jump to the open Finder location in Open/Save dialogs.

Checked the app's website and upgrade pricing for me is $33.24 AUD (I bought it in the past before I subscribed to Setapp). That is not bad, but it only covers the current major version.

>Do I get free updates? Yes. Your license entitles you to free updates until the next major upgrade (from version 4.x to version 5.x, for example).

Does anyone know of any good alternatives that are free or a one-time payment for lifetime updates?

https://redd.it/1ww8h5o
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FileArbor 1.3.0: rules can now rename files using dates, amounts and invoice numbers read from inside the document

Hi all, developer of FileArbor here (a rule-based file organizer for Windows and macOS). Version 1.3.0 is out. Rather than paste a changelog, here are the actual problems this release was built around.

Where it started

A user wrote to me with a simple request. His PDFs contain a line like "Invoice date: 05/07/2026" and he wanted them to land in Invoices\2026\2026_07_05 invoice.pdf on their own. At that point a rule could only judge a file from the outside (name, extension, size, date) or check whether its text contains a word. It couldn't take a value out of the document and do something with it. That gap is most of 1.3.0.

1. Files with meaningless names

scan0001.pdf, IMG_4832.jpg, document (3).pdf. Rules can now rename a file, either where it sits or on the way to its new folder. You build the name from parts: the file's date, the time, the original name, the date a photo was taken, plus your own text.

2. Rename rules that keep renaming

Anyone who has automated renaming knows this one. The watcher sees the renamed file as a new file and you end up with 2026_07_05_2026_07_05_scan.pdf. A file is now renamed once. Not again on the next run, not after a restart, not when the watcher picks it up.

3. The useful information is inside the file, not in its name

A rule can read a date, an amount or a piece of text like an invoice number from the document, and use it in both the file name and the destination folder. To set it up you open a sample document and click the value you want. The app learns the label next to it and finds the same value in the next document of that kind. No regex needed. You can also just type the label if you prefer.

4. Is 05/07 the 5th of July or May 7th?

It's worked out per document. If it can't be told, the file is left alone instead of guessed. A wrong date in a file name is worse than no rename, because you won't notice until the day you need that file.

5. Scans and phone photos have no text to read

Scanned PDFs and photos of documents (JPEG, PNG, TIFF) are now read with text recognition that runs on your own machine, in nine languages. The document is never uploaded. You switch it on per rule, so you only pay the speed cost (about a second per page) where you need it.

6. "What is this rule about to do to my files?"

The preview lists every file with its new name and folder, and tells you why a file will be skipped: value not found, a date that reads two ways, and so on. The preview and the real run use the same planning, so what you see is what happens.

7. When a value can't be found

The file stays as it is, or goes to a review folder you choose. It's reported once, not on every run, and it isn't passed on to the next rule with half the information missing.

8. Undo

A single move or rename can be undone from History. The file goes back to its old name and place, never on top of another file, and the rule doesn't rename it again afterwards.

On privacy, since this is about invoices and similar documents: the text is read in memory while the rule runs and is not stored. Your documents don't leave your computer.

Basic renaming is in the free version. Reading values from documents and reading scans are part of Pro.

I wrote a longer walkthrough with screenshots here: https://filearbor.com/blog/rename-pdf-files-based-on-content

Curious how others handle this. If you auto-sort documents, what's the one value you'd want pulled out of them? I started with dates, amounts and invoice numbers, but I'm sure there are cases I haven't thought of.

https://redd.it/1wvs6wu
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Ricly: 17 file tools in your Finder right-click menu. Convert, compress, share a link, no browser tabs
https://redd.it/1wvtaqk
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OptiSound turns 3! Complete audio control for macOS (10 lifetime licenses for €4.99 until Oct 31) 🎂

https://redd.it/1wwl1d3
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[OS] Free NullPlayer app now supports ALL Winamp (2.x, ClassicPro, 5) & ALL Windows Media Player (7, 7.1, XP (8), 9, 10, 11 and 12) Skins. NullPlayer is a clean room effort and the only media player with universal skin support. Come for the skins and stay for the deep media ecosystem integrations.

https://redd.it/1wwlq2s
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[OS] FileFluss 1.5.1 - Handle files easily across the cloud and your local drive
https://redd.it/1wwoka8
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50% off Piano Glide (lifetime $9.99, code REDDIT50) - turn your MIDI keyboard into a falling-notes practice game
https://redd.it/1wwpkm6
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