One of the more ambitious aspects of this project was how to bring Big Mail into the cloud: V1 was DOA without push and rapid sync.
But how to do it and still claim to be on-device/privacy centric?
My answer to this is Big Mail Online. A totally optional, private push and sync service.
I had one simple rule developing it: no message data get processed, parsed, or stored, on any server, ever.
Despite going to great lengths on this, I know it still won't be for everyone. So you can still use Big Mail without any of the Big Mail Online stuff.
One of the reasons I gave BMO a distinct brand of its own, is so when you're in the app, any feature that uses it will be obvious.
(Plus it was a fun excuse to get nostalgic with MacOS 😅)
@phill this branding is absolutely gorgeous!
@johnlago thanks John! 💌
@phill super smart!!! Can’t wait to try the beta
@phill You have NAILED this, I’m beyond excited to use Big Mail v2.
@voboshi thank you! 💪
The Big Mail app on your device grants Big Mail Online a temporary access token to listen out for new inbox events.
When a new message arrives, Big Mail Online sees only the response "EXISTS".
This is then silently pushed to your device, which wakes up and connects directly to your mail provider to fetch the message.
Not even Apple see the contents, as it's just an empty push notification.