imado gives a domain you already own a working email address: you connect the domain, create an address like hello@yourdomain.com, and read and reply in your browser. If you have not tried it, start here.
Most people read mail on a phone. Until now, imado on a phone was a website in a browser tab: it worked, but it did not feel like the mail apps on your phone, and it could not tell you that anything had arrived. This post covers the three changes that fix that: installing imado as a web app, a phone layout, and new-mail notifications.
Install the web app
Open imado on your phone, then choose Install app from the account menu to install imado's web app. On Android, and in Chrome on a computer, your browser asks whether to install it. On an iPhone or iPad we show the two steps Safari needs: tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
The web app has its own icon, opens straight to your inbox, and uses the whole screen, with no address bar. Nothing comes from the App Store or Google Play: it is imado's website, installed from your browser (developers call this a progressive web app, or PWA), so you never have to update it yourself.
A layout made for a phone
imado sorts mail into Inbox, Done, Sent and Spam. Done is where a conversation goes once you have dealt with it, like archiving.
- Back returns you to the list. From an open conversation, swiping back, pressing the browser's back button or tapping the arrow on the page all take you to the list you came from.
- The buttons you use most are at the bottom. Beside an open conversation the bar shows Reply and Done first. Spam is in the menu instead, so a thumb aiming at Done cannot hit it by mistake.
- Swipe a conversation to Done. In the list, swipe a conversation's row to move it to Done without opening it.
- Undo after moving a conversation. Moving a conversation to Done or Spam, or back to the Inbox, shows Undo for a few seconds. On a keyboard, press Z.
Know when mail arrives
In imado's inbox, open Settings, then Notifications, and press Turn on. From then on, when mail arrives in a mailbox you can read (your own, or one someone shared with you), the device shows who it is from and the subject. Tapping the notification opens that conversation.
Notifications are turned on one device at a time, so your laptop can stay quiet while your phone does not. You can also mute a single mailbox, and the mute applies only to you. On an iPhone or iPad, Apple sends notifications only to web apps installed on the Home Screen, so install imado first.
The decisions behind the notifications
A notification shows a stranger's words on your lock screen, and it touches the most important thing imado does: getting your mail to you. Here is what we decided, and why.
Your mail never waits for a notification. imado delivers the message to your inbox first. Only after delivery has finished does it decide whether to notify anyone. If a notification fails for any reason, the mail is already in your inbox and nothing about it changes. We would rather miss a notification than delay a message.
Only your device can read it. Notifications travel through the push service your browser already uses: Apple's for Safari, Google's for Chrome, Mozilla's for Firefox. Before a notification leaves imado, the sender and subject are encrypted with a key that belongs to your device alone, so the push service carries it without being able to read it. The standard behind this is called Web Push, and every major browser supports it.
A name you can trust. Anyone can write any display name on an email, so "PayPal" on a lock screen proves nothing. imado shows the sender's name only when their domain has proved it sent the message (the check is called DMARC) and the message names exactly one sender. Even then, the sender's domain appears beside the name, so a lookalike domain reads as what it is. Otherwise the notification shows the sender's address.
Nothing asks unprompted. imado never asks for permission when a page opens. Notifications start only when you press Turn on, on that device.
It ends when you sign out. Signing out stops notifications on that device. Resetting your password signs you out of every device and stops all of their notifications: if a phone is lost or stolen, a password reset makes sure it stops showing your mail.
Told once. Each message is notified at most once, and a new message in the same conversation replaces the older notification instead of stacking another. A mailbox that suddenly receives a flood of mail does not turn your phone into a buzzer: notifications pause until it calms down, and the mail itself keeps arriving.
Only the people who can read the mailbox. Who is notified is decided when the mail arrives, from who can read that mailbox at that moment. Someone removed from a mailbox a minute earlier is not told about its next message.
Try it
Open imado on your phone, install it from the account menu, then turn notifications on in Settings. Everything we have shipped so far, newest first, is in the changelog.