What is Reddit's opinion of
ElectronMail?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
67 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
If you use a desktop, there is a workaround for searching content of emails.
If you install and use the ElectronMail client to access your ProtonMail account and then enable Local Store for the account, it will save a copy of your emails (encrypted) locally on your desktop.
If you want to search the body of emails, you can switch from Online to Database View mode and then search the offline (local store) copy of your messages for whatever you want.
All clients with IMAP/SMTP support can work with protonmail bridge, but this is a feature in the paid tiers.
(Edit: This includes thunderbird)
(Edit 2: You can also use https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail )
PM is awesome, also checkout the community driven ElectronMail desktop app for additional free features, that are very handy (offline emails, email export .eml, auto-login with 2FA, full text search, ...) if you don't plan to use premium https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
Please see some details here: - https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/79 - https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/80 - https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/164
Happy to answer clarifying questions if any.
The third party ElectronMail client has a local storage option that stores a local copy of all mails in an encrypted file, which you can then export to EML files.
The app is open source (https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail) meaning that if you doubt the security implementation you can see for yourself.
What the Russian sounding name of the developer has to do with it is beyond me though. Care to explain?
> It looks amazing!
Thanks. I think so too. But the more important that it works well. So go ahead and try it, especially the local store feature and share the feedback then :) You can see the features list in the readme.
> Is this an email client?
See the answer below (the quote is picked from the readme file).
> is an Electron-based unofficial desktop client for ProtonMail and Tutanota end-to-end encrypted email providers. The app aims to provide enhanced desktop user experience enabling features that are not supported by the official in-browser web clients. It is written in TypeScript and uses Angular.
I use the bridge on my desktop and the electron based desktop app on the laptop because of this reason (and because of a weird glitch on the bridge that had it using way to much processor time). https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
One might think it's yet another wrapped to Electron container web page but it's not the case this time. I presume you didn't try the app in action but I'd ask you to at least thoroughly review the features listed in the readme. Many of those features are custom ones and are peculiar to the desktop application only.
https://protonmail.com/bridge/clients
EDIT: Looks like you'll be forking out anyway, seems like this fancy stuff is only for paid clients. :\
https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
That looks like it might do the trick?
ProtonMail is a pretty complex web app so it is very likely not going to work with LibreJS unless LibreJS itself is a drop in replacement for ECMAScript.... which is not the goal of LibreJS. LibreJS's goal is to be minimal enough such that websites don't become full on applications.
In this world, you would run Protomail as a standalone application that is open source. Luckily, you can do this. The open source electron application; electronmail, bundles the website Javascript & resources into a offline application. This way you can view the source code before you run the code.
The body of each email is encrypted and only you have the key. That's like the main selling point of ProtonMail.
You just discovered one of the trade offs of this feature. Encryption doesn't come without compromise. ProtonMail search is server based (meaning it scans the database for matching metadata and loads relevant results via the search HTTP response). But it can't scan the body since the body just looks like garbled data from the server's perspective. For full text search to work on the email body, the client would have to download and decrypt every single email. If you have a few dozen or few hundred emails, that isn't a problem. But if you have thousands or tens of thousands of emails, this can be a lot of data and would require a lot of waiting to download.
There are some projects, such as ElectronMail, which seem to do just this (Disclaimer: I haven't used this tool, have no affiliation with the project, and have no idea whether it is actually safe or trustworthy to use). My understanding is that when you login to your ProtonMail account via ElectronMail, it'll download every email and allow you to perform a full text search in the desktop app.
Please read the [README.md](https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/blob/master/README.md): it's the very first sentence.
> ElectronMail is an Electron-based unofficial desktop client for ProtonMail and Tutanota [...]
> Has there been any progress regarding ProtonMail's inability to remember devices for 2FA? I would prefer not to have to use it everytime I log in on my main computer.
Install the open-source desktop application Electron Mail (also called email-securely-app). It will remember your ProtonMail password and 2FA secret, and will log into ProtonMail for you. Electron Mail will also optionally maintain a local database allowing a full-text search. And it optionally keeps all data encrypted.
> The type of encryption that Protonmail and Tutanota offer for non-E2EE are not effective at all from my POV because the clients are not protected from themselves.
At least for Protonmail you can get around this issue. If you verify the signature of the mobile app then all of the JavaScript should just be stored locally making a MITM impossible. On the desktop there is a desktop client called electronmail [1] that also bundles the site resources which would prevent a MITM.
Protonmail already sends the integrity field for the JavaScript resources. I think there is some talk about having a mechanism for browsers to 'pin'/remember these hashes alert on changes to resources. Hopefully the 'integrity' field capabilities will expand to allowing for signed resources. For now, I'd recommend always using a standalone client that ships with the JavaScript. (At least this way, a MITM attack would require tainting the resources for every user -> making an attack targeted at a single individual impossible).
Full body search is coming with / after v4 of the webapplication. Meanwhile you can do it as said in desktop via bridge or also via ElectronMail.
I fully agree that this is less convenient than directly searching in the web (untill it is released), however I am willing to "sacrifice" that convenience to have more privacy. Also I am organizing my e-mails with filters to automatically move them into folders and label them.
> I'm a big fan of the "ElectronMail" app for my Mac/Linux machine(s).
Listing key ElectronMail features if someone is unaware: - Open-source creature. - Offline access to email messages. - Unlimited full-text search (mail "body" content also scanned). - Persistent sessions (no login required after the app restart). - Automatic login. - Multiple accounts support. - ProtonMail Web UI is prepackaged with the app as a static resource.
See more in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail if interested.
You are in general welcomed to raise the issue here https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/new but first consider the following points due to which the feature request most likely will be rejected: - The app designed to work with both ProtonMail and Tutanota which means some unification is taking place. - The full-text search feature is currently fully functional in offline mode since we have the data securely saved offline and we by design don't depend on the ProtonMail's UI which means it's not required to be signed-in into the ProtonMail account to execute the full-text search against your data. So if we move the search functionality out of database view mode to the ProtonMail's UI we will lose the ability to search in offline mode. - This is technically feasible to keep the full-text functionality working in the same way as it does now but in addition, if you are signed-in into the account, the app intercepts the search request triggered from the ProtonMail's UI. The app then replaces the default "search by subjects only" logic with custom full-text search logic. And after that, the app forms the result in the format ProtonMail does that since the search result will be rendered by ProtonMail's UI. Implementing described scenario would be a time-consuming thing but the more important point is that it would mean a tighter integration with the ProtonMail's UI which would incur significant maintenance burden increasing since each ProtonMail's UI update will need to be scrupulously monitored and supported by the app developers which would be an extra burden given the fact the app is unofficial. Besides that, the same thing would need to be implemented for Tutanota too.
To recap, it would make total sense to implement the feature you need in the official desktop app which doesn't exist yet, but the unofficial app developers simply don't have the time capacity to implement and support such feature.
If you only use Protonmail and don't need to connect any other accounts, ProtonClient and ElectronMail are pretty good. Both basically just the web version of PM but you get desktop notifications (PC with mail content; EM just "You've got mail"
According to their terms and conditions:
> we reserve the right to suspend or delete accounts that are inactive for over three months. Paid accounts with active paid status are not subject to this measure.
Source: https://protonmail.com/terms-and-conditions
Afaik ElectronMail is safe to use. You can audit their source code for anything strange. It’s open source: https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
You don't need to move messages to Thunderbird to search them - you can just press the Search button in Database View mode to search (this GIF shows how), but if you're asking because you're migrating to a different email service or just want to make a backup of your ProtonMail messages in Thunderbird, here's how it's done:
- Enter Database View mode (see the GIF previously linked).
- Select the folder you want to export messages from (Inbox, Sent, etc.).
- Click the Export button on the upper right to Export the messages (and attachments,if you enable the "Including attachments" switch) to a folder. The messages will be exported as individual EML files. If you're using the flatpak version of ElectronMail, you'll probably need to use Flatseal to give it access to a non-sandboxed folder that's easily accessible to Thunderbird).
- In Thunderbird, install the addon ImportExportTools NG
- Create Local Folders in Thunderbird corresponding to the types of emails you're importing (if you're importing Sent mail, you might want to create a local folder in Thunderbird for Sent mail).
- Right click the local folder you want to import the files into, hover over ImportExportTools NG and select Import all messages from a directory. Select whether you want to import from just the directory or its sub-directories as well, then select the folder you exported your messages into from step 3.
> Edit: actually, maybe Fastmail isn't the best idea in term of privacy?
I've done a bit of research on secure email providers and it seems like Protonmail and Tutanota are the best overall. Tutanota have their own desktop clients and for Protonmail they have a bridge app and unoffical ElectronMail.
Just download the link that applies to your OS. Then it's just like anything else. https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/releases/tag/v4.8.0
Credentials stored encrypted with your master password. But if you look closely, credentials fields are optional on the form, so you don't have to store them in the app (which is especially useful if you have the "persistent session" feature enabled, see https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/227).
> 1 - Is there a way to get my protonmail on my desktop, without using the bridge or entering 2FA every time i use my browser?
Yes : ElectronMail it’s not made by Proton, nothing official, but its well maintained, often updated, exists since a long time, used by a lot of people and works really well.
> 2 - How sure are we that protonmail isn't going to jack up the prices in a year or two?
We can’t predict the future but when we look at the past their prices stayed generally consistant and they always had very interesting deals for Black Friday each year.
> My email client is also my storage for receipts and things
Then you will love ProtonDrive : Proton teased it last week and announced it’s already used internally for testing. So we all hope it will be out this year (finger crossed !). Maybe one more reason for you to wait for Black Friday 2020 to register a paid account ?
> and i dont switch easily. I want email for life.
No one switches his main email provider easily. But you also should not put all your eggs in 1 basket : always have a plan B. In my case my plan B is a personal domain I use with ProtonMail so I know if anything would happen to ProtonMail in the future I can just port my personal email address to an other company and people having this as my contact won’t notice any difference. If you want email for life I would very strongly suggest to start with a personal domain name. You can keep it for life and move it where you want anytime. Think about it.
All the applications are open source. Moreover, the FOSS version on f-droid is coming. Finally, there is unofficial desktop client written on electron ElectronMail.
I believe this is possible with ElectronMail (free). > Offline access to the emails. The local store feature enables storing your messages in the encrypted database.bin file, so you could view your messages offline, perform a full-text search against them and export them to EML files. Enabled since v2.0.0 release.
> When a developper create an app using Electron what the “app” does when you open it is displaying the protonmail website inside a fancy u.i
Maybe other Electron-based creatures do that but ElectronMail loads the proton-web-ui as a static resource which comes with an installation package.
If you say it's still just a wrapper you will be wrong again since ElectronMail app enables a lot of custom features on desktop. Things that you don't have if used just in-browser client (like offline access to the email messages, unlimited full-text search, persistent session, multiple accounts use and more).
> Yes, it is true, but I think it is unstable with a large number of emails.
The 18252 email messages has been successfully synced before, see. But for now, if a huge amount of messages need to be synced and stored, then the app will likely need to be started with --js-flags="--max-old-space-size=N" command line argument (where N is a value bigger than 2GB, like 3072/4096/5120/etc). This argument can be for example embedded in the app shortcut. Unfortunately, no convenient way to override the default nodejs's "max-old-space-size" value has been found so far.
KeepassXC implements the Secret Service interface on Linux which means it can store the master password used by ElectonMail. On Windows and macOS saving master password is also functional but not via the KeepassXC (system keychain is used). Then if you need automatic login into the email accounts you have a choice of either saving the email accounts credentials in the app settings or enabling the persistent session feature (or using both options at the same time). So the ElectonMail app supports fully automated login into the accounts.
I feel your frustration. Up until recently, I had a horrible time with the PM Bridge App on my Mac. It got bad enough that I eventually gave up on it and just used the webmail and then later, "ElectronMail".
I recently made the switch to Linux and thankfully the bridge has been working flawless (watch me jinx it), so I don't know if I got lucky, or they made some improvements to it that fixed the timeouts.
Perhaps look into ElectronMail and see if that's a good alternative. https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
The donation issue has been placed by app users but not resolved yet. The app was originally built for personal use and for sharing with some friends.
The screenshot in this issue shows how to enable the "persistent session" feature for the specific email account. The feature disabled by default.
Their WebClient and IOS app are open source and their Andriod App and Bridge will be. Some people have forked their WebClient and have created "ElectronMail" which is FOSS. In terms of their VPN client, IIRC they are the most open-sourced VPN client there is.
aaaaaaaaaaaaand No.
I was so hopeful. This means ProtonMail STILL lacks an open source desktop client. Although there is a guy who has made one by ripping the web code and making some modifications. https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail
ProtonMail's failure to open source is by far the worst thing about it. It's sad. It means that I simply have to trust them, same as gmail.
Did you try ElectronMail app? It could partially handle 2 of 3 issues you listed. There have been responses form real users that the app made them to keep using ProtonMail service when they were going to leave.
Listing key app features if someone is unaware: - Open-source creature. The way of verifying that the installation packages attached to the releases have been actually assembled from the source code is provided. - Offline access to email messages. - Unlimited full-text search (mail "body" content also scanned). - Persistent sessions (no login required after the app restart). - Automatic login. - Multiple accounts support. - ProtonMail Web UI is prepackaged with the app as a static resource (javascript/other-code not served from the server).
See more in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail if interested.
> So that has been deliberately implemented by Riot and Wire?
No custom implementation required as the feature comes from Chromium=>Electron as a given thing, so it's a matter of toggling some flags. The respective issue has not been placed in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues, so not planned.
You can also try the unofficial, electron-based desktop app ElectronMail at https://GitHub.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/releases — it’s basically a clone of the web app that has search and offline storage
You can also try the unofficial, electron-based desktop app ElectronMail at https://GitHub.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/releases— it’s basically a clone of the web app that has search and offline storage
The issue handled in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail by taking the web apps from official repositories, building them, and putting the outcome into the installation package. At the end of the process CI prints hashes of the assembled installation packages. CI logs are publicly available.
> ElectronMail
The app provides features that are not supported by the official in-browser client, like offline access to the email messages, unlimited full-text search, persistent sessions, multiple accounts use and more. See details on the project page https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail.
> the release notes don’t mention a specific version of the UI embedded in EM
See here the ProtonMail Version 4.0-beta Web UI versions come with 4.2.0 release.
> does this mean the UI will now follow the web UI version without EM needing to be updated?
Nope. During the app build process happening in CI servers the ProtonMail Web UI gets cloned, assembled and put into the app installation package as a static resource. So it won't be automatically updated. It done this way by design as this is a security improvement. See more details here if interested.
> I second the suggestion to use ElectronMail for full body search (and persistent login)
For now, it's more like automated login than persistent login enabled in ElectronMail since the app auto-fills the login forms when it starts which means a new proton-session gets opened each time. It also means the credentials will need to be saved in the app settings if you like the convenience of automated login into the email accounts (the settings.bin file is encrypted, see file purpose in the FAQ). But v4.2.0 is going to enable a persistent sessions feature. The release is planned for this week.
This is probably what topic starter was writing about, a technical possibility of ProtonMail to serve malicious JS resources to a user. There is no such issue with ElectronMail as it comes with static resources built on the CI server from the official source code repositories (which can be independently verified before installing the package). Besides, the app is fully open-source, so anyone could assembly own package.
ElectronMail has planned enabling offline access to calendar events. It also means that the calendar desktop notifications are going to work there regardless of whether the calendar page is open or not. Btw, a download link to the work-in-progress build with v4-interface can be found in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/210 (scroll down to the most recent messages on the page).
https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail supports multiple tabs/sessions. You can even specify per account proxy if needed. Besides you get a few more useful features, like offline access to the email messages and complete full-text search. Offline access to the Calendar events is planned. By the way, support for v4-interface is implemented there and works reasonably well but not released yet. Nevertheless, the download link to the work-in-progress build can be found in https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/210 (see the most recent messages).
No company has ever had as much difficulty open-sourcing their products as ProtonMail.
Anyway, yes, you are correct; the iPhone app is not yet really open source, despite contrary claims. So as far as I know then, that means there is no actual open source client for any platform, unless one wishes to count the web client, which is of course constantly evolving dynamic code on the fly, and doesn't count.
The closest we have to an actual open source client is the one scraped together by Vladimir Yakovlev from the source of the web client, which he has modified/improved:
> something on Linux specifically for Tutanota and Proton mail
ElectronMail used to support both Tutanota and Proton but Tutanota support is already deprecated and to be completely dropped soon despite being a much more feature-rich app than the official Tutanota app (it, for example, for more than a year gives you offline access to the emails, unlimited full-text search, conversations view and other conveniet features). If you for some reason want to tray working Tutanota version you can find a download link in this message (the local store option doesn't work anymore for Tutunota if used actual 3.8.0 release but works if you download the version following the link from the above-referenced GitHub message or build from sources).
By the way, automated 2FA token generating and filling is a minor app capability. The more major ones are offline access to the email messages and unlimited full-text-search, things you don't have if used just in-browser client. See the full features list in the readme / home page https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail.
> The only reason I don't have 2FA enabled is because of the fact you have to log back in every single time you close your protonmail tab.
The process of 2FA token generating can be automated, as well as the whole signing workflow. See https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/10.
If you don't want to upgrade to Plus on your second account you can also use electronmail which supports email export to the .eml format, which then can be imported into the paid account via Thunderbird/Protonmail Bridge
> email desktop app?
You got one here https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/ Supported features include: offline access to the email messages, unlimited full-text search (not only by "subject"), and more.
> other local client
You got one here https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/ The app comes with features like offline access to the email messages, unlimited full-text search and more.
> A moving target with constantly changing online code is not the same thing at all.
ElectronMail comes with prepackaged/built-in/static WebClient.
Brief info on how to use ElectronMail with Tor on Windows.
PS By the way, Tutanota seems to get also blocked the same day.
> I just gave up on bridge in Linux and I just stick to using PM in the browser.
You might want to try ElectronMail. The app is fully open-source thing and provides additional features in comparison with the in-browser client, like offline access to the emails, full-text search and more.
You can try doubling the timeouts.indexingBootstrap value specified in the config.json file located in the settings folder, then restart the app.
By the way, it's going to work with just Tor installed, ie without addition proxy servers like Privoxy, see more info here.
There's no info that they plan to create a standalone client.
You can check out ElectronMail which is an open-source ProtonMail client. It works pretty well but isn't official.
Protonmail web interface is used as a static bundle built from the sources and prepackaged with the app. See details here. The build process is reproducible and the CI build logs are open so you can verify that the binary installation packages attached to the releases have been built from the source code, the respective issue is here. You could also assembly your own installation package from the sources.
Proton doesn't support full-text search but search only by subject content. You can get unlimited full-text search for both using https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail.
One might think it's just yet another wrapped to Electron container regular web page but this time it's much more than that. I presume you didn't try the app in action which is totally fine but I'd ask you to at least thoroughly review the features listed in the readme. Many of those features are custom ones and are peculiar to the desktop application only.
Web technologies, in general, is the presentation layer. Except for the Chrome/browser engine (a presentation layer thing), Electron also includes Node.js part which is a backend thing that allows building integrated with operating systems stuff and even using native modules while using just web technologies due to the security reasons doesn't allow integration with OS which makes total sense for regular browsers.
You need to wait until syncing indication icon stops blinking in green. Blinking in green is an indication that the initial data syncing process is still in progress. If it still doesn't work after blinking stopped I believe you could open an issue here https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/issues/new.
You might want to try alternative/unofficial desktop app https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail that doesn't save the email login unless you explicitly make it to do so.
As far as I understand the official desktop app, for now, is more like just a wrapped to desktop package website. But it's quite possible to enhance desktop client by desktop specific features like enabling offline access to emails, like for example it's already implemented here.
Hi u/defunctA this desktop program is able to a keep local messages store, means offline access to the emails, in the case you have not yet stopped using protonmail.
> I thought it would be usefull to access your emails without internet, but you need a network to connect
Offline emails access is implemented here https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail by the way.