What is Reddit's opinion of
Spark?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Yup, according to this blog post, Spark is specifically targeting Inbox users with their Android app. The timing is not remotely coincidental. It's not quite Inbox (no Purchases or Trips bundles at this time), but it's still a thousand times better than Gmail.
Found this comment on another post on /r/mac:
>General Statistical Information
>When you use the Spark app we gather statistics and analytics on your usage of Spark. We may collect information about your mobile device and internet connection, including the application-specific device identifier, IP address, operating system, browser type, mobile network information, location, installed email, etc. This information is collectively referred to as "General Statistical Information". This data helps us to determine how different parts of the Spark app are used. This information is used by us to provide you with the best user experience possible.
>We use third party services, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and Amplitude, to collect and analyze how you use Spark. These services may collect information about you and your usage of Spark in accordance with their respective privacy policies.
So even if you're trying to keep your data away from Google and Facebook they'll get it any way. I'm not sure if anyone is aware of that but Spark downloads all your emails to their servers. They mention about that in their policy.
If anyone regret signing up for Spark and is worried about your emails being stored on their servers, try this https://sparkmailapp.com/account_deletion
Google Inbox is the best email experience I’ve ever used - both in the browser and on iOS. I am very sad it’s being deprecated.
But I’m in the process of migrating off Google services, and so far the best email client I’ve found is Spark. Similar gestures and grouping to Inbox, plus a bunch of collaborative stuff if that’s your thing.
Here's the original post with the links to source information about the privacy concerns:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/
And here's the link on Readdle's site where you can delete your account information:
I am incredibly paranoid when it comes to data privacy and storing my credentials server side is a big flag. That said I pulled up their privacy policy and here's a few nuggets of information that nobody has mentioned:
Data Retention
- Wiping data after account deletion - 3 months
- Retaining recent messages from inbox - 4 hours
- Pending emails in send later - Deleted on send
Data Encryption
- Email and credentials - asymmetric encryption
So it's a little better than I expected but I would love to know more about how email is encrypted.
I definitely recommend Fantastical in spite of the price. The natural language parser is simply priceless. I find that everything about Fantastical is geared towards speed and simplicity.
Another option would be Moleskin Timepage although I've never used the app myself.
Another option is to use the default calendar.app along with the built in calendar in Outlook or Spark Mail , for example.
Yoink for Mac is so great. It's a simple utility that makes drag-and-drop much easier. I use it daily.
Unclutter for Mac is an awesome Stickies replacement, clipboard viewer, and file dropper. Great for taking quick notes.
Spark is an email app that I can't recommend highly enough. It has completely solved all my email woes, something I didn't think possible.
Yes, they are. This should be informed in app:
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
> Accounts are added to Spark through OAuth where possible. Where OAuth is not supported we keep your account username and password on our secure servers. We then use the authorization provided to download your emails to our virtual servers and push to your device.
I have not used it for years and I believe it has gotten better, but the privacy policy on their site has these parts:
>Email content while using Spark Services: We allow you and your colleagues to create teams within the Service. It allows you to have a secure space where you share information such as email conversations, shared email drafts, have private discussions, or create links to specific emails. This information is stored on our secure servers in order to make Services available to you, so you can collaborate with your teammates around email.
Also similar language for Recently accessed email messages and collaboration threads.
Now the text here seems to hint that they do this only if you use the advanced team features of spark but they don't explicitly tell that.
I think it has gotten better though (compared to this from a few years back)https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
I love Spark but they have a very liberal privacy policy. There's a year-old post about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/
And here's the actual policy: https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
Presumably iOS client Spark, which has it's own decent bundles-like feature from what I heard, will release it's android version in the near future. I actually suspect they'll time it with inbox closure.
It's literally in their privacy policy on their website. Among a few other things, one thing I noted on [their website](https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_4) that caused a concern (among a few other things) for me is:
​
> Your data is stored on secure servers that we rent and We use the recommended industry practices to keep your data secure. We use appropriate level of technical and organizational measures to prevent accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of or access to personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.
​
I'm not saying don't use the app. What you're comfortable with in terms of privacy is a personal decision. I realize we all give up quite a bit of privacy simply by owning a smartphone. I don't know if, in the grand scheme of things, Spark's privacy policy adds significant risk, but it gave me enough pause to stop using the app.
Have a look at the email client from spark.
It automatically categorizes your emails into different boxes inside your inbox (personal, newsletter and notifications).
Cause having 10k unread emails and 10k unread newsletters for sure isn't the same! Knowing that 9990 of the unread mails are newsletters, might help with feeling guilty ;)
There's also MailButler, which (years ago, at least) had such features but they ran on your own (constantly running) mac. They may have moved things server-side though.
In terms of security. Spark accesses your accounts using the same kind of anonymous token you generate to add accounts to mac mail. For things like scheduled messages, the data of when to send it is all they're privy to. The contents and the recipients are all encrypted and passed to the email server. The smart notifications feature, however, does require the app to maintain a whitelist of "important" senders' email addresses.
Readdle, the makers of Spark, retain quite a bit of data about it's users, their contacts, and the messages being sent. They recently published an updated Privacy Policy for GDPR compliance with details on what they store and how long they store it. Their policy states that will provide a copy of their annual SOC 2 IT audit, which may not be a leisurely read, but it'd be proof they have independent auditors making sure they have controls properly designed and working to protect data. (Note: ProtonMail will do the same thing if you sign their DPA (PDF).)
Spark is also sending analytics data of your usage to Adobe/Amplitude, Facebook and Google. It's not just using HockeyApp.
If you're using push they'll store your email credentials, not on their servers in the Ukraine, they're using Amazon/AWS. This is using asymmetric crypto, so it's very secure.
But they're also storing them encrypted on iCloud, while the key is stored next to the encrypted data. This happens in every case, it's to sync account data between devices.
The first email you add to the app is sent to the servers of the developers. They may use it to spam you with Readdle news.
Spark is the best email client I have ever tried on iOS and OSX. https://sparkmailapp.com/
It auto creates the 'notifications' and 'newsletter' folders for you and is smart about filtering those emails.
I'm sitting at 43,687 unread emails. While that would warrant ending my own life if it were important stuff, it's all just newsletters and useless stuff anyway. It's gotten this way because I forward all my emails from every address I've ever had to a single inbox.
It's become such a problem that I use Office 365 which has a clutter autosorter in combination with Spark to aggressively cut down on emails and send push notifications to me when I actually get something important. It works quite well IME and despite my volume of emails I usually know instantly if I got something important. Also, Easilydo is fabulous for making sure I know about actionable emails from important people and reminding me about follow-ups as well as cataloging bills and receipts. So my email game is strong now.
https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained Spark Email Privacy: Everything you Need to Know | Blog: As an email client, Spark only collects and uses your data to let you read and send emails... https://amp.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/ Do NOT use the Spark email client by Readdle : privacy - Reddit 🤷🏻♀️
Here is a list of features that are similar to Inbox. The biggest thing i liked about Inbox was the Inbox Zero, which I realize is just archiving mail and that can be done in any app but it just seems easier and cleaner in Spark.
From their privacy policy: > HOW LONG PERSONAL DATA IS STORED FOR
>Depending on the type, your personal data is stored either until you delete the App or after a certain period. Your email addresses, email content for Spark Services, mail server credentials, APNS device token, App token assigned by us, and device info will be immediately removed after 3 months following deletion of your account. Recent messages from your inbox will be immediately removed after 4 hours of receiving the message.
Not only do they have access to all your emails, they retain your credentials for a while after you delete your account with them, for “reasons”.
Spark has just released their Android app after years on the Apple ecosystem (probably not a coincidence that it's been released to coincide with Inbox's shutdown). Probably the closest thing we have at this stage to an Inbox clone.
I prefer the one that doesn't store my password in their cloud, then sell my data:
https://blog.readdle.com/how-we-handle-your-account-information-in-spark-1b42f4acef73
If you use Gmail, switch to Inbox by Google. It uses Google’s magic to sort and categorize your emails with the goal of getting to “inbox zero”. It lets you swipe away emails you’re “done” with (without deleting), lets you “pin” important emails, and lets you schedule emails to come back when they’re more relevant.
If you’re on iOS or macOS and don’t use Gmail or want another option, look at Spark. Similar concept, but works more broadly with email providers.
The app's Privacy Policy states, "Readdle does not rent, sell, or share personally identifiable information about you with non-affiliated third parties (other than our subsidiaries and affiliates), except to provide products or services you've requested, when we have your permission"
To me, this leaves open a gaping loophole which permits them to rent/sell/share (poorly? well?) aggregate group data.
More:
"We use third party services, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and Amplitude, to collect and analyze how you use Spark. These services may collect information about you and your usage of Spark in accordance with their respective privacy policies."
Those services also sell aggregated, supposedly anonymous data too, although Google says it will also use the data to target the ads you see (unless you choose otherwise through your Google account [and don't delete their cookies]).
Ugh. Looks like I'm sticking with Apple Mail app (plus a webmail app I pay $20/year for which gives me extra email addresses I can create and delete at will).
Thats because they're providing extra infrastructure on top of a normal IMAP connection. From Spark's Privacy Policy:
>Accounts are added to Spark through OAuth where possible. Where OAuth is not supported we keep your account username and password on our secure servers. We then use the authorization provided to download your emails to our virtual servers and push to your device.
Mail.app or Postbox.
Every other hyped new app isn't too good when it comes to privacy. Just look at Spark: https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
Sends statistics about your email usage to Amplitude, Facebook and Google (it's none of their business when I do my emailing). Sends the first account you add to Readdle so you end up on their mailing list. Stores credentials for your accounts on their servers so you can have push (it's email, even if the service doesn't support push, you can pull every few minutes with a desktop client, or every 15 minutes with a mobile client).
> Accounts are added to Spark through OAuth where possible. Where OAuth is not supported we keep your account username and password on our secure servers. We then use the authorization provided to download your emails to our virtual servers and push to your device>
This is taken straight from their privacy policy.
/u/digiw0rx posted a link earlier: https://sparkmailapp.com/account_deletion
But I agree, naming some good alternatives would be great. I personally like Airmail a lot but there seems to be some discussion about that as well...
Oh boy, yea, I've been running away from the stock mail app for a couple of iOS iterations now.
>Is there an alternate?
You should check out Spark, imho it's one of the best mail apps out there for iOS right now, and it can handle both Gmail and Exchange.
Only if the email provider supports OAuth 2…
> Spark needs to check and send emails from your email account. Otherwise, you won’t be able to read or compose emails in the app. This is how every email client works.
> For services like Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo, we store an application-specific token. This means that we don’t have your actual password. You can revoke this access token at any moment from your email account on the web. For example, if you’re a Gmail user, you can do it here. For services like AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, this access token is your email login and password. You can also create an app-specific password to connect your account to Spark (for example, it’s a must for iCloud accounts).
Only if the email provider supports OAuth 2…
> Spark needs to check and send emails from your email account. Otherwise, you won’t be able to read or compose emails in the app. This is how every email client works.
> For services like Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo, we store an application-specific token. This means that we don’t have your actual password. You can revoke this access token at any moment from your email account on the web. For example, if you’re a Gmail user, you can do it here. For services like AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, this access token is your email login and password. You can also create an app-specific password to connect your account to Spark (for example, it’s a must for iCloud accounts).
https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained
Either way, their servers (not just the app on your device) have the ability to do anything they like to your email account. This is not something that is required for an email app to work.
Fair enough concerns on them storing mail, although they are transparent on what they do here:
> To compose and send you notifications, Spark syncs the subject and a part of your message, encrypts this information and stores it on its secure servers. Encryption means that humans can’t read the contents of your message.
>
> The encryption key is saved locally on your device, so only you have access to it. As a step to minimize the amount of data we store, we delete this encrypted information from our servers in 4 hours after sending a notification as this data is no longer needed.
>
> Spark requires the server-side processing to send you push notifications, so you don’t miss important emails. This is how the Apple Push Notification service works.
Regarding features like send later and snoozing mail, those aren’t exposed by the gmail api to third parties. This is why Minestream has just added a local implementation of snoozing mail rather than through gmail, but Mimestream doesn’t have multiple apps or services to sync with.
Gmail app do not get notifiations. Spark Email , https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained , https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_2 privacy issues? but notifications working. Canary Mail App is not free.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_2
They’re still collecting and utilizing a lot of data. Read through that. For some people they don’t care - others don’t really want to put that trust into another company.
I mean, there’s always a reason a company offers a service for free while having to maintain servers.
Have you tried Spark? It is a very good email client and it is entirely free on both macOS and iOS. I switched to it about ~18 months ago and haven't looked back.
I think it has every feature mimestream does, plus some.
A lot of reading, I love this f@king gorgeous screen!!!! (Feedly PWA)
Developer tasks (VS Code, Windows Terminal, WSL)
Phone calls with de Phone Link app, Whatsapp audio calls too.
Of course Microsoft Teams to work related tasks, almost all Office's apps, a lot of online/offline Onedrive storage coming in and out.
WSA to play Family Guy and Simpsons games 🤓
All Google apps via PWA. (Gmail, Keep, Calendar, Contacts, Photos. Waiting sparkmailapp.com for Windows)
I think their strategy is free for individuals but paid for enterprise:
https://sparkmailapp.com/pricing
I don't think this model necessarily means that they're selling or harvesting data.
Beware, Spark sends your email password to their own servers. It's a bad policy, privacy wise. No more end-to-end encryption with your email provider.
It's in their privacy policy: https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
(and no, OAuth does not fix this, this token is nothing more than a "separate password" for a specific app/service.)
Spark reminds me of those apps acquired by Dropbox and Apple way back when. Didn't Apple acquire something sounding like Spark?
But seems a bit counter productive to use Proton then store mails on Spark servers.
It's in their privacy policy: https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
But if you Google it you'll find plenty posts about it, first hit: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/
Thanks for the response. I understand all the reason that you mention for the change, and yes the ability to be represented in monochromatic style is important as well as simplification to favor customization.
But in my view it just lost all its personality, and now it looks kind of generic. More than Telegram as some others say, since the change I have been confusing it with SpakMail. They are almost identical.
Personally, I think just removing the stars but keeping the mountain/pencil tip would help with monochrome representation and customization since it's just a dark and white shape, while keeping the own style of the app.
Whatever course you take, I trust that the feedback will be heard, and the improvements will be continuous.
Thanks and keep the good work.
u/booknerdcarp u/fjordstrom After trying out multiple email clients, I found that Spark https://sparkmailapp.com/ allows you to perfectly add alias, and set this alias as default sending address.
Yes: icloud custom email domain is just an alias, and that's why you can't use it with SMTP.
The only issue you might meet is that some users complain when they send from Spark, mails are sometimes were categorized as spams, while they never were when sending from official Mail.app in iOS or macos.
Hi there! Please take a look at this article about Spark's Privacy Policy: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained.
I am happy to assist you with any concerns you might have about it.
Let me point out a few things.
- Read and send emails
Spark needs to check and send emails from your email account. Otherwise, you won’t be able to read or compose emails in the app. This is how every email client works.
For services like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo, we store an application-specific token. This means that we don’t have your actual password. You can revoke this access token at any moment from your email account on the web. For example, if you’re a Gmail user, you can do it. For services like AOL, Exchange, and custom IMAP accounts, this access token is your email login and password. You can also create an app-specific password to connect your account to Spark (for example, it’s a must for iCloud accounts).
All connections to our servers are protected with TLS. The servers' databases are encrypted, and to make things even more secure we additionally encrypt your password in the database. - Receive notifications
To compose and send you notifications, Spark syncs the subject and a part of your message, encrypts this information, and stores it on its secure servers. Encryption means that humans can’t read the contents of your message.
The encryption key is saved locally on your device, so only you have access to it. As a step to minimize the amount of data we store, we delete this encrypted information from our servers 4 hours after sending a notification as this data is no longer needed.
Spark requires server-side processing to send you push notifications, so you don’t miss important emails. This is how the Apple Push Notification service works.
Here is an article about Spark's Privacy Policy if you'd like to take a look: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained. Don't hesitate to share any of your concerns.
Have to agree. I've been an Apple Mac user since 2007 and in all that time there's been little improvement in the Mail App. I switched to Spark Mail and I'm very pleased. It works on all my Apple macOS, ipadOS and iOS devices.
Yes, that is what Canary claims in their privacy policy.
> The only scenario in which we will temporarily store this data is if users of Canary Mail for iOS or Android choose to enable Push notifications when they receive email. In that case, Canary will temporarily store your email address, credentials, sender, subject line, and first line of the message on our server. Data associated with a specific email is deleted as soon as the notification for that email is delivered to your device. All data is cleared from our server when notifications are disabled on Canary Mail for iOS or Android or when you switch from Push to Fetch mode, in which case all data is stored locally only and new emails are fetched directly from your device.
Although Spark is more popular, they do retain your credentials on cloud as mentioned in their privacy policy and they keep them for a certain even after you delete them from the app.
Hi there! Please take a look at this article about Spark's Privacy Policy: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained and feel free to share any concerns, I'd be happy to assist you with it!
Thanks for your question. I quite like Craft these days. It's a notetaking and productivity app. I've been following them from the beginning from the beginning and they just won the app of the year for being the best mac app.
For email I've been using Spark in the past year and it helps me lot in reaching near mailbox 0.
How about you?
You could make your presentation longer by going through examples of emails.
For example, this website has six examples of formal emails.
https://sparkmailapp.com/formal-email-template
Ask the group what kind of formal emails they send and why do they send them.. in which situations is it better to use written communication then phone?
Ask the group what problems they encounter with writing formal emails and what solutions have they found.
Then finish with the last 15 mins as a workshop where they write an email.
There are some more resources you could use here:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails
If it is still actual. Spark is one of the best email clients for Mac, from my point of view. It’s an astonishing client with, particularly good and useful qualities. Try it.
Hi there! You are right, Spark needs to check and send emails from your email account. Otherwise, you won’t be able to read or compose emails in the app.
All connections to our servers are protected with TLS. The servers' databases are encrypted, and to make things even more secure we additionally encrypt your password in the database.
To compose and send you notifications, Spark syncs the subject and a part of your message, encrypts this information and stores it on its secure servers. Encryption means that humans can’t read the contents of your message.
The encryption key is saved locally on your device, so only you have access to it. As a step to minimize the amount of data we store, we delete this encrypted information from our servers in 4 hours after sending a notification as this data is no longer needed.
Here is an article about our Privacy Policy if you'd like to take a look: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained
OK, so it is called Spark.
This is the website: https://sparkmailapp.com/
This one is the link to the mac store if you feel better about it.
I got hyperfixated on clearing out my mail one day and downloaded it. It is really helpful because it has a smart inbox feature which organizes all your mail by categories like "People", "notifications" "newsletters" etc...
People is like all the actual emails from legit people you actually want to keep most likely. The other categories catch all the junk. You can empty out entire categories at a time... bor if you're like me you can click view all, then click on the first email in the group and scroll at a steady pace to the bottom to make sure you didn't miss anything important (The sorting is not perfect, so there's probably some you'll want to look at). When you get good and deep into the abyss, or you see one you wanna read, hold the shift key and click on the one you don't care about before it.
YOU PROBABLY JUST SELECTED LIKE 1000 OF THOSE FUCKERS
Just click the trash and you good to go.
I emptied out I think 60K+ emails in maybe a half hour. There are a ton of other features most of which I explored and forgot about, then once my fixation passed I mostly forgot about the app altogether. It is really cool though -
Good luck!
> …they actively download your mail to send you notifications
The Outlook app on iOS, along with any third party email app that offers push notifications does the same.
Readdle claim the database used for credential/token storage is encrypted, as well as they method used to send push notifications to your devices (contains sender/subject/preview).
> Your email and account credentials are stored on secure cloud-based servers using symmetric encryption
I’ve seen that Reddit post before and I also shared your same view, hence why I paid for a subscription of airmail. However I later came across this blog post: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/privacy-explained
After some digging I found they’re pretty similar to other email clients out there, paid or free, so I switched back to Spark.
Don’t know what your reading, but it’s Spark is fully GDPR and CCPA compliant.
Seems a bit better then average to me.
See the attached link.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_2
They’re still collecting and utilizing a lot of data. Read through that. For some people they don’t care - others don’t really want to put that trust into another company.
I mean, there’s always a reason a company offers a service for free while having to maintain servers.
The alternative I'm most interested in trying is Spark.
I discovered it in this discussion in the Cortex podcast, where HEY is also mentioned. It has a few features still missing (as of April 2021) on HEY: snooze emails, reply with templates and send later.
Send Later is specially interesting to me. Sometimes I send e-mails during weekends, but I don't want to spook the receiver into thinking they ought to reply it ASAP.
Pricing is much friendlier, because Spark is not really an e-mail provider. Doesn't bother me much because at the moment, I still rely on my outlook e-mail and while I am using HEY, I'm still using STMP/forwarding with my domain provider.
Anyone who used both HEY and Spark to comment on the goods and bads of the transition?
I'm going to refer you to this comment that basically sums it up. You can read Readdle's privacy policy for Spark yourself or refer to their blog post about Spark and privacy, though I would say the blog post perhaps simplifies things and leaves some things out.
For what it's worth, I still use Spark. I don't really think Readdle is doing anything nefarious, and I think some of Spark's actual privacy policy terms may be worded more broadly than what they may actually need. In any case, I'm fine with the potential risks. I mostly love Spark as an app.
I need to say this :: I am not trying to make you change your plans, or workflow, but take a look at this: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/ticktick-integration
I use Spark Mail because it has so many features. Apparently, it also has TickTick integration.
'Might' be worth checking it out only because all of your email accounts can easily be accessed from one app?
It’s an option in Mail app on Mac and iOS. You don’t have to use it but it’s there and it makes sense especially if you’re using multiple email addresses.
To OP- you might want to look at Spark mail when and if it’s released on Windows. You can let the developer know that you want the Win version:
I've switched to Spark Mail on my phone and Mac since 6 months. I don't know how Spark does it, but on my Mac , even after 6 months of use, it occupies less than 100mb space total. While when I used Apple Mail, it was close to 2gb. Just sharing my experience.
I actually found Spark trending on the app store one time and instantly fell in love. I used to use GMail Suite, but eh, I was never overly a fan of GMail to begin with. I personally would rather pay for something like Spark or Zoho.
You might want to read their privacy policy. Sorry, I'm looking for an email client, not an online service that sucks in all my emails and contacts onto their servers.
Airmail for iOS stores credentials on their servers to provide notification support. Airmail for MacOS stores credentials only in the local keychain. Data storage on Spark's servers seems to be non-optional. I'm not into giving out my credentials to third parties.
>All emails are stored in their servers which opens up a whole set of privacy issues.
The article you linked is pretty clear. Your emails are not stored on Spark's servers unless you are specifically using the Teams, Templates, or Send Later features. This will be true of any 3rd party app or service that provides similar features.
Messages on your IMAP account are being read directly from your email provider's servers. They are cached locally on your device for offline reading for 30 days.
For the login credentials, Spark only stores an authorization token if you are using Gmail. Not sure about other services.
​
>All emails are stored in their servers which opens up a whole set of privacy issues.
I don't specifically want to move away from Spark because it's probably the best email client I have ever used, but if Mail was improved to the point of being "good enough", then I might switch back to that just for some minor conveniences. It's got a long way to go before it's "good enough" though.
That article is absurd (and I think pretty old). The fact that there is no mention of Spark is insanity. I tried every single email client for the Mac for years before I found the de facto winner and never looked back. What you are looking for is right here. And anyone that says anything different is smoking something super strong, has never tried Spark, or they're selling what they're recommending.
Spark still collects a lot of data. https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_2
You should use Canary with fetch because otherwise they can see your email content.
"In order to function properly, Canary Mail for Mac and for iOS accesses your name, email address, credentials (such as OAuth access tokens for email servers which support them), and email content. All of this information is stored on your device and is never transferred to our servers.
The only scenario in which we will temporarily store this data is if users of Canary Mail for iOS choose to enable Push notifications when they receive email. In that case, Canary will temporarily store your email address, credentials, sender, subject line, and first line of the message on our server."
Like I said earlier, you’re taking your personal beliefs and applying them as if everyone has to follow them, or they’re some universal truth. Fair means accordance with the rules or standards. Apple sets those. They don’t need your eyes on their rules to make them fair. Is a subreddit’s moderation unfair because we don’t see mod mail or a public list of mod actions? Are the police unfair when an investigation is not public? Maybe you think we should bring back the days when every child’s test score was posted on the community board.
> For your information, no, it doesn’t have any in-app purchases
It does. But also, what changed is that you always have one more thing, and you don’t understand what points I’m making because you’ve never addressed them, and I’ve stated it as clearly as I can.
As far as being subjective or whatever, this whole thing is subjective. The law allows it to be subjective. There is no moral code that Congress or the Constitution mandates. You are taking your personal beliefs and are forcing them on other people.
> That’s really not a valid “rule”.
It’s definitely an accepted way of sussing out the truth. How do you think a judge figures if someone is lieing? You look at what they’re actually doing. If Hey is selling to consumers then it’s, literally, a consumer product. It doesn’t matter if their customers are not using it for its intended purpose. Hey isn’t responsible for what they do with it after they purchase it. You don’t honestly think Hey is going to pay a business’s liabilities for not having a 3 nine SLA?
Spark is currently both on iOS and Android, and they are working on a native Windows as well as a general web version.
You can sign up for eMail notifications when non mobile Platforms become available here:
https://sparkmailapp.com/platform
Here's their privacy policy. Decide for yourself. I use Google for email, so I'm not sure I could say privacy is my biggest concern. I've used Apple's default mail app which is a 3rd party when it comes to my email. I've used Outlook, Airmail, and probably a couple of others over the years.
Avoid Spark, bad for privacy; They upload/store your credentials/password of your email accounts on their own servers.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy :
> For this reason, Spark services access your email account when you start using the App. Your email address is a unique identifier of you as a user within our system and allows us to secure your data. > > [....] > > Spark requires your credentials to log into your mail system in order to receive, search, compose and send email messages and other communication.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
They have employees parse through and read your emails. Their encryption system is extremely basic too. The company received a lot of flack previously and may have improved but the original intent was there and I’m still uncomfortable with it.
Yes... that's a red flag. They also store credentials of your email accounts on their servers.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy : > For this reason, Spark services access your email account when you start using the App. Your email address is a unique identifier of you as a user within our system and allows us to secure your data.
> [....]
> Spark requires your credentials to log into your mail system in order to receive, search, compose and send email messages and other communication.
From their privacy policy:
>HOW LONG PERSONAL DATA IS STORED FOR
>Depending on the type, your personal data is stored either until you delete the App or after a certain period. Your email addresses, email content for Spark Services, mail server credentials, APNS device token, App token assigned by us, and device info will be immediately removed after 3 months following deletion of your account. Recent messages from your inbox will be immediately removed after 4 hours of receiving the message.
They have all of your data and keep it after account deletion. This is how it's free
I strongly recommend Spark for both your Mac and iOS devices (if applicable). Emails will be in smart threads and sorted chronologically with clear indicators of who's replying and who's in To or CC/BCC.
While I'm at it, read up on "inbox zero" and get into the habit of archiving emails you have read but may need later, deleting the stuff you'll never need to read again, and snoozing threads that don't need your attention this very second. Spark is designed with inbox zero in mind and the swipe gestures make it easy to maintain that.
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
As I said, nothing extreme. The PP asserts that your data isn't used for marketing purposes (other than to send you email from the developers themselves, which you can opt out of). But they do concede to temporarily storing your emails, personal discussions with teams you're in, and other things like that.
On the plus side, they claim that they do not in any way provide user data to third parties except where legally required to do so.
OP asked for a Windows app. This appears to be Mac only.
Looks pretty sick, though. I'm gonna download it.
BTW, for Mac, Spark Mail is a great mail app that otherwise meets OP's requirements, and there's a Windows version currently in the works, so hopefully, in a couple months or so OP will have another option to check out.
They store a bunch of information on their servers for convenience features like smart notifications and send later. They say they encrypt user data like scheduled emails and a notification contact whitelist (they don't store credentials) but they don't go into details. Personally, I'm okay with this. It seems like a decent compromise.
I've experienced this with Gmail accounts a lot for the past few *cough* years.
You can check for problems with Apple's Mail Connection Doctor but that won't get you far. Waiting also can help but it's not guaranteed. Here are Apple's Mail Problem articles. Or you could just use Spark.
After looking through their policies, I find they collect to much data. The strength of this app seems to be shared access to mail accounts, of which I will not make use.
Coincidentally (/s) Spark released their Android app today. It's not quite Inbox, but it's still a thousand times better than Gmail. I refuse to use Gmail, Google can go f$&# itself.
My temporary solution is to use na app called Spark (https://sparkmailapp.com/) and it works perfectly on all my Macs and idevices. I consider using it instead of Mail app permanently. It’s that good.
Shame on Apple. After relying on Mail app for the past 10 years, such a stupid bug on a critical app that’s used for personal and business needs.
Sure, you can access the mail by web interface, but I like having a reliable client that manages several accounts at once.
check out https://sparkmailapp.com/
​
It's in beta currently, been using it for a week or so. Supposedly releasing on android around the end of the month, and very seamless transition from Inbox.
Spark for macOS and iOS is amazing. Been using it for a couple of years now. - Calendar sync - Smart inbox grouping - Snooze feature - Integrations with gdrive, Dropbox, etc
... I had completely forgotten about Inbox... I was an avid user of it shortly after its introduction, and used it as a replacement app on my iPhone for Mailbox (which Dropbox sadly killed off) up until I found Spark.
I didn't even realize Google were killing off Inbox until I saw your comment.
I went to the Spark web site and it said it's no available for the iPhone but will be "soon" : (. There was no indication that there was a web interface either. Am I missing something? https://sparkmailapp.com/platform
I just set up Spark Mail as a replacement for Inbox today. It has "bundle like" behavior with "notifications" "newsletters" "personal" and "read" which is OK. no way to create custom settings for this which is frustrating.
entire "cards" (what we think of as bundles) can be archived or deleted in a single swipe.
it allows pinning of messages
It also lets you create simple email templates, so i was able to jury-rig together a reminder system by emailing myself based on a template that sticks [reminder] in the subject line. this is not great, but manageable.
it also has swipe-controls for archive/read/unread/delete/pin
The iOS version has a layout roughly approximating Inbox's layout, which is good. The desktop layout is completely locked into an old-school style layout with folders on one side, list of mesages, and message pane on the right. no way to even really re-size the different panes. The desktop layout is much less pleasant if you are used to the Inbox-style simple interface.
i don't LOVE it, but it seems like it will work.
I’ve been researching and trying different email clients recently trying to find one I want to stick with, and Spark is on top at the moment. Two words you used there were “seem” and “probably”. Do you have a source for that?
I know there’s a thread on here about supposedly how bad Spark’s privacy practices are, which then sparked a bunch of other threads repeating the same (sorry for that).
If you read their actual Privacy Policy it seems pretty reasonable, or at least not much worse than anything else.
google "spark email privacy issues" turns up a lot of hits, some even from reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/
then there's the privacy policy itself:
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
i suggest giving that a long careful review and decide for yourself if the information you provide is worth the service they provide.
tl;dr? you're basically giving them unfettered access to all email accounts you use with their applications, this data is stored on 3rd party servers, and they have the right to snoop all this data at any time. enjoy!
remember, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
It's because they temporarily store your emails and credentials on their servers. But... they have to in order to provide the functionality that the app needs to do. Pretty much any email client that does push notifications.
Full details here. https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
They don't have any need to store anything server-side for Documents.
> Stores credentials for your email accounts on their servers.
This is the part I dislike, and no, it's not normal for a local email client to store your credentials on another server.
IIRC Spark does it to support smart notifications, so they can parse your incoming messages to see which pass your smart notification criteria. (On iOS, this can't be done in a background task.)
Normal email clients like the stock mail app keep your account credentials on your local device. They are not stored on another server except as part of your end-to-end encrypted iCloud device backup if you use iCloud backups.
Email is a common account recovery tool for other services, so someone who gains access to my credentials or Gmail access token through Spark's servers could potentially do a lot of mischief with it. Spark promises they're very good about security, but personally I don't think it's worth the risk: I stopped using Spark several years ago.
Currently I use the stock Mail app.
Could you point to the language in their terms you're concerned about? https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
My impression is that someone read a boilerplate tos and freaked out about it, but there wasn't an issue. Something to do with read access required for push notifications.
Anyway, I read over it and didn't see anything odd in there. Maybe I missed it though.
You have to decide if their provacy policy meets your needs:
https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy
They do keep a copy of your data
>This information is stored on our secure servers in order to make Services available to you, so you can collaborate with your teammates around email.
But claim they delete it after 4 months.
What is staus after GDPR. Have Spark improven? I recently read their Privacy policy and Terms of use, and couldn’t find the same risks as said before. Have i missed something https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_2 ?
I would say they been improven a lot, but i could be mistaken
They say it will all be removed when they detect you've removed the software but ¯\(ツ)/¯ > When you delete Spark from all your devices, we remove all your account information from our database as soon as we are aware.
Most email providers give OAuth or app specific passwords & Spark doesn't store you emails or even download them entirety. The bits they do store for a short time are encrypted on Amazon's servers.
> Primary function of Spark servers is to send push notifications and badge numbers to your device. To do that, Spark servers download email headers and text parts from your email service provider and use them to compose push notifications. We delete email headers and text as soon as push message has been prepared and sent. We store messages and emails in encrypted form on secure cloud-based servers.