What a day. I was told my landing page looks like an AI wrote it, got roasted for a confusing illustration metric (and rightly so), and received the ultimate rite of passage: being told my app could be replaced by a couple of Linux CLI commands.

Unironically, thanks everyone. Because of your feedback, the site copy's a little tighter, and the Windows installer no longer throws a scary UAC prompt. I couldn't have asked for a better (or more intense) test.

Totally fair, though. In my defense, 98% of my time went into wrestling with IMAP parsing architectures, optimizing memory, and code-signing certificates instead of designing custom CSS layouts from scratch. I'll finesse the design in the future.

I rebuilt the app because I was feeling that same fatigue. It felt like every cool new tool I looked at wanted to upload personal data to a remote server, hook it up to a third-party AI API, or charge a recurring fee.

The original version of the app actually was a cloud-based SaaS. But I figured people would feel significantly more comfortable having a sensitive tool like this run entirely on their own hardware instead of in the cloud like everything else. Making it local-first also makes it easier for people to download and try it out.

Building on top of it let me solve a few major protocol headaches directly in the client:

The app filters out signature junk (like tiny social media and logo icons), pulls down just the raw attachments instead of downloading entire 20-year-old message threads, and handles thousands of images while gracefully managing Google's rate limits (to avoid connection drops).

Yes, use Google Takeout if you want a full account archive. It's a pain if you just want to get your photos, though.

You have to deal with huge .mbox files, download gigabytes of unnecessary text, and sometimes you have to wait days for the export.

The short version is that Mail Memories lets you get the images you want instead of an all-or-nothing data dump.

I intentionally chose a local IMAP pipeline over the official Gmail API because of platform gatekeeping. To use the API for this, Google forces independent developers into a "Restricted Scope" tier, which requires an annual $15,000+ third-party security assessment.

Going the local IMAP route lets me bypass that completely while keeping user data 100% local and secure.

When you export Mail with Takeout, Google dumps your entire history into a huge .mbox file. If you have a 20-year-old account, you're downloading tens of gigabytes of raw text data, headers, and metadata just to get to the images. Once you have that huge file, you still have to figure out a way to extract and decode the image attachments from the raw email text.

Mail Memories just gives you what you want: the photos.

That said, the $29 price point is for the execution and friction-removal. Turning a raw script into a compiled, code-signed desktop app that handles OS security gates (Mac Dev ID and Windows Smartscreen), dynamically manages Google rate limits, and a provides a beautiful UI for non-technical users takes a lot of effort.

For people who want to rescue their photos without opening a terminal - or who don't even know what a terminal is - this app is a huge win for them.

I originally built and launched this as a SaaS, but even with code and policies in place that kept users' photos private, I figured everyone would feel more comfortable with a desktop app.

So, I threw out the server architecture and completely rewrote it as a 100% local desktop app for Mac and Windows.

How it works now: The app connects directly to Google's server from your computer, processes everything entirely on your system, and saves photos straight to your hard drive.

You can download your 50 oldest photos for free (no credit card required) just to see what's in there. If you want to download all the pictures in your account, it's a one-time payment of $29. No subscriptions.

If you have an old, pre-2010 Gmail account, definitely give it a spin. You'll be surprised at what you find deep in your archive.

I'd love to hear your feedback on the layout, scanning performance, or anything else.

TL;DR: I turned my SaaS into a local desktop app (Mac/Windows) that recovers decades of forgotten photos from your Gmail. 100% local, no cloud, no subscriptions, no AI.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762000

Points: 94

# Comments: 41

Hey HN, I’m the creator of Mail Memories. Like many of you, I've had my Gmail address for more than 20 years. Recently, I got curious and wanted to see what photos were buried deep in my account. I ended up finding lots of "lost" pictures of old friends, family members, and a ridiculous amount of nostalgic, vintage memes.

I originally built and launched this as a SaaS. To pull down attachments at scale, the app connects via IMAP using a standard Google App Password. Requesting users hand over that privileged credential to a remote cloud service is a big ask. Lots of people did and I'm grateful for that, but I really wanted more people to try the app.

Even with code and policies in place that kept users' photos private, I figured everyone would feel more comfortable with a desktop app.

So, I threw out the server architecture and completely rewrote it as a local-first desktop app for Mac and Windows.

Now, users generate an App Password through Google and paste it directly into the app. The password is held strictly in memory (RAM). It's never written to disk, never cached, and goes away the moment they close the app.

The app connects directly to Google's servers from your computer, processes everything entirely on your system, and saves photos straight to your hard drive.

You can download your 50 oldest photos for free (no credit card required) just to see what's in there. If you want to download all the pictures in your account, it's a one-time payment of $29. No subscriptions.

If you have a pre-2010 Gmail account, I'd love for you to give it a spin. You'll be genuinely surprised at what you find.

I'd love to hear your feedback.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48708270

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

(I append, the author's really prepending. Anyway...)

When the note gets too long, I cut and paste it to what I call the big note: a 127000-line, 4.9 MB text file I've been maintaining for 14 years.

Trivially searchable, can get context from neighboring notes (What else was happening around this time?), and easily parsable when necessary.

Points: 1

# Comments: 4

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37265924

Demo - Download the oldest images in your account for free: https://mailmemories.com/app/start

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37663927

Points: 7

# Comments: 0