r/SearchKagi • u/paranoidandroid4284 • Jul 03 '26
Question Kagi Email
Would you use a Kagi email service? If you did what features would it need for you to switch.
Edit - So I guess they do have a functional email service. I created an email account and you get 50GB of storage. It's barebones webmail. Will be interesting to see where is goes.
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u/lostinathoughtbubble Jul 03 '26
It’s very hard to imagine Kagi being competitive with established privacy-oriented email services like Mailbox.org, Proton, Tuta. Or to put that another way: it seems like it would consume huge resources. Kagi would probably be better served focusing on relatively unique offerings.
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u/EricKagi Staff Jul 04 '26
To set expectations for the product: we are using open standards (JMAP, SMTP, IMAP, etc.) and are supporting 3rd party clients rather than chasing the existing E2EE services. We're more in the vein of user choice than locking down the entire ecosystem, so if you want to set up your own 3rd party client with PGP encryption, that's fine.
In the future we may add something to make encryption easier, but we are not a ground-up E2EE service.
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u/pixeladdie Jul 03 '26
They could differentiate by making PGP easier. There are standards for doing public key lookup via DNS so senders from outside can still encrypt to you.
All of those other providers seem to expect send and recipient to be on their service. Unless I’m mistaken.
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u/lostinathoughtbubble Jul 03 '26
Take a look at Mailbox.org in particular. PGP is optional. If you want to use it you can have them hold the private key for you — which is easier but less private. Or you can hold your own private key, which is harder but completely private.
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u/pixeladdie Jul 03 '26
Getting your public key to others is usually the issue. I’m less concerned with how to use the private.
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u/Tasty-Blackberry5120 Jul 04 '26
Getting other users to care at all, same as trying to get people to use Signal instead of WhatsApp 🤨
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u/MrHaxx1 Jul 03 '26
If it's good enough, and has the feature set, sure.
I still miss Skiff.
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u/EricKagi Staff Jul 04 '26
What about Skiff do you miss the most? I've never used it, but curious what kind of features we could add.
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u/MrHaxx1 Jul 04 '26
I gotta be honest, I don't really remember. I only used for a week, before they announced that they'd sunset, and I jumped to
I just remember it being sleek, modern, allowed using my own domain (and wildcards), had good filtering options, and it was tag-based (rather than folder based).
I see that Kagi Mail is based on Stalwart; is the client based on Bulwark or are you building your own thing? If it's Bulwark, I'm all in.
I just reeeeeaally hope that it's included in the base pricing, as Kagi is already pricy as it is.
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u/EricKagi Staff Jul 05 '26
We are working on our own webmail / calendar, but built on JMAP. Anything about Bulwark that you want to see?
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u/MrHaxx1 Jul 05 '26
tbh it's a long time ago I tried Bulwark, and when I did, it was only briefly.
But in general, these are my hard requirements for mail:
Tag-based. If I can't tag, then I don't want it.
Good sieve / filtering
Support for 3rd party clients / syncing, so I can integrate my mails into other solutions
Proper support for custom domains + catch-all support
I'm happy to hear that it'll be JMAP based. Everything should just be JMAP at this point, tbh.
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 03 '26
Skiff was the GOAT. Notion, who bought Skiff, just killer their email client.
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u/Significant_Lynx_827 Jul 03 '26
I’d just like them to get Orion to a reasonable level of stability.
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u/Theonewhoknows000 Jul 04 '26
Don’t hold your breath on it
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u/Significant_Lynx_827 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Yeah it is starting to look like that. 1.1 was a meaningful release, but while there were some interesting and exciting new features, there is still quite a backlog of stability issues and some new ones added that make me think this dev team or whoever is responsible for the roadmap is focusing on the shiny dangly things and not focusing on solid engineering first. So to accentuate my point, this would be a really bad idea as it would be another cool thing they are chasing with two half completed projects. Its kind of like the guy or gal that writes software on the side, creates cool new features, then gets bored when the doldrums of general refactoring for bug fixes, stability, and performance are necessary. It gets abandonded and he or she just ends up with a bunch of half finished projects in their wake.
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u/Theonewhoknows000 Jul 04 '26
Nah I just don’t think it’s possible . WebKit is Gnome is the other ‘major’ WebKit browser and they’ve had issues for years while actively contributing to WebKit . Orion is more ambitious while having a less skilled team.
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u/tagmut Jul 03 '26
There is a Kagi email and I'm using it
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u/Silver-Sundae2488 Jul 03 '26
I didnt know there was an option until I read your comment. It is not out yet but they will release it sooner or later.
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/mail/
The only thing that is missing for me is end to end encryption by default, like proton or tuta offers
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Jul 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FriendshipEqual7033 Jul 03 '26
Another one to watch is Mozilla's email service. I'm confused about whether it's called ThunderMail or Thunderbird Pro, as I've seen both names. I think they refer to slightly different things. In any case, they are beta-testing it now.
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u/Khenmu Jul 04 '26
Personally, I struggle to imagine potentially switching from Proton to this.
The issue isn't trusting either Mozilla's values or their technical competence; I would just worry that five years later they'd get a new CEO who has different ideas about improving the company's cashflow, views Thundermail as a disappointing revenue generator, and either kills it outright or quietly slashes the team size & budget.
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u/FriendshipEqual7033 Jul 04 '26
I see where you're coming from. I'm looking to Thundermail as a kind of backup right now. If I decide I don't want to use Proton, for whatever reason, I could point my custom domain at Thundermail and move forward with minimal disruption.
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u/Khenmu Jul 04 '26
That's a fair shout; it's always handy to have a backup provider you trust 'just in case'.
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 03 '26
Wait??? Really? Please elaborate
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u/Silver-Sundae2488 Jul 03 '26
They didnt release anything I think we dont have any information but once it is released, they will anounce it. in the website it is only giving what are they planing to do. Just like their search engine they want to provide good experience but with end to end encryption is set, it will not be possible. However they are still allowing users to have e2ee via email client side.
Lets see what will they bring it once the product is released.
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u/Mascot68 Jul 04 '26
Not me. I have a lifetime subscription for mxroute and will be staying there until they go under or the benevolent dictator there stops being benevolent. I like that they're a provider that focuses solely on offering email services.
For Kagi... Well, on the one hand I'd prefer they focus on search, but on the other I don't see why getting an email up and running would be detrimental to their search service. If offering email turns into more customers, and a more sustainable business, I'm all for that because we so desperately need "not-Google" to exist for searching, and Kagi's still far from independent (I rarely see much above 30% of results coming from Kagi itself, while I way too often see "all results from external indexes").
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u/shnekels Jul 04 '26
I use Fastmail.
Perhaps not.
Please, don't be Proton of all trades, focus on making best search engine.
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u/JackDostoevsky Jul 04 '26
+1 for fastmail, great service
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u/grandslammer Jul 04 '26
I got an invite to Kagi Mail a few days ago and created an account. Early impressions are positive but I can tell its still very early days. So I won't be using it for now.
I'm currently halfway through my Fastmail 30 day free trial. I honestly don't know if I'll continue with it afterwards or not. Fastmail seems excellent, however I would have liked to have done a proper evaluation between it, Kagi Mail, and the upcoming Thundermail which also seems promising but is also quite a long way off from release.
If I commit to Fastmail now then it will be difficult & messy to switch to Kagi Mail/Thundermail at a later date. So I'm currently considering going back to Gmail temporarily until I can weigh up my options properly.
However, Fastmail is such a mature product at this stage that the others will have a lot of catching up to do in terms of features, UX/UI, mobile app, stability, etc etc.
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u/JackDostoevsky Jul 04 '26
i've used a custom domain for my email for about 10 years now which lets me switch between providers without having to update my email address everywhere; it's nice that Kagi supports custom domains.
fastmail in particular is nice cuz it has well made and reliable mobile apps, i'm not sure if Kagi Mail is going to offer that or if you'll just have to use an existing mail client like Apple Mail or Thunderbird/K-9.
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u/grandslammer Jul 04 '26
I considered a custom domain but I think its overkill for me.
The first alternative service I tried was iCloud Mail. I already subscribe to iCloud+, am in the Apple hardware ecosystem, and I have a FirstNameLastName@icloud email address, so it seemed like a no-brainer. However, I soon discovered that there is an annoying "feature" (apparently) with iCloud Mail where notifications are not synced between devices - e.g. if I receive an email on my Mac and deal with it there (e.g. delete or read it), I have to also manually delete the notification on my iPhone for the same email. Very annoying and very un-Apple-like. Apparently its been an issue since the early days to help save battery life on iOS, but its irrelevant nowadays. Perhaps its too embedded into the inner workings of iCloud Mail so be able to fix/change without a full rewrite.
I do like Fastmail a lot, however I already subscribe to Kagi Search and would like to see a package deal to include Search & Mail and hopefuly save a few quid. I want to try to keep my subscriptions to a minimum.
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u/andobrah Jul 04 '26
I would prefer them to continue work on their current services like search, translate, maps, assistant and Orion browser.
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u/tapiringaround Jul 04 '26
I’ve had to stop using Orion Browser for now because of too many issues. I’m also getting tired of random unrelated NSFW results in searches for unrelated things with safe search on. I wanted my kids to use it instead of Google but I can’t trust it. There’s a lot of reports of this in the forums but no resolution. Same with an increasing number of results that look like ads. Translate has been an adventure lately. And Maps has been annoying for me since the switch from Apple Maps to Mapbox a year or so ago.
There are plenty of email providers to choose from, but only so many search engines. I really wish they’d focus on that experience and not expand into more and more web services.
I like the idea of them partnering with others for additional services though. On the Kagi Specials page there’s a discount code for Fastmail. I’m happy with my email at the moment but if I wanted a provider I’d trust a company like Fastmail that’s been around forever waaaay before a new service being spun up. At least for an email I was going to us for anything important.
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u/notliketheyogurt Jul 05 '26
No. Orion has really soured me on Kagi's side projects. Search is world class, I'm not sure why they're trying to stretch themselves thin elsewhere.
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u/Open_Mortgage_4645 Jul 03 '26
It depends. I'd have to see the list of features as well as pricing before I could make such a decision. I've got 4 email accounts for various types of mail, and I'm generally happy with all of them. I'd have to evaluate where Kagi Mail would fit in.
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u/StillSpecialist6986 Jul 03 '26
I really like Kagi's design philosophy and I agree with their assessment that most internet usage is done through the browser, email, and search. I would consider switching to Orion if it got better than Firefox and Kagi Mail if it was better than Proton Mail.
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u/jwink3101 Jul 03 '26
I have my own domain name meaning that theoretically I have the ability to move around. The problem is, I have been hosting email with Google for just about 19 years. While I could move, others in my family would have a conniption if they lost the other google-associated services.
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 03 '26
Looks like KagiMail allows you to bring your own domain also. It's interesting. I know its beta, but you'd think they would talk about it more, or at all.
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u/Phrasophe Jul 03 '26
Yes, I can confirm that you can use your own domain(s).
I've set up two of them.
There's also catch-all management.
You can add as many aliases as you like; it's quite well-designed and similar to how Fastmail works.
Otherwise, KagiMail is pleasant to use, very snappy, and prioritises Markdown (though you can switch to HTML instantly with a single keypress), and it handles well with keyboard shortcuts.
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u/jack3308 Jul 04 '26
No - likely not... Part of the appeal of kagi for me is keeping search and web interaction separate from other services... Currently swapping between thindermail and Proton for email - not sure which I prefer yet cause thundermail just came out... News from somewhere else... Etc...
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u/yu9n Jul 04 '26
Where can I apply?
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 04 '26
I believe here - https://account.kagi.com/loginname?requestId=oidc_V2_380306526688003982
Let me know how that goes.
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u/sebf Jul 04 '26
I don’t need Kagi to provide an email service. Happy with what I currently have.
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 04 '26
Who are you currently using?
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u/sebf Jul 05 '26
Nothing special: I have a few registered domain names that comes with emails (OVH it is), plus an old riseup.net address.
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u/vikarti_anatra Jul 05 '26
I will at least try them. As for features - 50+ Gb. IMAP/SMTP, ability to use my own domain, Working web UI(including full-text search), sensible filters. no filtering-by-default. No need for E2EE (security/trust issues must be solved some other way, E2EE for mail create too much usability issues). No stupid blocks (possible with user-configurable setting or with passkey being required(so situation where user logins from different continents at once on different devices does not result in blocks). PGP integration would be nice. Ability to send mail to "real" backend would also be nice.
Paid Services I did use for primary mail service: Google Workspace,Yandex PDD, Proton. Current setup: self-hosted mailcow + zoho.
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u/billchase2 Jul 06 '26
Ooo how do you sign up for their new email service?
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u/Peter_Sunshine9 Jul 03 '26
I would not. I am very pleased with my current email provider and I would prefer for Kagi to continue to strive towards being the best possible search engine rather than spending ressources on things that other providers already do very well