Domain
All my accounts in one mailbox, shaped the way I want to read it.
Building an interface has become cheap. I think that changes who should decide how data looks: each person, for themselves, instead of one provider designing a single view for everyone. Email is my first step towards that.
I brought my mail into AlanOS so that I shape how I experience it. Every account I use arrives in one mailbox, sorted my way, and I see only what matters to me. The small part I cannot afford to lose, a reply I sent, a receipt, a message someone wrote to me, is kept for good.
Inbox and Other
The providers still deliver the mail
my Gmail accounts
Microsoft
my Outlook.com account
One mailbox
a working copy of every account that follows the provider
Inbox
people, replies to me, receipts, and senders I said belong here
Kept mail
sealed as an original, so it can be cited exactly as it arrived; what I send and anything AlanOS cites is kept too
Other
newsletters, store mail and alerts
Other stays in the working copy. If it changes or disappears at the provider, the copy follows.
Read only through the interface
Email app in the console
one inbox in the layout I chose, where I move senders between Inbox and Other
Runtime
can answer who is waiting on a reply, next to what other domains know
- Inbox
- Mail from people, replies to me, receipts and anything a rule or I have said matters.
- Other
- Newsletters, store mail and alerts. Mail that no rule recognises goes here, unless it looks like a person writing to me.
- My preferences win
- I can tell it a sender always belongs in Inbox. Turning that off sends their marketing back to Other, but a message they write to me directly still reaches Inbox.
What it keeps
- 01
The mailbox is a working copy
Every account is synced into one place, and that copy follows the provider. If a message changes or is removed at the provider, the working copy follows. Kept mail stays sealed.
- 02
Kept mail becomes evidence
A message is kept when it lands in Inbox, when I send it, or when something else in AlanOS cites it. Kept mail is sealed as an original on its own, so it can be cited exactly as it arrived.
- 03
Email never deletes mail
Opening a message marks it read at the provider and archiving archives it there. Email never deletes or bins mail.
The boundaries
- My own sign-in apps
- Accounts connect through app registrations I own at each provider, and an account is confirmed as mine in the same step that connects it.
- Notifications without content
- New mail reaches my phone from AlanOS instead of the mail apps. The lock screen shows only the sender, fetched over my private network, never carried in the push itself.
- Through the interface only
- The console and the runtime read mail through the domain's interface, like every other domain. Nothing reaches into its database directly.
My mail, my way
The Email app in the console is built for one reader. It shows my accounts as one inbox in the layout I chose, and I move senders between Inbox and Other whenever I like. The mail lives in my domain, so the interface is only one view of it, and I can change that view without asking anyone. Google and Microsoft still deliver the mail; they no longer decide how I read it.
Because Email is a domain, a question to the runtime can include who is waiting on a reply, next to what other domains know.
Email is a small test of a bigger idea: when interfaces are cheap, the person reading should decide how their own data looks. The mail that matters is kept as evidence, and the way I read it is mine too.