Why isn't there a Superhuman for Fastmail?

There should be an amazingly productive email client for things other than Gmail or Outlook

Gmail and Outlook dominate email. Together they power nearly 40% of inboxes, with over 2.3 billion accounts. Microsoft alone earns $18 billion a year from Office, a big chunk of which comes from Outlook. It’s no wonder tools like Superhuman focus exclusively on these platforms. But if you're one of the many Fastmail users who care about privacy, you're out of luck — there's no Superhuman for us.

Superhuman is an awesome email client that provides no email service. Piggybacking off of Outlook or Gmail, it adds features that makes email so much more productive. It’s hard to explain without trying it, mostly because their landing page doesn’t do the product justice, but once you use it for a few weeks, you’re hooked. Superhuman’s shortcuts, speed, split inbox, and AI summaries have fundamentally changed how I process email. Once you've archived 200 emails in a minute or triaged your inbox like a pro, it's hard to go back. You’ll say to yourself, “Why hasn’t email always been this way?”

For many years, I’ve been a hesitant Gmail user for a number of reasons. The product hasn’t changed much, their takes on privacy have always been a bit off-putting, and I’ve usually found better alternatives, such as Fastmail.

Fastmail is a privacy first email service and has some awesome features. I can use unlimited domains with it and with that I use wildcard aliases. That means, when I’m asked for an email, I can make one up on the spot. Like sendspam@domain.com or shopping@domain.com. It’s such an underrated feature and let’s you know who’s sharing/selling your contact info, especially with car dealers (for example toyota@domain.com is where I’d send all email if I was car shopping for Toyotas).

There are some other great features and it’s pretty inexpensive. I pay for email because I want the privacy — Yes I know, if I wanted true privacy I’d host my own email server, but I don’t have time for that. The free version of Gmail uses your data for training, ads, etc.

So that begs the question: why not use paid Gmail? Well the answer is, I do for my business, but I’m hesitant to move all of my email back to Gmail after nearly 8 years. However, it’s becoming harder to not, and that’s because of modern integrations.

As much as I love Fastmail’s values and flexibility, the experience feels a bit… manual. There's no split inbox, no blazing keyboard shortcuts, no magic AI to help me fly through messages.

One reason for the lack of tools? Fastmail, like many privacy-first providers, relies on IMAP — an aging standard that doesn’t offer the same real-time capabilities or developer flexibility as Gmail or Outlook’s proprietary APIs.

A few indie developers have taken stabs at solving this — like FMail2 on macOS or various open-source clients — but none have delivered the polish or power users crave. Part of the issue is the protocol itself.

I’d love to see a Superhuman-style client for Fastmail — something that respects privacy but doesn’t sacrifice productivity. Maybe it’s time we start building one. Or at least ask louder for it.

Would you use it?

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Just as I was about to hit publish, I [read](https://blog.superhuman.com/superhuman-is-being-acquired-by-grammarly/) that Superhuman was acquired by Grammarly (today).