Marco email client
Shares rank 13 of 16 email clients by recommenders
Fast offline-first email client for web, iOS and macOS, with no AI. Critics note it is not plain IMAP and the monthly price is high.
Fast offline-first email client for web, iOS and macOS, with no AI. Critics note it is not plain IMAP and the monthly price is high.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Offline-first architecture
“the real win here is probably the offline-first architecture, which solves a genuinely painful problem that most email clients ignore”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Marco, a privacy-first, offline-first email client (IMAP-native, no AI)” “an IMAP‑primitive, offline‑first, cross‑platform email client for web, iOS, and macOS”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support” “We support proper offline-first behaviour and instant push notifications”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Thunderbird for iOS” - Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Putting email in its place with Emacs and Mu4e”
Fast search and sync
“I've got 100k+ threads in my inbox and full text search is single digit ms.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Archive or Delete?” “The upside is that it's fast... The downside is that it's NOT IMAP!”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Bugs Apple Loves” Works the way email should
“What you're describing is exactly the way email should work.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Archive or Delete?” “"just works" and doesn't jam AI down your throat”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “Gmail AI gets more intrusive”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Not plain IMAP, duplicates IMAP
“The upside is that it's fast... The downside is that it's NOT IMAP!”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Bugs Apple Loves” “why the hell would I sign up for a service that does what email/IMAP does in the first place?”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Thunderbird for iOS”
Other email clients people recommend
The four most recommended other email clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozilla Thunderbird | 210 | 155 | 58% | 13 | 20 yrs12 owners | — |
| Microsoft Outlook | 117 | 403 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs8 owners | — |
| Apple Mail | 57 | 88 | 39% | 12 | 10 yrs9 owners | — |
| Penguin Mail | 14 | 13 | 52% | 1 | — | — |
| Marco email clientThis page | 6 | 2 | 75% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“why the hell would I sign up for a service that does what email/IMAP does in the first place?”
“We support proper offline-first behaviour and instant push notifications”
“the obnoxious text that accompanied it survived in Marco until earlier this year”
“the onboarding monthly price is too expensive”
“Contacts populate alongside email threads in search results.”
“the real win here is probably the offline-first architecture, which solves a genuinely painful problem that most email clients ignore”
“The upside is that it's fast... The downside is that it's NOT IMAP!”
“our iOS app which _uses the Gmail API_ and also supports raw IMAP is ~14MB:”
“Cross platform, offline-first, and instant syncing”
“an IMAP‑primitive, offline‑first, cross‑platform email client for web, iOS, and macOS”
“I've got 100k+ threads in my inbox and full text search is single digit ms.”
“What you're describing is exactly the way email should work.”
“"just works" and doesn't jam AI down your throat”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.