Opensolr Mail 1.11: No Opensolr Account Needed, Fastmail Search and Contacts

· Opensolr Mail · New Feature · All updates

Opensolr Mail 1.11 does not need an Opensolr account for anything. Install it, sign in to Fastmail, and every screen works: the unified inbox, writing, notifications, search, contacts, notes and calendars. An Opensolr account is an optional extra that adds search by meaning, AI answers and instant push, and you can add it later, or never.

01 Everything works with Fastmail alone

WITH FASTMAIL ALONEUnified inbox, every accountNotifications, every 15 minSearch by wordsContacts and suggestionsNotes and calendarsOPENSOLR ADDS, OPTIONALSearch by meaningAI answers from your mailText inside attachmentsNew mail pushed at onceEveryone from your mailFASTMAIL ALONEUnified inbox, every accountNotifications, every 15 minSearch by wordsContacts and suggestionsNotes and calendarsOPENSOLR, OPTIONALSearch by meaningAI answers from your mailText inside attachmentsNew mail pushed at onceEveryone from your mail
Everything in the first panel works with nothing but a Fastmail account. The second is an extra you can add, or never add.
  • Nothing is locked. No screen asks you to connect Opensolr before it works, and with Fastmail search chosen, no screen offers the Opensolr sign-in at all.
  • Notifications without Opensolr. New mail is checked every 15 minutes and notified with the same three buttons: Mark as read, Delete and Reply all. With an Opensolr account it is pushed the moment it arrives.
  • What Opensolr adds, said plainly. Without an Opensolr account, Settings → Opensolr Account and Opensolr Index say in a few lines what it adds, free for small and mid-sized mailboxes, with a button to connect and one to the product page. Nothing more.

02 Two searches, your choice

  • Settings → Search → Search in. Pick Fastmail or Opensolr. Tap either one and it says what it does and what it needs.
  • Fastmail is Fastmail’s own classic search, on Fastmail’s servers: words only, newest first, across every account, with the +word, -word and "phrase" operators. No filters, no groups, nothing else to connect.
  • Opensolr is the search you know: words and meaning, the AI answer, text inside attachments and pictures, filters, grouping, Best matches.
  • A fallback you never have to think about. With Opensolr chosen and the index out of disk space or bandwidth, or not reachable, search runs on Fastmail on its own and says why. Pull down to try the index again.

03 Contacts

Fastmail address booksThe phone's contactsYour mail, with OpensolrOne card per personmerged, A to Zwith a search boxComposeto anyoneFastmail address booksThe phone's contactsYour mail, with OpensolrOne card per personmerged, A to Z, searchableComposeto anyone on the list
Three places that know people, one list. The dashed one only counts with an Opensolr account.
  • Everyone you can write to. A new screen, from the contacts icon at the top of Mailboxes: your Fastmail address books, the phone’s contacts if you allow it, and, with an Opensolr account, everyone you ever exchanged mail with.
  • One card per person. The same person from several places is merged by address into one quiet card: picture, name, every address, phone number and postal address.
  • A to Z, all of it. People sit under their letter, the fast scroller jumps through the letters, and the list is read a page at a time as you move, so tens of thousands of people open at once. It remembers where you were.
  • Search and write. The box on top narrows the list by name, address or phone number. Each card has one button, Compose. Contacts are never edited or deleted from the app.
  • Suggestions as you type. To, Cc and Bcc suggest the same people, in one list, the ones you write to most first. The list does not say where anyone came from.
  • Pictures. The phone contact’s picture, else the one in the Fastmail card, else the person’s Gravatar, asked with a one-way hash of the address and remembered on the phone for a week; initials when there is none.

04 Also in this release

  • A quieter search box. AI and Fresh are icons now, with the AI instructions, expand and collapse, and the ? on the same row, and the clear button is small and out of the way.
  • Best matches, every time. Every ranked search opens with Best matches, even when the results score close together.
  • Select across pages. Press, hold and drag to select keeps going past the results loaded while you drag, in the mail lists and in search.
  • A bigger fast scroller. Wider and taller, with up and down marks, easy to grab on every list.
  • Clearer Settings. Mail Accounts, Opensolr Account and Opensolr Index, and the chosen search stands out.

Opensolr Mail updates itself from GitHub. If you installed it before, it offers the new version on its own within a day.

Download the app What needs what Contacts Documentation

More in Opensolr Mail

View the full changelog