Nylas Mail
An archived, open-source desktop email client built with Electron and React; no longer maintained.
- Stars
- 24.7k
- Forks
- 1.3k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- JavaScript
- Last update
- 4 months ago
- Type
- App
This repository is archived and no longer maintained.
What it is
Nylas Mail is a desktop email program built with Electron, React and Flux, designed so that people can add features through plugins and change its look with CSS themes. Nylas stopped maintaining it in 2017, and the repository is now archived and kept for historical reference. The README points to community forks for anyone who wants an actively developed desktop client.
- Read the Architecture and Debugging guides to learn how an Electron and Flux app is organized
- Build and run the client from source with npm run client
- Install a community theme by following the manual package install steps in the README
- Explore the packages folder to see how a mail client's sync engine and app code are split
Great for
- Developers curious about how an extensible Electron and React desktop app is structured
- People who want to study or fork an older open-source mail client
- Plugin or theme authors looking at the original architecture docs
Not ideal for
- Everyday email users who need a supported, up-to-date client, since the project is archived and no longer maintained
- Anyone needing cloud features like Snooze or Send Later, because they require deploying the complex cloud-* backend services
- Beginners who are not comfortable with Node version pinning and building from source
How to get it
- 1
Clone and build from source
You'll need: Homebrew (Mac) or NodeSource packages (Debian/Ubuntu) · Node.js 6 or newer, as stated in the README · Redis
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mailInstall dependencies (Mac, after installing Node 6 via NVM)
npm install - 2
Run it
- Install Node 6 and Redis following the README for your operating system
- Run npm install in the repository folder
- Start the app with npm run client
- Optionally run npm run test-client to run the tests
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Install bundled themes such as Dark or Darkside, or community themes listed in the README
- Read the Architecture guide to understand how to write plugins
- Review the cloud-core README if you want to run the server-side plugins, understanding it is a substantial effort
- Watch the linked ReactEurope and ForwardJS talks for background on the design
Downloads
Strengths
- Open source under the MIT license, so the code can be read, reused and forked
- Built to be extensible, with plugins and CSS-based themes
- Includes many community themes and extensive architecture documentation from its era
Trade-offs
- Archived and no longer maintained by Nylas since 2017, so it will not receive fixes or security updates from the original team
- Setup targets Node 6 and older tooling, which may not work with current systems without changes
- Cloud-backed features are disabled by default and need a complex backend to run
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nylas-mail (this) | 24.7k | App | advanced | 4 months ago | Developers curious about how an extensible Electron and React desktop app is structured |
| marktext | 63.5k | App | beginner | 4 days ago | People who write notes or articles in Markdown and want a clean, minimal editor |
| atom | 60.7k | App | beginner | 3.8 years ago | Developers who want a desktop code editor they can customize with packages |
| yazi | 43.2k | App | intermediate | 4 days ago | People who already spend time in a terminal and want a faster way to browse folders |
| webtorrent-desktop | 10.1k | App | beginner | 6 days ago | People who want to stream torrent video without waiting for a full download |
| nativefier | 35.2k | CLI | beginner | 3.1 years ago | People who want a site like WhatsApp Web or Gmail in its own window |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.