Mailplane: Building an all-in-one Gmail app on a Mac mini

At MacStadium, our customers build the iOS and macOS apps we use every day. We love highlighting the creative work being done by our customers and how they’re using MacStadium to make it happen. Have a story to tell? Let us know!

About Mailplane

Mailplane is a macOS app that promises to be “the best way to use Gmail on your Mac.” Mailplane allows you to manage your email, calendar, and contacts in a streamlined application, keeping your browser clean(er). With this app, you get the advantage of annotations with preview, integrations with your favorite apps, and extensions to cloud services.

Mailplane is developed by a two-person team that has knocked out over 200 updates in 14 years. Their latest update brings support for macOS Big Sur.

Team and Workflow

Originally released in 2007, Mailplane is built by a small team based in Switzerland that does everything from developing the app to marketing to customer support. Mailplane 4 is a Chromium-based, site-specific browser written in ClojureScript.

Mailplane’s team uses TeamCity to run macOS app builds and they use Metabase for their business analytics.

Flexibility with a Mac mini

With a Mac mini at MacStadium, the Mailplane team is able to run all operations for their macOS app on a dedicated machine. The flexibility of macOS on dedicated hardware means the team can connect a CI pipeline, run app analytics, and do QA and performance testing all from the same service - MacStadium’s cloud-hosted Mac infrastructure. This flexibility continues with MacStadium’s offering of the new Apple silicon machines.

When asked what was best about working with MacStadium, the Mailplane team said “stability and responsive support.”

In Good Company

Mailplane isn’t the only macOS app developed at MacStadium. Developers around the world trust MacStadium to provide a reliable connection to dedicated Mac hardware in a secure environment. You can get started today with a Mac mini today, just like Mailplane.

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