Kanmail vs Mimestream
Mimestream is a beautiful Mac-only Gmail client available under subscription. Kanmail is one purchase, every provider, on every desktop OS. Here’s the honest side-by-side.
Kanmail$49
once · yours forever
- ✓Pay once, no subscription
- ✓Any IMAP account, not just Gmail
- ✓Mac, Windows & Linux
$50/yr
every year, forever
- –Subscription, billed yearly
- –Gmail & Workspace only
- –macOS only
Side by side
Two cells are a dead heat — Mimestream is genuinely private too. We left them green.
KanmailMimestream pricing: $4.99/mo or $49.99/yr, macOS only, Gmail/Workspace only. Verified June 2026.
Own it once. Skip the yearly bill.
Mimestream’s $49.99 comes around every year you keep using it. Kanmail’s $49 comes around once.
Board, not a list
A better Gmail list is
still a list.
Mimestream perfects the single-column Gmail inbox. Kanmail rethinks it: your email becomes columns you drag cards through, so what’s in flight is visible at a glance instead of buried down the scroll.
Not just Gmail, not just Mac
Every account, every OS.
Gmail, Fastmail, iCloud, Yahoo, Yandex or any IMAP host. Unified on one board, on Mac, Windows and Linux. Mimestream is Gmail-on-a-Mac, and only that.
A point we won’t oversell
On privacy, it’s a tie.
Both keep your mail on-device and block tracking pixels by default. Neither routes your inbox through a middleman server. If privacy is your only axis, you can’t go wrong with either.
Where Mimestream wins
If you read one Gmail account, only on a Mac, and never plan to change either — Mimestream is the better app, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
Native Mac craftsmanship
Built in Swift by a former Apple Mail engineer. On a Mac it feels like a first-party app in a way a cross-platform build can’t quite match.
Deep Gmail API integration
Labels stay labels, server-side filters are editable in-app, and Gmail categories and aliases arrive intact — it speaks Gmail natively, not over IMAP.
The single-Gmail sweet spot
One Google account, Mac-only, no plans to change? Mimestream is purpose-built for exactly that and nails it.
More than one account? More than a Mac?
$49. Once.
Try Kanmail free for as long as you need. No card, no countdown. Keep it for the price of one year of the others.
Wondering how paying once works? The email client you buy once →