alt Hacker NewsShow HN: Mail Memories – A desktop app to rescue photos from Gmail
Hey HN, I’m the creator of Mail Memories. Like many of you, I've had my Gmail address for more than 20 years. A few years ago, I got curious and wanted to see what photos were buried deep in my account. I ended up finding lots of "lost" pictures of old friends, family members, and a ridiculous number of vintage memes.
I originally built and launched this as a SaaS, but even with code and policies in place that kept users' photos private, I figured everyone would feel more comfortable with a desktop app.
So, I threw out the server architecture and completely rewrote it as a 100% local desktop app for Mac and Windows.
How it works now: The app connects directly to Google's server from your computer, processes everything entirely on your system, and saves photos straight to your hard drive.
You can download your 50 oldest photos for free (no credit card required) just to see what's in there. If you want to download all the pictures in your account, it's a one-time payment of $29. No subscriptions.
If you have an old, pre-2010 Gmail account, definitely give it a spin. You'll be surprised at what you find deep in your archive.
I'd love to hear your feedback on the layout, scanning performance, or anything else.
TL;DR: I turned my SaaS into a local desktop app (Mac/Windows) that recovers decades of forgotten photos from your Gmail. 100% local, no cloud, no subscriptions, no AI.
Comments
First, I really love this idea, and I thank you for getting it into my head.
That said, if no AI is really important, I guess it's worth $29, though I can't tell if you used AI to build it or not from here.
Like, I just one-shot a script that does the same with Claude, after it listed 5 free projects that do the same, including one GUI. The whole thing took less time than writing this comment.
Now, if it were $2.99, I probably would have just paid you.
I'd love to somehow do the opposite of this but I don't think it's possible? It would be deleting attachments from emails without deleting the email thread.
For example I'm always 1-2 GB away from my Google account being full. I've pruned Google Drive to the absolute bare minimum.
I've had my Google account for a really long time. There's tens of thousands of emails since day 1. However, there's many emails that have attachments.
For example my friends or someone might have sent me a bunch of images and there's a very long email thread going on with them. I want to delete the 300 MB of photos without deleting the email thread. I don't think Google has a way to do this. I'd easily be able to free up multiple gigs of space if this were possible.
I've already bit the bullet and deleted the biggest offenders but I have a ton of emails with 1-2 attachments (pdfs, zip files, some images, etc.) that might "only" be 15 MB but I definitely don't want to delete the email since it has a record of something. Not just the attachment but the corresponding email chain.
Interesting! I already have a Python script that can download anything from Gmail. Making it a product?! Really have not thought about it! Which is why I am probably broke Ha Ha
> 100% local, no cloud, no subscriptions, no AI.
The world needs more of this
For $30 you should sign your binary so you don't have a UAC popup.
Also is it not doable with Google takeout ( with Gmail )?
“I found photos of my niece I thought were lost forever. Thank you so much!” Emily D.
Be honest, is "Emily D" a real person you got organic feedback from? Small thing that makes the vibed site off-putting.
It says "Storage: 1.3 GB saved", but then says it is Read-only.
I like your idea. While installing the app, I suddenly had an idea for the logo: what do you think about using a tilted old photo of a child as the app icon?
I like the idea. Google Takeout works, but a focused app that helps you actually find and recover old photos could still be useful.
idk if other tools do it for free, but cool idea, hope that it gains the deserved visibility
If I have to look at yet another website with this same fucking AI-generated theme I'm gonna have to kill somebody.
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Or you can just use Google Takeout: https://takeout.google.com
Deselect everything, select "Mail", create export, wait until it's done, and then download the zip.