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Mail: a local privacy focused searchable database

Draft mail is the WordPress custom post-type of databases.

Ultimately all productivity apps for privacy focused folks trend towards a locally synced database containing stuff. A database searched with an interface you already use. This is e-mail, if that wasn’t already ruined by untrusted parties.

For example

  1. Notes: mail in a folder
  2. Bookmarks: page content referenced by a URI as mail in a folder.
  3. Todos: mail in a folder

Some of these use a man in the middle process to filter content, and high volume incoming / outgoing mail might get your account in trouble. So there are webservices with paid options to sustain them, with data export and privacy concerns.

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  1. @sander I used to use email like that. But as I got older I found that my desire to have an overflowing inbox waned. Now I only keep stuff there for as long as I need it, then it’s dispensed with. Todos go to Reminders or Calendar, important emails get archived into DEVONthink, where they can be merged into conversation documents for posterity.