Unkai Mail v0.4.x — Profiles, and the last update you install by hand

Another release, another milestone: Unkai Mail v0.4.0 is out — and, in true release-when-not-ready fashion, so are v0.4.1 and v0.4.2. More on that little adventure below.

Profiles

The headline feature of v0.4.x is profiles. You can now run separate identities — work, private, a shared family inbox — side by side, each with its own accounts, mail cache and settings. Switch in place from the new switcher at the bottom of the rail, or open several profiles in their own windows at the same time, each with its own taskbar identity so you don’t lose track of which window is which.

You can also choose what opens at launch: the profiles you had open last time, a fixed pinned set, or simply all of them. And to tell your profiles apart at a glance we added eight new identity icons.

The best part: there is nothing to migrate by hand. On first launch your existing accounts, cache and settings simply move into your first profile and everything keeps working like before.

The last update you install by hand

The second big one: Unkai Mail now has a built-in updater. It checks for new releases on its own, shows a version badge on the rail when one is waiting, and installs it from Settings → Updates. Every update bundle is cryptographically signed and verified before install.

That makes v0.4.0 the last release you need to download and install manually. From here on, updates just arrive in the app — which feels like a small thing until you remember how many of our posts ended with “go download the new installer”.

The honest part 😅

Of course a release about installers and updaters would not let us off that easy. Shortly after shipping v0.4.0 we learned two things the hard way:

• The v0.4.0 installer broke upgrades on Windows machines that still had v0.3.0 or older installed. v0.4.1 fixes that — running its installer repairs the situation on its own, no manual cleanup needed.
• The shiny new updater could lose an already-downloaded update if a background check ran at just the wrong moment, leaving you with a dead “Restart now” button. v0.4.2 makes it hold on to the download and fall back gracefully if an install ever fails.

Both fixes went out the same day. Annoying? Yes. But this is exactly why we release before we feel ready: the bugs you find in the wild are the ones your own tests never dream of. The firn gets a little more solid every time.

What we’re tackling next

The updater changes how we ship, so expect smaller, more frequent releases from here on. On the feature side we keep pushing on the security and groupware fronts — and as always, the roadmap bends to your feedback.

Which brings us to the usual call to action: go test our stuff, we need the feedback! And thanks to the updater, this is officially the last time we ask you to download an installer yourself.

Write you in the next one. — Nick