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reMail may be reIncarnated as it goes open source

Several weeks back, we noted that Google had acquired reMail, and had placed founder Gabor Cselle and others from the reMail team on other Google projects. The reMail app distinguished itself from the iPhone's built-in Mail.app in several ways:

  • It could download all of your emails in a way that takes up a much smaller footprint than in Mail.app on the iPhone.

  • Its search feature is much faster than Mail.app, and is accompanied with niceties such as autocompleting the names of your contacts, remembering your past searches, and text mark up matches in your search results.

  • And lastly, reMail's search is full text, unlike the header search like in the Mail.app.

Though reMail is no longer being offered in the App Store, we may see its likeness spring up in other ways in future apps. As had been rumored shortly after the acquisition, reMail is now open source. Its source code now lives at the Google Code and is available for your viewing here. By making reMail open source, Gabor Cselle hopes that those interested in "making email-related apps can use reMail code as a starting point."