A real Gmail desktop app for your Mac

If you have searched for a Gmail desktop app for Mac, you have probably noticed the awkward truth: there isn't an official one. Gmail lives in the browser, so on a Mac you are left choosing between three imperfect options.

The three ways to run Gmail on a Mac

1. A browser tab. Free, but Gmail gets buried among twenty other tabs, notifications are unreliable, and running a second or third account means juggling Chrome profiles or incognito windows.

2. An Electron wrapper. Apps that bundle a whole copy of Chromium to show one website. They work, but they are heavy on RAM and battery and feel a step removed from a real Mac app.

3. A rebuilt native client. Apps that talk to Gmail over its API and draw their own interface. Fast and Mac-like, but it is no longer the Gmail you know, some features and the familiar layout are gone, and most charge a subscription.

Where Smails fits

Smails is a fourth option: a tiny native macOS app that loads Gmail's own web interface. So it is genuinely the real Gmail, every label, filter, search operator and keyboard shortcut, with nothing to relearn, but it lives in a proper Mac window instead of a browser tab, and it is light because it does not ship its own browser engine.

Every account, one window

The reason most people want a desktop Gmail app in the first place is more than one account. Smails keeps every Gmail and Google Workspace account one click apart in a single window, no profile switching, no logging in and out. Add Google Calendar accounts too.

It behaves like a Mac app

Native notifications for new mail, an unread count on the Dock icon, and you can set Smails as your default mail app so mailto: links open a Gmail compose window. Links inside email open in your normal browser. It is notarized by Apple, and your inboxes never pass through any server of ours.

Pay once

Smails is free with one account, and a one-time $9.99 for unlimited accounts with free updates. No yearly renewal.

Gmail on Mac, three approaches compared