Webmail as REST + JS

Webmail as REST + JS

Neil Brown recently asked about a better mail app. In a comment, he said “A good webmail UI would certainly be helpful … but I really want to talk to my own IMAP server…” (https://plus.google.com/115873721941040666985/posts/JR6fuPkhZ7d)

I agree. I use squirrelmail to talk to my personal IMAP server when my usual IMAP client is not available. Squirrelmail is barely adequate and certainly not pleasant.

If there were a “standard” REST API that encompassed the common functionality of an IMAP & SMTP server, then you could decompose the problem like so with interchangeable parts:

1) an arbitrary IMAP/S server

2) an arbitrary SMTP server

3) a middleware server that exposes the REST API and talks to the IMAP and SMTP server

4) Javascript + HTML that implements the webmail client and talks to the middleware

If the middleware set its CORS header (http://enable-cors.org/) appropriately, then you could chose to use any best-of-breed third-party JS client — just save the client to your local machine, set the URL to the middleware (saved to a cookie), and run.

Does this already exist? If not, why not?!?! 🙂