Straight in
Activating South takes you straight to your mail.
Fixed
- Activating South from the license card closed the window instead of opening your mail.
Changelog
Letters from the porch.
Every new thing, every better thing, every fixed thing in South, in the order it arrived.
Your key first
Without a license, South asks for one before anything else.
Improved
- Without a license, South shows one card in front of everything else, with room for your key, a free week to try it, or a way to buy it. Your mail stays safely on your Mac behind it, and everything comes back the moment South is activated.
Right away
Changes to your license reach South the moment they happen.
Improved
- While South is open, it hears about your license the moment it changes. Free a Mac from your account, change your plan or end a subscription, and South on that Mac knows within a second.
- South also checks your license when it starts, when you come back to it, and once a day. Offline, nothing changes for two weeks.
Your own copy
South now comes with a license of your own, a free week to try it first, and a one-click way to switch it on.
New
- Free for a week. Start a 7-day trial right in South: no card, just your email. Your trial key arrives by email too, so it shows up in your account on south.email.
- Activate in one click. Buy on south.email and the email with your key has an Open in South button that switches it on. You can also paste the key under Enter License Key.
- Reader Mode. If a trial or subscription ends, nothing is deleted: your mail stays readable and searchable, and syncing and sending come back the moment you pick a plan.
Improved
- Each license covers one Mac. Free one in Settings to move South to a new Mac, or from your account on the web.
One click and they're gone
Newsletters you never read leave with one click, South wears the icon you like best, and your licenses live in an account on south.email.
New
- Unsubscribe, for real. Mail from a list gets an Unsubscribe button next to the sender. Click it and South does the rest: it asks the list to remove you in one step where the sender supports it, sends the unsubscribe email for you where that's what they want, or opens their unsubscribe page out of sight and presses the right button. You only see the page if it insists on a click from you, and then it opens right inside South.
- Pick your icon. Settings → Appearance → App icon has two families: pixel South icons (Classic, Night, Sweet Tea, Dusk, Mono) and an Office-style envelope in eight colors. The Dock and ⌘-Tab change on the spot.
- Your account on south.email. Sign in with a link sent to your email to see your licenses and Macs, free a Mac you no longer use, download invoices, add a Mac, switch a monthly plan to yearly, or move to Lifetime and keep the same key.
Improved
- Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 addresses now say what's going on when you add them. Microsoft sign-in is on its way.
- Lifetime checkout shows the launch price as it is, $99 marked down to $29, and offers extra Macs right on the payment page.
Fixed
- Discount codes in shop emails ("Use code PORCH20 at checkout") no longer show up as a verification code to copy.
The whole conversation
Replies come with everything that came before them, a dozen letters move as easily as one, and every account finally looks like itself.
New
- Whole threads. Open a reply and the conversation is right there: earlier messages folded above it, later replies below, one click to unfold any of them. It's put together on your Mac first, then filled in from your mail server, so your own replies from Sent show up too.
- Select many. ⌘-click, ⇧-click a range, or click a sender's picture and watch it flip into a checkmark. A bar rises under the list to archive, move, star, mark read or delete them all at once, and the selected letters stack up on the right.
- Accounts with faces. Each account gets its own color, plus its provider's logo, your company's logo, or any photo you like in its circle.
- See-through window. Settings → Appearance → Window lets the desktop show through the dark frame around your mail, frosted like glass or perfectly clear.
- Gmail's yellow Important marker, next to the sender, whenever Google thinks a message matters.
Improved
- Settings → Accounts is now a row of account cards, with your name and signature first and the server details folded away until you need them.
- Adding iCloud walks you through Apple's app-specific password in three steps, with a Paste & Connect button at the end.
- The details under to me ▾ open at the same tidy size every time, one line per detail.
- A long account name in the sidebar shrinks to fit instead of crowding the + button.
Fixed
- Verified-sender checkmarks disappearing when Playful icons were on.
- iCloud refusing to sign in when it wanted only the part of your address before the @.
A room of its own
Your inbox sorted into tabs, settings that live inside South instead of a gray window, icons with a little more character, and updates that arrive on their own.
New
- Inbox tabs. Primary, Social, Promotions and Newsletters, sorted on your Mac from what each sender declares about itself. Receipts, codes and security alerts always stay in Primary.
- Move to Tab from the right-click menu, for one message or everything from that sender. South remembers.
- Notifications only for Primary, and an unread count only for Primary, if you'd like. Each one is its own switch.
- Settings, as a room. Press ⌘, and they rise over your mail, with colored sections, search, and cards that show what each choice looks like before you pick it. Esc and you're back.
- Playful icons. One switch swaps every icon in South for hand-drawn ones from Pika Icons. Pick Solid, Stroke, Duo Solid, Duo Stroke or Contrast, and switch back to the Mac's own whenever you like.
- Updates on their own. Check for Updates… in the South menu, plus automatic checks in Settings → Updates. Every update is signed, and South refuses one that's been tampered with.
Improved
- The tabs in Settings always keep the Mac's own symbols, so they're easy to find even with playful icons on.
- Notification sounds are tiles you can listen to before choosing.
Small courtesies
Unread counts that keep up with you, a closer look at who really sent a message, and menus that open where you expect them.
New
- Unread counts next to every folder in the sidebar. They change the moment you read, move or delete something, and drafts show how many are waiting.
- to me ▾ under the sender: who it went to, who really sent it, who signed it and whether it arrived encrypted. On Gmail, whether Google thinks it's important.
- With no message open, the whole pane becomes a photo for the time of day, with a greeting in the middle.
Improved
- Move to and Labels open beside the right-click menu, like every other Mac menu, instead of stretching it down the screen.
- South no longer opens your newest message on its own at launch.
- Refresh spins while it works, and New Message in the list opens a fresh draft.
- The toolbar only shows up when there's a message to act on.
Fixed
- Unread counts that took ages to catch up, or never did.
- A crash when opening message details.
South, with manners
A new name, an assistant that knows your inbox, and a mail app that finally behaves like it lives on a Mac.
New
- Maven is now South. New name, a pixel icon, and a welcome with pixel landscapes.
- The assistant (⌘J). Ask about your mail with your own Claude, ChatGPT, Grok or Gemini key, or a free model on your Mac. The emails it finds show up as cards you can open.
- Summarize a message, or draft an Accept, Decline politely or Ask for details reply, right from the toolbar.
- Native notifications for new mail, with four soft sounds to pick from. Felt piano, kalimba, pebble and breeze.
- A right-click menu for every message. Reply, read, star, archive, move, labels, spam and trash, with Undo for 10 seconds.
- Gmail labels as little colored pills in the message list.
Improved
- Opening a message marks it read, and the dot and bold fade out gently instead of blinking away.
- Starring a message gets a small hop and a few sparks.
- New mail arrives faster and rings even when South is in the background.
Fixed
- Lists and headings in the assistant's answers showing up as raw text.
- The same Gmail message appearing twice in the assistant's results.
The reading room
Writing, searching and opening mail, all of it fast. Most of the speed comes from keeping your mail in a little database on your Mac.
New
- Write, reply and forward, with attachments.
- Search the whole folder, not just what's on screen. About 5 ms across 100,000 messages.
- Tracking pixels removed before a message opens, and remote images that wait for your say-so.
- Senders checked against what their mail server can prove. Real brands get their logo and a checkmark.
- One-time codes spotted and pinned to the top of the message.
- An attachment shelf and a viewer for photos and PDFs.
Improved
- Your inbox is on screen in 11 ms, straight from your Mac, before South touches the network.
- Only what changed gets synced, so checking for mail is nearly free.
- 88% less Gmail traffic, compressed on the wire.
- Big messages open right away, without downloading every attachment first.
First letter
The very first South. Not pretty yet, but it could already read real mail.
New
- South's own mail engine, written from scratch for the Mac, with no third-party code inside.
- The classic three panes. Folders, messages, and the message itself.
- Tested end to end on a real mailbox, from sign-in to reading.
That's every letter so far. The next one is already being written.