Protonmail relies solely on Firebase for receiving notifications on Android. While UniversalPush support is probably in the works, it may take some time until users on ROMs without GSF get built-in notifications.
The service requires a Linux box to run on, and can be deployed as a container or by running the provided binary. Building from source is of course also an option.
The service is a stripped down version of Hydroxide, the FOSS Protonmail Bridge alternative. There are no ports exposed, all communication is outwards. Communications to Proton servers use the Proton API. The service only receives events from Proton servers, and if the event is incoming mail, a notification is sent to a ntfy.sh server and topic of your choice. Other types of events are simply disregarded, and no other processing is done. The sent push event does not contain any detailed information.
EDIT: Starting from version v0.28.8-push7 the daemon supports HTTP basic auth for the push endpoint.
Disclaimer: I’m the author. All of the work is thanks to https://github.com/emersion/hydroxide, I’ve merely mutilized the great upstream project of most features for a single purpose. Issues, comments and pull requests are welcome!
It only works through the Proton Mail Bridge application, which is only available for desktop. That’s because Proton’s end-to-end encryption makes it impossible to access your emails while they are on Proton’s servers via IMAP. They would need to be decrypted on the server, but that would make the entire encryption pointless. The Proton Mail Bridge connects to the server, downloads the encrypted data, decrypts it locally on your PC and locally exposes an IMAP server, which contains your decrypted messages.
I haven’t heard of Hydroxide before; thank you for highlighting it! Just one question: Does it also require a premium account like the official bridge, or is it also available for free accounts?
I think it does require a paid account, Hydroxide basically acts like the official Proton bridge.
I haven’t actually tested with a free account, so there’s a chance it does work. When you run the auth command (which is the same as upstream Hydroxide), it will probably throw an error.
If you have a free account and try this out (or Hydroxide), please report how it goes back here, I’ll add a note to the readme. Upstream doesn’t seem to mention this in their repo either.
Currently, I only have a free account there. I tried Hydroxide first, and I had no problem logging in. I was also able to fetch some emails. I will try hydroxide-push as well later.
In that case hydroxide-push will work too, which is good news!
Just note that the IMAP, SMTP and CardDav functions have been stripped out from this push version. If there’s interest to have those too, a different version with the push stuff added on top of full Hydroxide could be made. It will require a bit of time to develop.
The scope of hydroxide-push is only push notifications for now.
Context is king. If there’s vital/time-dependent correspondence you’re waiting on, notifications can matter. But email in 2024 is pretty darn transactional, in which case a daily check is enough for most. Notifications for something suggest that I need to drop what I’m doing and attend to whatever arrived. That just doesn’t apply for service provider marketing, purchase receipts, etc.
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Can’t you just use K-9 mail? Why is there a need for a dedicated Proton mail app
IMAP only works with paid accounts
It only works through the Proton Mail Bridge application, which is only available for desktop. That’s because Proton’s end-to-end encryption makes it impossible to access your emails while they are on Proton’s servers via IMAP. They would need to be decrypted on the server, but that would make the entire encryption pointless. The Proton Mail Bridge connects to the server, downloads the encrypted data, decrypts it locally on your PC and locally exposes an IMAP server, which contains your decrypted messages.
Proton has pretty poor third party support
It’s because of the encryption, any encrypted email provider has this issue, it’s not specific to Proton
It’s E2EE therefore you can’t just use an IMAP server that works with “plaintext” data.
Email as a protocol doesn’t really support E2EE as a protocol. However, IMAP supports several forms of SSL and SSL is required by most providers.
SSL is not E2EE
That’s what I said
Yes, plain text was more of an analogy
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #844 for this sub, first seen 2nd Jul 2024, 13:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I haven’t heard of Hydroxide before; thank you for highlighting it! Just one question: Does it also require a premium account like the official bridge, or is it also available for free accounts?
I think it does require a paid account, Hydroxide basically acts like the official Proton bridge.
I haven’t actually tested with a free account, so there’s a chance it does work. When you run the
authcommand (which is the same as upstream Hydroxide), it will probably throw an error.If you have a free account and try this out (or Hydroxide), please report how it goes back here, I’ll add a note to the readme. Upstream doesn’t seem to mention this in their repo either.
Hydroxide was specifically created as a free replacement for the official Proton Mail Bridge, so no, it doesn’t require a subscription
Currently, I only have a free account there. I tried Hydroxide first, and I had no problem logging in. I was also able to fetch some emails. I will try hydroxide-push as well later.
In that case hydroxide-push will work too, which is good news!
Just note that the IMAP, SMTP and CardDav functions have been stripped out from this push version. If there’s interest to have those too, a different version with the push stuff added on top of full Hydroxide could be made. It will require a bit of time to develop.
The scope of hydroxide-push is only push notifications for now.
Notifications are overrated. I turn them off for the bulk of apps.
Devote one or two small time windows each day for life admin. Outside those windows it shouldn’t be seen or heard.
…I mean for the bulk of apps, sure. For email though?
Context is king. If there’s vital/time-dependent correspondence you’re waiting on, notifications can matter. But email in 2024 is pretty darn transactional, in which case a daily check is enough for most. Notifications for something suggest that I need to drop what I’m doing and attend to whatever arrived. That just doesn’t apply for service provider marketing, purchase receipts, etc.
And then the opsec angle comes into play: https://www.axios.com/2023/12/06/apple-google-requests-push-notification-data
Yeah I have to strongly disagree.
Which is why Proton’s notifications have been encrypted for years.
In that case it’s definetly worth it to try this out, just so you have one more notification to disable