Kiwi for Gmail Lite App Reviews

This is NOT a full email client as touted. My biggest gripe is that is has no offline access. Seriously, what’s the point? Once it incorporates offline access I’ll buy the license. Until then…..pfffft.

Keeps asking to update my browser, which IS fully updated, Tried Chrome and Safari, and does not work. Wasting my time with buggy software. Fully modern machine.

I have a need to keep my Gmail account separate from work e-mail account. This application provides me the ability to work with Gmail in a separate application; this enables me to not have to access gmail via an internet browser. I can turn it on and off when I need to. It’s perfect for my needs.

I downloaded this app because I saw that all my friends were getting to their Gmail accounts much more easily using a downloaded application than by going straight to the Internet, as I had been doing for the longest time (plus, it looks a lot cooler and more sophisticated to have an app that not everyone knows about, but they should know about...oh well.) I typed “Gmail” or something to that effect into the App store search bar, and this was the top option (or the top FREE option, anyway…:).) At first the app looked a little fishy, since it said “LITE” and didn’t have the populary known Gmail sanctioned red-lined envelope, but instead, a rainbow of linings on different envelopes. However, I downloaded it, and I do not regret doing so one bit! This app keeps me so organized, and it functions exactly as Gmail does when you visit it straight from Google. Highly recommended!

Overall, I like this program and have enjoyed using it, but it does have some bugs. I saw some of them addressed in other reviews and in the description from the developer, so I am hopeful they will be fixed. On the plus side, it’s very handy to have Gmail function as a standalone application. That is the single reason I wanted this program and it delivers on that. Now, finally, when I click on the sharing button in Safari to email an article, I can actually do it without having to go through Apple Mail! One place I noticed where it doesn’t get picked up though is if you open the print dialog, then hit the “PDF” button and choose the “mail PDF” option that still goes through Apple Mail, but since these seems to be more intrinsic to the operating system I guess it’s no big surprise. If there was a way that could be handled through Kiwi though that would be cool. The Growl notifications are nice too as well as the unread messages count in the dock and on the toolbar at the top. One note to would be users: these only function when you have Kiwi open which I do most of the time except when I have to restart it (see below). The biggest bug I encounter is the appearance of ghost windows. I’ve noticed that when the program has been open for a while, if I click on a link to open a new window, be it to email a link from Safari or open Google Calendar, a ghost window opens and freezes the program. I have to then quit out of it, reopen it, and start the process over and it works fine. Sometimes the program will crash too for no apparent reason and I have to reopen it, although that has happened much less frequently than the ghost windows. None of this is major stuff and overall it’s a very welcome and useful application, but I am hopeful these bugs can be addressed in future versions.

Looks and feels at least as good as Chrome version. One update I’d like to see is the right click to search terms in the email directly in the browser.

This is an easy app to use and generally works OK, but quite often when trying to open a web page from the app it hangs up and hyas to be closed. After re-opening and clicking on the link it works fine. But the lock-up happens often enough to be a bit irritating.

Kiwi is great - Gmail on your desktop. Its fast, easy and feels exactly like Gmail. They nailed it.

Best GMail app out there. Totally recommend it!

Easy app to use and looks just like Gmail without having to navigate to the website. Replaces both the browser and email client. Highly recommended.

I like this app a lot. Having said that, it seems to force quit a lot.

Kiwi does what it says, and does it well, but it operates on the flawed assumption that the Gmail UI is something sacred that is not to be modified. Gmail is free, powerful, and can meet virtually every user’s needs, but the UI is downright ugly. Beautiful things work better. Simply display labels as tags, enabling clickable tag clouds, and adding some sort functions would bring additional value to Gmail. Tight integration with Google calendar (also “freed from the browser”) is something I’ve been looking for.

Kiwi is a specialized web browser just designed for Gmail. It makes Gmail feel a little bit like a native app as opposed to a tab lost in a browser window. Unfortunately it can’t fix the worst aspects of the Gmail interface.

Awesome, excellent & superb! I love this! It does almost everything that the pro version does. Yeah the pro may have more features, however the lite version does plenty for me. Great user interface. Also Very user friendly! My opinion just get the lite version no need for $9.99.

For all of its hype about freeing gmail from the browser, all this app appears to be at heart is a rebranded copy of chrome. the command line doesn’t lie - comparing Kiwi and an example google chrome process from the command line : 501 18107 18102 4004 0 31 0 2655612 12536 - S 0 ?? 0:00.09 /Applications/Kiwi for Gmail Lite.app/Contents/Frameworks/Kiwi for Gmail Lite Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Kiwi for Gmail Lite Helper --type=gpu-process --channel=18102.0.746882857 --no-sandbox --lang=en-US --user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_3) AppleWebKit/600.6.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0.6 Safari/600.6.3 --supports-dual-gpus=false --gpu-driver-bug-workarounds=13,24,29,40,41,45,52,58 --gpu-vendor-id=0x10de --gpu-device-id=0x06e4 --gpu-driver-vendor --gpu-driver-version --lang=en-US --user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_3) AppleWebKit/600.6.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0.6 Safari/600.6.3’ 501 18403 18399 4004 0 31 0 2758368 31512 - S 0 ?? 0:00.43 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/49.0.2623.112/Google Chrome Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper --type=gpu-process --channel=18399.0.913365917 --supports-dual-gpus=false --gpu-driver-bug-workarounds=17,31,36,48,50,54,61,67,70 --gpu-vendor-id=0x10de --gpu-device-id=0x06e4 --gpu-driver-vendor --gpu-driver-version

It would be really cool if Kiwi allowed you to open just one facet of Gmail/Google tools, specifically, all I need is the Calendar available at a glance, not the mail. It would get 5 starts if I could do that. It does do what I need it to & it’s free, so that makes it good or me.