Based on the request of a fellow sysop, I've created a new offline QWK mail reader (with the help of Claude AI), which I call SlyMail. Currently I consider it to be a beta version, as it hasn't been tested thoroughly, so there may be some bugs, but currently it's functional as far as being able to read messages from a QWK packet and save new messages, etc.

Also, I've never really used an offline mail reader much myself, so there may be some useful features in other offline readers I haven't seen yet - I plan to check out some other readers and see what features they offer. I've briefly used MultiMail and experimented with GoldEd but never really used those very much. They may have features that could be useful to include in SlyMail.

Some highlights of SlyMail:

- It has a text-based user interface with a look & feel (at least somewhat) similar to my DDMsgReader & SlyEdit mods for Synchronet
- It's multi-platform: It works on Linux and Windows, and should also build for Mac OS, BSD, and other *nix-style OSes
- QWKE (extended QWK) compatibility
- Compatibility with ANSI, as well as color codes of various BBS software
packages (Synchronet, WWIV, PCBoard/Wildcat, Celerity, Renegade)
- It understands Synchronet poll messages and vote replies: Poll messages should display properly in it, and poll response headers shouldn't show up in message lists. It should also allow you to vote on messages (according to Synchronet's voting system), but I'm not sure that is 100% working.
- It should be UTF-8 compatible (not 100% sure if this is fully working properly)
- It should be able to handle file attachments

It's available on GitHub, and there are screenshots: https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail

The latest release (with binaries) is version 0.51, for both Windows and Linux: https://github.com/EricOulashin/SlyMail/releases/tag/SlyMail_051

The Linux binaries were built on KUbuntu 25.10. If the Linux binaries don't run for you, I think it should be fairly easy to build binaries from source on Linux.

I haven't made Mac OS binaries, since I don't have a Mac, but I have an automated build job on GitHub that does a build for Ubuntu and Mac OS upon checkin, and it looks like both succeeded, so I *think* it should build for Mac OS fairly easily.

Nightfox

Also, I forgot to mention, SlyMail can connect to remote systems (via FTP or SSH) to download QWK packets from within SlyMail, which should make it easier to download QWK packets.

Nightfox

On March 26 2026, Nightfox wrote:

Also, I forgot to mention, SlyMail can connect to remote systems (via
FTP or SSH) to download QWK packets from within SlyMail, which should
make it easier to download QWK packets.

Congratulations on your new app! :)

I'd like to suggest adding support for HTTP Basic Auth too. I just added that to BinktermPHP for use with the (not yet released) NeoQWK app.

It works like this:

Offline mail tools and scripts can also use the QWK endpoints directly without a browser session.

Use HTTP Basic Authentication with your normal BinktermPHP username and password.

Reader Connection Settings

Download URL: https://claudes.lovelybits.org/qwk/download
Upload URL : https://claudes.lovelybits.org/qwk/upload

Username Your BBS username
Password Your BBS password

The download URL accepts these parameters:

* format=qwk or format=qwke
* limit=XXXX (message limit to include in the packet)

Examples:

Download packet

curl -u username:password -o mail.qwk "https://claudes.lovelybits.org/qwk/download?format=qwk&limit=2500"

Upload REP packet

curl -u username:password -F "rep=@BBSID.REP" "https://claudes.lovelybits.org/qwk/upload"

The upload endpoint returns JSON with a success flag, the number of imported messages, the number skipped, and an array of processing errors.

{
"success": true,
"imported": 3,
"skipped": 1,
"errors": []
}

Matthew

~ awehttam @1:153/150 @gmail.com | www.lovelybits.org

... Nothing is so smiple that it can't get screwed up.

--- BinktermPHP v1.8.9
* Origin: Claude's BBS - https://claudes.lovelybits.org (21:3/236)
* Origin: This origin line was automagically created for (21:3/236.0)

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail reader: SlyMail
By: awehttam to Nightfox on Wed Mar 25 2026 05:34 pm

Congratulations on your new app! :)

Thanks. :)

I'd like to suggest adding support for HTTP Basic Auth too. I just added that to BinktermPHP for use with the (not yet released) NeoQWK app.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've copied your message into an enhancement ticket on SlyMail's GitHub page.

Nightfox

On 25 Mar 2026, Nightfox said the following...

Also, I forgot to mention, SlyMail can connect to remote systems (via
FTP or SSH) to download QWK packets from within SlyMail, which should
make it easier to download QWK packets.

very cool!

still a lot of people who want to just read messages and the bbs side is kind of take it or leave it

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Hello Nightfox,

On March 25 '26 you wrote to All:

Also, I forgot to mention, SlyMail can connect to remote systems (via FTP or SSH) to download QWK packets from within SlyMail, which should make it easier to download QWK packets.

Awesome, and with support for UTF-8 at last!

--- April V1.09 (SAS)
* Origin: April message tosser/viewer (21:3/219.2)

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail reader: SlyMail
By: fusion to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 07:39 am

still a lot of people who want to just read messages and the bbs side is kind of take it or leave it

Yeah, I tend to prefer to read messages on the BBS myself. But it seems to me there are a number of people who like to use offline readers as well.

Nightfox

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail reader: SlyMail
By: Nightfox to fusion on Thu Mar 26 2026 10:01:50

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail reader: SlyMail
By: fusion to Nightfox on Thu Mar 26 2026 07:39 am

still a lot of people who want to just read messages and the bbs side is kind of take it or leave it

Yeah, I tend to prefer to read messages on the BBS myself. But it seems to me there are a number of people who like to use
offline readers as well.

Nightfox

Hello. I am not sure if the developer of Slymail is using the newer C runtime lib or the older one, but It's complaining about it when I try and run Slymail. I am using the the one that DM is using running the current version of Synchronet BBS.
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Win32
* Origin: Themegabbs.ddns.net 6400 (21:4/114)

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail reader: SlyMail
By: Plt to Nightfox on Mon Mar 30 2026 09:31 am

Hello. I am not sure if the developer of Slymail is using the newer C runtime lib or the older one, but It's complaining about it when I try and run Slymail. I am using the the one that DM is using running the current version of Synchronet BBS.

I'm the developer of SlyMail.

What specifically is the error it's giving you? And are you running it in Windows or Linux?

If you're using the Windows version, the Windows verison is built for the Windows 10 SDK; it may require Windows 10 or higher, although I'm not sure if that's a strict requirement.

Is it complaining about missing a DLL such as MSVCP140.DLL? If so, it sounds like there is now a combined Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable package that includes 2015, 2017, and 2019. I see a post online with the following download links (which should hopefully be the correct runtime installer):

x64: https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe
x86: https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x86.exe

Nightfox