Talanoa: Email that feels like chat

The AI model is a one-time download from the app's settings. After that, search, summaries, replies and translations all run on the user's machine, and the maker says it works offline. Mail is stored locally too, and outgoing messages queue until a connection returns. The app runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. The site lists a CASA Tier 2 certification from TAC Security. It also says Talanoa has no servers, and OAuth tokens stay on the desktop. The AI features are a recent addition. The earlier Show HN post from the solo developer described an Electron app with no backend and no AI. He argued that user privacy mattered too much to send mail to an external LLM. A later directory profile cited 250+ test users and 14 early paying customers. The current pitch adds an "ask your inbox" feature that cites its sources and waits for confirmation before acting. For AI founders, the product shows that local inference can be a core selling point in a category where users distrust cloud processing of sensitive data. It also shifts compute cost to the user's hardware, which removes server spend. The trade-offs are model download size, device requirements, and the lack of cross-device sync.