Terms

Last updated 20 August 2026

Short, because there is not much to agree to. The extension is free and runs entirely on your own machine; the only thing this site can take from you is an email address you choose to type in.

The extension

HaikuMail is free, and its source is published under the MIT licence — you may read it, run it, modify it and redistribute it on those terms. The licence text is in the repository.

It is provided as is, without warranty. It works by reading the page Gmail draws in your browser, which means it depends on Gmail continuing to draw that page in roughly the way it does today. Google can change that at any time and without notice, and if they do, parts of the extension will stop working until it is updated. Nothing here promises otherwise.

HaikuMail is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Google. Gmail is a trademark of Google LLC. Use of the extension is also subject to Google’s own terms for the service you are using it on.

The extension masks your inbox on purpose. Please do not rely on it as the only way you would find out about something urgent — it is designed to make mail harder to check, which is the whole point, and that is a poor property for an alerting system.

The poems

The 100 original haiku were written for this project. The 57 translations were made here from Japanese originals that have been in the public domain for centuries; the translations themselves are new work and are labelled as machine translations wherever they appear. Both sets are covered by the same MIT licence as the code — you may quote and reuse them, with attribution.

This website

You may use the site for its obvious purpose. Please do not attempt to break it, script the signup form, or use it to send confirmation mail to addresses that are not yours.

The waitlist is a statement of interest, not a contract. It does not entitle you to a place, a price, or a date, and there is no obligation on either side. What happens to the address you give is covered by the privacy policy.

The hosted version

The hosted version described on this site does not exist yet. Anything written about it is a description of intent and may change entirely or not happen at all. No payment is being taken and no promise is being made.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, nothing here is liable for lost mail, missed messages, lost time, or any indirect or consequential loss arising from using a free extension whose stated purpose is to stop you reading your email. Your statutory rights as a consumer are unaffected.

Changes and contact

These terms may change; the date at the top moves when they do. Questions to hello@haikumail.app.