This new miniLook app lets you check your email notifications without sacrificing lots of memory

miniLook is currently in preview

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Key notes

  • miniLook app reduces memory usage for Windows 11 email notifications.
  • It’s a lightweight email reader that integrates WinAppSDK, WinUI 3, Microsoft Graph & more.
  • miniLook is currently in preview, with plans for open source.

Keeping your email notifications and alerts on Windows 11 can take up a lot of memory. We get it. But now, it seems like there will be a new app on the Microsoft Store that could eliminate the hassle. 

Joe Finney, a developer who’d previously worked for Microsoft PowerToys apps, revealed on X a bit of a sneak peek at miniLook. In his words, it’s an app to “keep email “always on” without dedicating 600MB of RAM.”

miniLook uses WinAppSDK, the software development kit (SDK) that powers the new File Explorer, as well as the WinUI 3 platform component, Microsoft Graph, and more.

In other words, it (sort of) works like an email reader that is extremely lightweight. Then, you get links to jump into full Outlook, if you want to read the emails further. It’s currently in preview, with plans to open source once it’s available. And the best part of it is Microsoft has somewhat given this a green light, so we may see miniLook soon on the Store.

Email apps or notifications often eat a lot of RAM for many reasons. These apps typically run in the background and always synchronize with email servers at the same time, making it even heavier especially for ancient PCs—like how tiny11 can run Windows 11 on unsupported devices with just 176 MB of RAM.

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