Google kills Sparrow, one of Apple fans’ favorite email apps

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Fare thee well, Sparrow.
Fare thee well, Sparrow.

It was only a matter of time before Sparrow flew off into the sunset. The beloved email app’s days were numbered the moment Google bought it in 2012.

Now Sparrow is nowhere to be found in the App Store on both iOS and OS X. What was once an incredibly popular email client among Apple fans is no more.

It’s not surprising that Google decided to kill Sparrow altogether after it languished for years with no more than sporadic compatibility updates. TechCrunch first noticed that Sparrow had been pulled from the store a few days ago.

Sparrow’s website, which still shows the letter from 2012 announcing Google’s acquisition, will still let you download Sparrow for Mac directly. But what’s the point if development has been stopped?

The small team behind Sparrow recently made Google’s Inbox app for Gmail. It’s clear that Google has routed the talent that conceived Sparrow elsewhere, and I’m honestly surprised that the app has stayed available for this long. It was never updated for iOS 8, and the last OS X update was literally years ago.

And so it goes. Time to pour one out for what was once a great little indie app.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment on whether Sparrow being pulled is just a temporary thing, but you shouldn’t hold your breath.

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