Thanks for checking out Shift! Shift is indeed based off a fork of WMail. We have some exciting features for 2017 including extension support, unified search, and more!

while I acknowledge the difference in price between this and outlook ($20 per year vs $80 outright purchase), is this really a better option than setting up those gmail accounts in Outlook, since so many of us already have and use Outlook? I personally have over a dozen gmail accounts, so I couldn’t get away with the…

Great recommendation, just set it up as I have a corporate Gmail account and personal and the free plan fits perfect for me.