I just can’t find a decent email client that looks like it’s from the last 20 years. Geary and Evolution both appear to be pretty modern but something about using Gmail with a Yubikey just doesn’t work and neither of them will connect to my account. Both on Fedora and OpenSUSE. Thunderbird works but it’s so old fashioned and Betterbird doesn’t look much better. What’s everyone else using?
I’ve been wanting something too! What I really want is something that interfaces natively with Exchange server as well as integrated inbox for multiple accounts.
The one product that exists is Blue Mail which is pretty nice except that half its functionality is broken. I’ve been in contact with their support multiple times over many months and eventually they just gave up. Its functionality is limited by arbitrary glitches and unknown limitations which they simply don’t want to bother fixing.
Thunderbird is working on enabling exchange, and meanwhile you can combine it with TBSync plus its provider for exchange AcriveSync extensions. And given TB hadn’t care so far about tray, to at least avoid TB dying by mistake, you can also add Minimize on Close extension. Mail would still be IMap, so it’ll work as long as the outlook provider enables IMap support, but for the company I work it’s enabled. But such support is coming up on TB. Not sure if its solution would be 100% open source, but I hope it is, otherwise, I’m not sure if everyone will want to have a blob proprietary binary inside TB…
I was using Thunderbird, but I have had a number of issues with it. Crashing seems to happen whether I use the Flatpak or install from AUR.
I have switched back to using web clients for my mail for the time being.
I am using debias as os , and never had a problem with thunderbird, did you used recently? I am not against web, but i manage 5 emails so no way the web is a option for me. Also i start to use the rss from thunder and is cool.
I’m using it on Windows at work and I was also surprised how often it just gets stuck. Deleting the database did help for some time, but then it came back every time I’m sending an email.
I wonder if it has to to with the email provider or something? It isn’t fast for me but it gets the job done and is stable and predictable even with thousands of emails
I have never had thunderbird crash. Not questioning what you say but perhaps its sonsthing else? Did u try deleting thubderbird data and starting fresh ?
I will likely go back and try that. I however know just like in other email clients, if I have thousands of emails per account its bound to be slower. I did clean out each box. I plan to use Thunderbird again once I clear out all of those emails and consolidate to one email address.
I will have to investigate which directories to purge.
My inbox has upward of 17,000 emails and thunderbird doesn’t have any issues with it. So it should be okay with it.
Why do you install Thunderbird from the AUR? It’s available on the official repository in Archlinux repos (and all distros based on). And updates are extremely quick. Can’t say anything about the Flatpak version, because I never used it other than “native” installation. I am using it since over a decade and don’t remember having crashes, maybe once in a while (1 time per year maybe fault of something else). I actually use Thunderbird with 5 accounts from different providers, plus use it as my RSS feed reader, because its stable for me.
I know saying “it works for me” won’t help you, but maybe its an indication that something else is wrong. I would recommend to install it from official repository instead.
I may have misspoke, I use an AUR helper to install many programs and utilities, and am not at my computer to view the actual source. So I took a gamble and guessed AUR. My apologies.
It could have been other instability, as I mentioned in another comment I didn’t really look too deep into it since it wasn’t so important. And by no means am I blaming Thunderbird (regardless of source) for the issues I have had. It truly is a great email client.
I see. Well Thunderbird is not the only mail client, there are other good alternatives. Hope you find something that works for you. Who knows what the actual problem is, sometimes one can’t figure it out and has to use an alternative.
I want to investigate it. I know it works well on my laptop, which the big difference in the 2 is that one is an Nvidia GPU and the other an Intel Integrated. So it could be video related. Who knows.
Thank you all the same!
I just use Protonmail’s web client. Fast, sleek, similar polish to gmail imo.
For an actual desktop client, Thunderbird with Dark Reader addon and some tweaks for theming.
Honestly though, I just prefer the web client from Proton, it’s really nice.
Oh hi Jure of KDE fame ;)
How is KMail these days? I haven’t used it in years. It always largely worked, but never really exceled at anything.
Wasn’t it supposed to become Thunderbird for android?
You are thinking of K9
You are mistaking KMail (desktop client by KDE) and K-9 Mail (Android client that is being rebranded into Thunderbird for Android).
Thunderbird on OpenSUSE
Thunderbird all the way 🙌
I have used Thunderbird for years. HOWEVER:
- I don’t know why Thunderbird can’t get a reliable, functional search ability. It’s such garbage. I constantly have to delete my entire search index and start from scratch, it is immensely frustrating.
- The problems connecting to gmail are also so frustrating. Yes, they are Google’s fault but if you make an e-mail client you maybe need to add a workaround for the world’s most popular e-mail provider. It’s totally fixable because you can apply those fixes manually.
I don’t know why Thunderbird can’t get a reliable, functional search ability. It’s such garbage. I constantly have to delete my entire search index and start from scratch, it is immensely frustrating.
Maybe see if Betterbird’s search works better for you
Wow very interesting thank you! I like that it can be run side-by-side from the same profile to test it out. If search was fixed I would have never migrated so much of my e-mail to gmail.
Are you taking about the semi recent rewrite or the old discontinued version?
I guess the question is, why do you need a client? I find most web interfaces to be sufficient, you can enable browser notifications, create an “app” so that it’s in a stand-alone window, etc.
As another comment said, I just use the Proton web interface.
I think this is a fair question. I haven’t seen anyone mention the benefits of using a non-web mail client (OP mentioned Yubikey but 2FA isn’t uncommon with web mail). I would actually consider using one if it gave me clean up options (e.g. haven’t opened an email in 3 days and the sender is not in my address book move to Junk/Spam). Main reason I rarely look at email is that it’s 90% stuff I have no desire to read and marking things as spam is a never ending cycle.
I guess the question is, why do you need a client? I find most web interfaces to be sufficient
Clients like Thunderbird download the mails for a local copy. That means, you can a) read and search your mails offline, b) backup all mails. That’s not all. Such a client also: c) allows a unified interface to all different mail accounts from different providers in one view, d) better integration into your system, such as tray icons for notifications.
Everyone does their thing, so not saying you are doing it wrong, just giving you reasons to use an offline mail client; as you asked why.
Those are all totally fair considerations, just not requirements in my workflow. I’m coming at it from a personal use case, where I don’t need offline access to my personal email, and I only have one email account to check (my Gmail is forwarded to my Proton mail).
My question was more to lead OP down the requirements gathering path, to evaluate their actual needs and if a client is actually required or if it’s more of a “nice to have”.
Thanks for laying out some of those advantages to a client though. Every user has their own needs and if offline access, multiple accounts, consistent UI, etc. are desired, then a client is certainly a great option.
After Thunderbird’s UI overhaul I jumped around a bit and landed on Claws Mail. It’s fairly old fashioned, but I personally prefer that and find it clear and logical. It’s a good client.
Claws is awesome
Tuta’s web client.
It gets the job done and I don’t use email much any more.
A combination of thunderbird and mutt.
Old school here, I use mutt. :P on android I use FairEmail and really like it.
FairEmail is great! One of the best email clients I’ve ever used. It started struggling a bit with a large mailbox though, so I switched to K9 Mail (which I’ve heard will eventually become Thunderbird for Android)
What do you find “old-fashioned” about Thunderbird? Do you not consider an interface “new” if they don’t change it and hide all the common features every five minutes like Microsoft does? It’s an email client, you read your emails in it. How would you do it better?
“needs more whitespace and rollover disclosure on invisible icons”
Heh I just ran into the invisible icons issue recently, for whatever reason I am no longer able to accept Teams meeting. Yeah that’s definitely a shitty thing. But more whitespace? In other words, less visible information on the screen which requires more scrolling or clicking to other screens? Sorry, that just sounds annoying and less productive.
Sorry, that just sounds annoying and less productive.
It is but the “holy trinity” of Ui/UX design Apple, Google and Microsoft have been pushing this for years now.
My eye twitches anytime I go onto a webpage that’s just a phone app in the middle of my screen with two blank voids on either side.
Information density MUST be suitable for humans. Usability and productivity both have nothing in common with amount of clicking and scrolling required.
Just imagine making your font size something about 5px. And 1.0 as a line height. Sounds good, isn’t it? There ia so much information displayed on the screen.
Actually I AM that guy with a small font size and super-packed density. The more information on the screen, the faster I can take it in at a glance and find what I need. Sorry your brain doesn’t work that way, but less clicking and scrolling absolutely does affect my productivity and my idea of usability. For example, I find it highly annoying when a website changes to a larger spacing on a drop-down list and suddenly something I used to be able to immediately click on now requires me to scroll down several times to find the option I want. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to increase usability.
That’s great. And if something is comfortable for you to use, it doesn’t mean it would be comfortable for the majority of other people.
Maybe you use large screen(s). Maybe your information is not important and/or the interface doesn’t require actions. Context matters.
As a user of 13-inch 2560x1600p screen, I definitely can say that apps need more whitespace to be usable. I’ve also been using 2 monitors 27-inch each some time ago. And yes, such a configuration allows for a greater density of information on the screen.
That’s why I say (again): information density must be comfortable for humans. In their contexts of course.
If you need less information on screen, they invented a great thing for that in the 90s: resizable windows. And later, HiDPI-aware interface scaling.
That is the right way to control information density. The user can control both of these however they like and set it to whatever they work best with, and it applies across the system. You can’t do that with usually custom written interfaces that insist on putting like two lines of text worth of whitespace between every UI element.
Unironically neomutt
Mailspring, best client I’ve used in a while.
Agreed on Mailspring, especially if OP wants a modern interface (although I think the new Thunderbird looks fine).
The only thing missing from Mailspring for me is seeing what folders my emails are in when I run a search. Otherwise, it’s the only non-CLI client I’ve found that let’s me use the keyboard to select multiple emails and move them to a folder, something I do in Gmail. If anyone knows of others, let me know! I’ve tried Claws, Evolution, Geary, KMail, and Thunderbird in addition to Mutt and aerc in hopes of finding something to replace Gmail…
Last time I tried it, it had major issues with folders (for example, folders didn’t refresh often enough, and notifications weren’t shown for emails that are sorted into folders). I tried to fix it myself, but gave up after I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t syncing folders properly: https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring/pull/2308
Notifications on folders a have been added (I sort all my mail into a plethora of folders, keeping my inbox empty, so for me this is non-negotiable), and they all sync with a single f5 now.
Might be worth checking out again?
Interesting… Which email provider do you use?
Can you choose which folders use real-time push vs which folders use polling?
Fastmail.
Can you choose which folders use real-time push vs which folders use polling?
I’m afraid not. I’m pretty sure the entire account uses polling. I’ll usually open the app and hit F5 to quickly poll for results, otherwise I’m waiting for the next sync.
Having said that, the unread counter works fine for sub-folders:
Edit: I was wrong, Mailspring uses the IMAP IDLE extension to wait for new mail delivery. Still doesn’t stop me from spamming F5 when I’m waiting for new mail to arrive.
I was wrong, Mailspring uses the IMAP IDLE extension to wait for new mail delivery
The reason I was asking about the folders is that IMAP IDLE only works for one folder at a time. If you want real-time push for 10 folders (for example), it has to open 10 separate IMAP connections. Because of this, clients usually either only enable push for the inbox, or let you choose which folders to enable it for.
Thunderbird for desktop computer, K-9 mail for mobile phone.
Did you know K-9 mail is soon to be thunderbird mobile
true
