3mo ago

Email client recommendations ?

Hi, I tried using an email client over a year ago, and after trying almost all of them in the span of a week I gave up in frustration. Would anyone have a recommendation ? For an email client :

That is actively maintained
That is not controlled by a company that could pull a Mozilla on it (Thunderbird)
That isn't proprietary
That doesn't need 77 dependencies and 450 GB (WTF KMail 😭 )
That is reasonably fast and light and not too bloated (I just want to read emails, I don't need a full app suite...)
That supports POP
That supports writing HTML messages (sorry Claws, I really liked you but occasionally I kinda need to write formatted messages to preserve other people's sanity 😅 )
That supports reading HTML messages without showing the HTML version as attachments so that every single email has the paperclip icon and I can't tell which messages have real attachments (Sylpheed I think ?)
That supports MailDir format for portability (why isn't it the default everywhere already instead of weird non-portable formats ? 😭 )
If possible, that doesn't have an interface that's so awful it's a pain to find anything (Thunderbird)

I also tested Geary and another one but I don't remember much about it... I can't find out whether Geary does support POP and maildir, its documentation page is... well it's a list 8 lines long, but on a page called "Documentation" so it's technically counts as documentation I guess ? 😅 https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary/Documentation

Any recommendation would be greatly appreciated !

57 comments

Thunderbird. The "Mozilla problem" is greatly exaggerated and even if so, there are forks.
- Thunderbird has their own finances and operates quite independent from Mozilla. They make more money than any other project under Mozilla's banner. Thunderbird is quite successful. And even if one day a problem occurs, one could still use a fork or switch to a different mail client. But I don't see any problem coming, unlike with Firefox in example.
  
  Oh that's good to know ! Does this mean it doesn't have the same annoying opt-out "features" than Firefox ? Like the sponsored links, the "privacy preserving" ads, and so on ? Also you said you can switch to a different client if something happens, but doesn't Thunderbird use mbox which from what I understand is not portable to other clients ?
- Thunderbird is independently developed from Mozilla and has been since 2020. It's driven by the Thunderbird Council which is community elected. Its only link now with Mozilla Foundation is that it's a financial subsidiary. But as others say, there's also Betterbird if one still fanatically hates Mozilla.
- I kind of wonder who is behind the over exaggeration. People with real concerns or those that do not want strong open platforms. Too much controversy and bifriction and those that push it for their own ends are the enemy.
- Same. There is an Android version now too.
- I use Thunderbird and hate it. Full of bugs and cramdowns (not sure what the right term is) where they make a bad setting that you can't undo. Also too difficult to find too many things. And way too many non-mail features. I haven't bothered seeking a good alternative but Thunderbird leaves a lot to be desired. Forking isn't likely to help much. It needs total replacement.
  
  Betterbird
Thunderbird is great. But if you don't like it only because of Mozilla (the interface is customizable so that's not an argument) there is a fork which does almost everything like Thunderbird, is slightly better on some points, and slightly worse on some others, called Betterbird. It has in my point of view no interesting point, but it's not Mozilla.
- Agree!
- It's both but mostly Mozilla, I got fed up with Firefox and having to go through settings to see if there's anything weird enabled by default like telemetry and ads, and never knowing when Mozilla might add yet another wonderful opt-out feature like "privacy preserving ads". I really don't want to go through the same thing with my email client and my trust in Mozilla is somewhere down in the Earth's mantle. But I guess I shouldn't have called it "awful" since it's very subjective, for me personally it was a pain to find anything when I tried, even after trying to tweak it. I didn't know it had forks though, thanks I'll check them out !
tell me you are heavily neurodivergent without telling me
- Aww crap and here I thought I was approximating a neurotypical post by removing my rant about the other email client whose name I forgot which had several half-empty toolbars disturbing the hell outta me by taking up space for nothing 😄
Personally, I use mu4e (part of the mu software) to read, organise, compose and send emails. It uses a text-based interface, and runs from within the GNU EMacs editor. Emails are stored locally in the Maildir format.
It is actively maintained and open source, and not controlled by a company
Apart from xapian and EMacs, chances are that you have the dependencies already installed
Mails can be composed in HTML format, but this may take a few extra tweaks. (I do not do this myself.)
Emails have to be stored in the Maildir format to be indexed using mu and viewed with mu4e
Neither POP nor IMAP are directly supported. To fetch or sync emails from/with an external server, external applications can be called, like mbsync (for IMAP), offlineimap (same), or fetchmail in unison with a locally running postfix MTA (for POP)
I am not sure if I can recommend this solution, as it can be a bit technical compared with other email clients. For me, it is entirely worth it, though.
- +1 for mu4e, really awesome software. There are a few HTML composing tweaks possible, I use org-msg that lets me compose HTML with org. (See my configuration.)
  
  Oh I didn't know terminal mail clients could do html formatting so I excluded them, it's nice to know that's not the case, thanks for the info !
- mu4e
  I hadn't heard of it, thanks for the recommendation I'll check it out ! It's nice to see I haven't tried everything yet 😀
  
  If you’re going there, give mutt a go. It’s an extremely efficient experience, once you have got the basics down.
- I use not much and Emacs. I use msmtp and mbsync. I was going to recommend that. The only issue I have is that I can’t figure out how to sync my sent mails across my accounts. So that if I send a message via service a, it lands in the sent folder of service a. Do you have any tips for me?
Evolution.
I have used Thunderbird a lot, but finally decided to go back to Evolution 2 years ago.
- Just a note: its more of a Personal information manager(it includes calender,contacts,to do,etc) rather then just a email client
  
  Well I year ago I would have said "no way I want an email client that does email and nothing else" but after trying so many of them I'm fine ignoring the stuff I don't use as long as it doesn't get in the way so I'll look it up thanks !
- I just installed Evolution to give it a try but it's throwing fits –and by fits I mean segfaults 😑
  But I'll be switching to a new drive and new distro in a few weeks so I'll try again and see if it works then
yeah, I use Thunderbird, but it bothers me how slow it feels and the frequent little UI bugs with unread flags not updating and the delay of messages to show up in the unified inbox.
It's nice that Betterbird has a system tray (I can't believe how a standalone desktop app for emails neglects this, like TB does), but it still inherits a lot of the problems TB has.
- Which version do you use with which OS? As a GNOME user I don't need it, but I'm pretty sure Thunderbird has a system tray.
  
  v137 on KDE, there's no minimize or close to tray option in the settings, like some screenshots suggest.
  Thunderbird extensions for that don't work on recent versions, and KDocker - which I used for a couple of years - doesn't seem to work on Wayland. So the only option on some DEs seems to migrate to Betterbird.
- I do remember Thunderbird being kinda slow when I tried it on my potato grade laptop... I assume Betterbird isn't any faster ?
  
  I have tried kmail, Geary, mailspring before I landed on betterbird. I'm not sure what you mean with slow, but it works without issues on my pc. It does a lot of stuff, but it's a fork of Thunderbird, which you want to exclude based on the initial thread. There are not a lot of linux clients even worth trying. Good luck finding your jam.
So close on mutt! :)
I have it set up so that it autoconverts all HTML messages to plain text as best as it can. If it's not good enough, I have a macro set up to launch the HTML version in Firefox so it's usable. (None of the images come through, which is potentially a feature.)
I did look into writing HTML mail with mutt, and it's even uglier than reading. The gist of it is to basically have a wrapper script that launches some kind of HTML editor, then builds the multipart message (maybe autoconverting HTML to text so you can have both) and headers, then launches mutt -H email.txt to prepare to send it. If it looks good, send it from Mutt as normal. I don't know how well this would work with attached inline images, but it sounds potentially quite painful.
But I don't regularly send HTML messages, so I haven't bothered with that route. I'd just bring up TB if I had to.
(I can say, for me, since I went back to mutt, I'm happier with email than I've been for decades. And my RAM is happier, too. But I probably spent 20 hours configuring it. And everyone probably hates my preformatted text. They get back at me by sending 30 MB HTML-only mails. 🤣)
- 20 hours spent on config is only a waste if you can't do it in a config file that you get to proudly display in a public repo as a gift to Humanity... dotfiles will be our immortal legacy 😁
  
  I'll have to post it all somewhere sometime. None of my passwords are in there, but some of my account names are.
Claws Mail client. Solid, Lightweight. Doesn't have the polish thunderbird has, but also doens't have a lot of the bloat either.
- OP specifically mentioned not wanting claws.
  
  Yes I would really have liked to have kept it but the lack of html formatting is a deal breaker... it's still a very good mail client that doesn't get enough love though
- Yes it's an awesome mail client, but alas I do need to write HTML formatted messages occasionally 😢
  
  Auugh man I'm sorry for glossing that over. I hate being just another 'thunderbird exists' guy but given the need for HTML? Yea I'm gonna chip in on that bucket.
Geary
- I can't find out if it supports POP3 and MailDir, as I mentioned the documentation is... not very helpful
I went through this same process and research and I landed on hosting Roundcube as a docker container on a server in my home built from the guts of my old laptop but you can run it locally too.
- Lmao that's what ChatGPT recommended after I ranted about all the email clients I had tried 😂
  fetchmail/getmail6 to fetch the mails via POP3 in maildir format + a local roundcube server + CLI tool to still be able to read mails outside home but I thought I might be a bit overkill 😅
  
  lol I am as dumb as artificial intelligence. fwiw I have it hooked to my reverse proxy and can just use the roundcube website on my phone externally, it scales nicely for phone screens.
Vivaldi has integrated mail client.

57 comments