The best email client ♥️
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Linux
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It's my daily driver. It has incredible compatibility and very nice features, for example the rule based filter actions, header matching, which immensely boosts my workflow efficiency. Not to mention the calendars and tasks integration and the great extensibility via the plugin system.
Thunderbird is a great example of community driven awesomeness.
Is the maildir support still considered experimental/buggy? It's the main issue that's been preventing me from using. it.
ELI5 please, why would I use thunderbird over a web client? I have used a local email client in years but it seems everyone uses and loves thunderbird.
If you don't have multiple email accounts, then probably a webmail is fine. If you have multiple accounts, and require some advanced email features, then a local client is often more efficient. Unfortunately, because the majority of people are fine with a webmail, those clients are not attracting much activity for development and Thunderbird itself almost died some ten years ago.
May I ask the opposite? Why use JavaScript client from the web instead of desktop ones?
Most operating systems, excluding Windows, are shipping with decent native and fast email client. They are automatically updated with the system, again excluding Windows, integrate with other apps (for ex. right-click and share with mail), can store messages offline just in case and are overall nicer to use.
The only use case I think of is when using someone's else computer and you don't want to remember to log out, because browsers have "incognito" mode.
Because then I can access the same client from anywhere, any platform without having to worry about learning the interface for several different clients.
Doesn't windows ship with a native email client? I don't use Windows but I remember an email app on it.
Yes, it's called "Mail" and I guess it's the successor to "Outlook Express" from the old days. I have never actually used it though, but it's certainly there.
Most operating systems, excluding Windows, are shipping with decent native and fast email client.
Even Windows ships with one ("Mail"). I don't have any real experience using it (on my Windows work laptop I have Outlook, and on everything else I use Thunderbird), but it looks fine to me.
I have no idea what the pricing scheme is for Outlook these days, but Outlook does remain genuinely excellent too.
You cant set up server side filters from any floss client for any platform afaik. If i am wrong someone plz tell me because it is the #1 problem every time. Always go back to webmail and proprietary mobile clients.
(Am talking about imap servers and generic clients. So not like proton etc.)
Sounds like you're making an a point from privacy, which I agree with and subscribe to. But I feel like there's something in your point that is missed in that the email provider has the emails still. If I have a Gmail account then I doubt it matters if I use thunderbird or not. So that pushes me to use a more privacy focused email provider but if they are then their web client should also be privacy focused. So if total privacy is the focus then hosting your own email service would be what is needed. But if privacy isn't the point then convenience is more important. And going off the other replies to my question, the only reason is if you have multiple accounts and want them to be accessible from one place.
I have 2 main email accounts, 1 that is family and friends focused and 1 that is privacy/purchases/etc focused and I actually like them to be separated so thunderbird doesn't sound very useful for my case. Not sure if there's something I'm missing here but if there is then I am willing to read and learn. Especially when it comes to privacy focused stuff.
No, it was not about privacy. From privacy standpoint there is no difference from email client running in browser or on desktop, both can have trackers and in both we need to trust the source. There are even selfhosted web email clients like RoundCube or Nextcloud Mail, that I use too but really rare.
Ah okay, my bad. I misunderstood. I guess to be able to answer your opposite question I would have to try thunderbird myself and see if I still prefer web based or not. Otherwise I don't have an answer to why I use web client over thunderbird other than it's already there and ready when I set up my account.
I pull all my email locally and only leave the last few weeks on the servers. I have all my email (going back 20 years) available locally and also backed up safe. If an email provider goes tits up, or is acquired, or starts misbehaving, I can have my mailboxes somewhere else within the hour and not lose anything.
Multiple accounts that I need to check daily (works, personnal, business). It would take me way more time to check all of them on a browser. You can also search within all your account from TB. Also have access to my archives without internet access.
I have email going all the way back to 2013 or so, and don't like the idea of all that information sitting readily available for hacks, warrants, or automated scanning. I move mail older than two years into a local Thunderbird folder to limit what's sitting online, while also letting me search for recent emails while out and about.
Aside from that, I like that I can still access emails while offline, see all my inboxes, contacts, and calendar in one place. Also, I've got enough "apps" that run in the browser.
Actually, sudden account closure without recourse (which Google does) is another reason to make sure I have local copies of email too.
I like it because I put all my RSS feeds there (podcasts, blogs, etc.), for RSS purposes it does everything I want and more than many of the dedicated RSS clients do. Then, if I can get my email there too, I don't have to open my web browser all the time, which is more efficient.
I have 4 email addresses in regular use (excluding my work one, which is deliberately kept entirely off my personal devices). They are from several different providers. Checking 4 different inboxes in 4 different browser windows is an awful lot less convenient than having them all in one application. Thunderbird also lets these inboxes throw system notifications when the application is running in the background, which wouldn't happen if I'm just relying on the webmail interfaces.
Thunderbird also gives me an offline local backup of my emails, which is useful if I find myself in a connection blackspot and in desperate need to find an email. As my main personal laptop also regularly backs up data to an external storage device, it also means these local mail copies are backed up too; not sure when that's ever going to be vitally useful, but it's an nice thing all the same.
Ultimately, why not? I find the Thunderbird interface easy to use (not least because I've been using it forever), and the webmail interfaces are simple and intuitive too, so it's not like there's any intellectual strain on using multiple clients.
Now they should create a decent and light carddav and caldav server because what exists today is a mess. Not all features are supported, notifications for invites and whatnot aren't even good or present in most cases and things break. Radicale is python thus not reliable, buggy and not functional for a large scale deployment (> 50 users) and Baikal lacks features.
notifications for invites and whatnot aren’t even good or present in most cases
A CalDAV server doesn't do notifications. Its job is to store event definitions, period. Even if it wanted to, it can't interpret the definitions (because it's not its job). For example if you define an event as recurring every week the CalDAV server only holds one copy of the event that says "recurring every week". You need a calendar client to create an instance of the event for every week, and to email participants and so on. So what you really want is either a calendar client app or a groupware solution (which integrates the extra features around a calendar server).
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Hopefully they'll build in support for disroot, fastmail, posteo, protonmail, tutanota, and other opensource encrypted mail agends that don't provide a bridge.
Edit: so the summary of the video is "marketing". Linux, KDE, and opensource projects in general need way better marketing. If Linux could rebrand itself as anything but "the geek thing", I bet it would be much more successful.
I think why Lennox seems so unapproachable by so many it's because there's so many distros and choices people get choice paralysis. And then as soon as they ask anyone about it they get 20,000 different results. Lol
That's true. It's a great strength to have the freedom to do anything with your hardware and software, but a great detriment to those who just want it to work. The torture of choice.
That's where marketing comes in. It guides you to the best choices for the "point and click, make it work" group of people - which are the majority.
I'm curious what you mean by that. What exactly do you miss for these providers? (e.g. for posteo and mailbox.org, as those are the ones I am using)
Encrypted mail providers should require a bridge in order to be able to pull or send emails with. Protonmail has "Proton Bridge", tutanota has nothing. I see now that disroot, fastmail and posteo have direct SMTP access 🤔 That leads me to question: what actually is encrypted? Direct SMTP and IMAP access probably means they can read your mail.
There is encryption at rest (storage encryption), transport encryption and end-to-end encryption. E.g. Posteo has transport encryption and optional storage encryption. With activated storage encryption, Posteo cannot read your mail because the encryption key on their server is only usable with your password (which they do not store). Proton Bridge adds end-to-end encryption to Protonmail
I think a lot of the issue with mainstream adoption to Linux is the software suite and not the operating system. I refused to switch to Linux because of needing MS Office (specifically Excel). I needed it for work at my previous job until they provided everyone with laptops during the pandemic. And before you say just use LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, they are fine options for personal use for me. But for my productivity, switching between the two with different shortcuts was miserable. LibreOffice still pisses me off for formula auto completion. If I hit tab while making a formula, I want to go to the next parameter in the formula not the next cell.
Excel does always seem to be the thing people can’t substitute, which is weird because it doesn’t seem terribly more complicated than Word (?)
Excel is vastly more complicated than Word. Word is just basic word processing. Excel has lots of data manipulation, formulas, tables, charts, plus when coupled with visual basic, scripts and macros. I could do all that stuff in LibreOffice if I only worked in LibreOffice. But having to work in Excel at the office and LibreOffice at home would've been a NIGHTMARE.
Client like thunderbird is good if you always use the same desktop/laptop machine to do your email. If you are using multiple devices like school, friend, work, library or even mobile it totally breaks down. To say nothing of system failures, breaking or losing the machine etc.
Most people who love TB have a setup that has been stable for 20 years. Good for them, it suits their needs. But the contempt with which they seem to hold the majority of the population for whom TB would be a totally unsuitable choice is rather unpleasent.
Ever notice how rarely you see someone saying "I switched to TB from webmail 2 years ago and its great"?
Too bad, as i would absolutely love to switch the floss desktop/mobile clients and have tried to do so on a few occasions. They are simply not compatible with modern communications habits.
I'm not really sure I understand this post.
I use Thunderbird on several machines, and I use broadly the default config (no fancy business). I also have the same email accounts set up on my Android phone (Gmail ones on the native Gmail client app, an Outlook one on the Outlook app). When accessing my email on a machine which doesn't have Thunderbird set up for me (such as my corporate laptop), I just use the webmail interfaces.
And it all works...fine. why wouldn't it? Thunderbird and the Android apps just send their service calls off via IMAP and it all sorts itself out without any fuss from me. All the data lives off in the cloud anyway; it's just a different way to interact with it other than the web interface.
I just happen to like having all my email accounts in one combined place, running in the background and throwing system notifications.
I think they're expecting thunderbird users to use POP instead of imap, Gmail integration, OWA, or other protocol that expects the mail to stay on the server.
Leaving the mail on the server has been great in Thunderbird since the Mozilla days. I did jump to Gmail web app a long time ago though. I'm assuming Gmail support has improved in the last 15 years?
Does anyone still use POP?
I'm a heavy Thunderbird user and to be honest, I don't understand what you're saying at all? I have multiple private mail accounts and a work mail account and I use all of them on multiple machines with Thunderbird but also with different clients (e.g. FairEmail on Android) as well as webmail (at least for my work mail I use it sometimes) and I never experienced any problems. What exactly do you mean? I mean, I do have an export of my thunderbird profiles (maybe not up to date, though, tbh), but more so out of comfort than necessity. Without this export, and in the unlikely case of a system failure, I would have to go through the process of adding my mail accounts (server, password, username) by hand and that's basically it
If you want to filter all mail (on a specific mail host) from host.tld into a specific folder, how do you create the filter?
Sorry, I kind of forgot about lemmy or a few days. In Thunderbird, I create a new dedicated folder, use Tools --> Message Filters. I then can add the desired filter (something like must contain at least 'host.tld' in sender) and make it move all filtered mails into the previously created folder. I just checked, it works like this. You can also specify when that filter should be executed (e.g. when getting new mails or every 10 minutes) and the folder with the filtered mails also shows up in FairMail on Android. Better description: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/organize-your-messages-using-filters
As someone else pointed out, maybe you're thinking of POP instead of IMAP? I basically have all my mails on the host's servers (including folders) and just synchronize using my different clients
I switched to TB from webmail 1 year ago and it's great.
There you go.
Sorry if my comment comes off as rude, I'm just genuinely curious
no rude, it's what forum are for :)
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