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 know it’s not an answer you expect but I just use the official web client. I hate how there’s 2+ sidebars and a lot of features I don’t need in standalone clients. I just need inbox, spam, trash and probably search.
Thunderbird. I even use it as my RSS feed reader. The only problem it has is it does not have any tray icon to indicate new unread mails (I wrote my own program for this). They are working on a tray menu, if I’m not mistaken. I have 5 mail accounts from different providers. Backing up is easy, and on a new OS installation I just need to copy over the entire directory and its like I never left my system (same for Firefox).
You can use bluetray for notifications
Did you mean birdtray? It’s in the AUR and I try to install mostly (not a hard rule) from official repositories.
It should be in the Debian repos
You probably can install it with distrobox
I cannot believe I used xbiff in the 80s to know when I had a new email, and in 2024 the most well known and old thunderbird does not…
xbiffwas usually watching a file - your mailbox - on the mainframe, which would have been updated by the mail server daemon. Heck, it could be set to watch any file to see when it updated.Basically, you could still use
xbiffif you emulate that setup using your own local mail server as a proxy. (And you’re using a GUI that supports it. No idea if Wayland does.)
I remember that was an add-on for this.
I used an addon in the past, but experienced problems at some points. Also could not find any addon that supported what I want to do, supporting RSS feeds as well or better yet, Unified Folders feature of Thunderbird. Maybe it was a configuration issue, but I ended up writing my own fast solution, that also works on commandline and can be added as a widget to any environment. Why not link it here :D https://github.com/thingsiplay/peepbird
Fair enough.
Tuta’s web client.
It gets the job done and I don’t use email much any more.
I’m using Thunderbird.
On my work computers, I don’t want the email to be stored locally (since they back up the entire system to the cloud for retention and compliance purposes), so I’m using Roundcube hosted on the email server itself. I self-host my email server.
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)
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?
I think this was a different smartphone app that would get the Thunderbird branding… searching… ah, it’s K-9: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/revealed-thunderbird-on-android-plans-k9/
You are mistaking KMail (desktop client by KDE) and K-9 Mail (Android client that is being rebranded into Thunderbird for Android).
You are thinking of K9
A combination of thunderbird and mutt.
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.
Are you taking about the semi recent rewrite or the old discontinued version?
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.
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.
Thunderbird on OpenSUSE
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’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
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 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.
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 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.
Unironically neomutt
The webmail interface and the app of my email provider (Tuta).
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
