
A year with Notmuch mail (2016) - pmoriarty
https://lwn.net/Articles/705856/
======
JoshTriplett
I really like the premise of notmuch, using a search index as the primary
storage mechanism. I just wish it integrated better with distributed email.

I currently use IMAP for my mail, and process it on three different systems: a
personal laptop, a work laptop, and a phone. Workflows based on notmuch
support syncing between laptops (see the mention of muchsync in the article),
but don't really interoperate with standard email protocols, and I'm not
willing to give up quick access to email from my phone. And beyond that, I
don't really want to have to "sync" email; I'd like to just access it
seamlessly.

~~~
pmoriarty
Have you considered ssh'ing in to a remote server from your phone and running
emacs (or other notmuch client) from there?

~~~
JoshTriplett
I used to ssh to my server and run mutt from my phone, back when I had a phone
with a hardware keyboard. That's a lot less satisfying when half your screen
area is taken up with a software keyboard in order to drive your mail client,
while you're trying to read and process mail.

So no, I'm not willing to give up having a "native" client, or at least
something web-based.

Honestly, notmuch would make an incredible backend for a webmail client,
ideally with a mobile-first interface.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" That's a lot less satisfying when half your screen area is taken up with a
software keyboard"_

You could carry an external, mini-keyboard for your phone and use that. It's
annoying, but, as you note, screen-keyboards are annoying as well.

~~~
JoshTriplett
When I'm using my phone to process email, I don't generally have any surface
available on which I'd put a keyboard.

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jakeogh
Found notmuch when I closed my gmail acct years ago, love it. I use a
wrapper[1] that integrates it with alot[2] and an optional custom MDA[3].

[1] [https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda-
client](https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda-client)

[2] [https://github.com/pazz/alot](https://github.com/pazz/alot)

[3] [https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda](https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda)

------
pmoriarty
_" Notmuch does not index all headers; two missed headers that are of interest
to me are 'X-Bogosity' and 'References'."_

I wonder why Notmuch doesn't just index all headers?

It seems like it would be useful to do so, as some header might be of interest
to some user out there, even if it's not to the authors of the program or to
most users. So what's the downside of just indexing everything?

If it's a performance consideration, then there could just be a simple
configuration file option that determines whether all headers are index or
not, or maybe a user-configurable list of headers to index would work instead.

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Rjevski
Office 365 and Outlook solves my email problem perfectly - their "focused
inbox" emphasises important mail while leaving the cruft behind and the spam
filter is excellent.

For those with thousands of emails every day maybe the solution is to receive
less mail instead of finding tools to manage it.

------
ams6110
I've used notmuch with the emacs plugin as my primary email system for years.
It's the best thing I've ever used and I really feel hobbled using anything
else. Gmail isn't bad for a web interface, but its searching is inferior.

~~~
IceDane
Same here. I've tried so many other clients. Mutt(which is obscenely overrated
and shitty), mu4e, various GUI clients like Thunderbird, etc, etc.

The only thing that really works is notmuch. It's so much easier to just lump
all your mail together, and then tag it appropriately based on the content or
whatever.

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andreasgonewild
Speaking of hacker-friendly email clients. Snackis offers editable threads,
full-text search and encryption in a single, convenient package with a GTK GUI
on top.

[https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis](https://github.com/andreas-
gone-wild/snackis)

~~~
ftczuct
I understand that tastes are different, but... Red text on black background? I
couldn't even read the github readme.

~~~
andreasgonewild
I like it that way, looks better than in the pictures if you ask me. It is,
however completely CSS-themeable; the theme you saw in the README is included
as an example. If someone else is willing to put their time into an
alternative theme, I'd be happy to include it. To summarize; if that's your
only issue I suggest another look.

