
Ask HN: Which email software do you use on Linux? - TekMol
I have been happily using Thunderbird for years now. But for some reason it get&#x27;s slower and slower to start it. Even though all my email accounts are IMAP. And I set it up to <i>not</i> query them on startup. So startup should be immediately. But it takes 8 seconds.<p>So I am playing with the idea to switch.<p>What do you guys use?
======
cik
I keep trying them all - and I keep hating my answer. I've been trying to like
Evolution since 2000, this year I've tried all the flavours of mutt/neomutt
and combinations of things like offlineimap. I've tried KMail, Geary, Outlook
in Wine.... It's just Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is the only thing that works. It's not awesome, but it can keep up
with my 5 email accounts that get checked in parallel.

------
squarefoot
Claws Mail [1]. I used it since when it was called Sylpheed (later Sylpheed
Claws), and wouldn't swap it with anything else. Features aside, it's rock
solid, small and fast, truly fast: I can search my entire mail db since like
1997 and find an indexed word in a sender/recipient/subject in a fraction of
second, or a word in the body in more time.

[1] [https://www.claws-mail.org/](https://www.claws-mail.org/)

The site hasn't been upgraded for a while and looks dated, but the software
itself is very actively maintained. Currently using 3.17.4, which was released
at the end of July. There is also a port to Windows, which I used in a place
where Outlook was having problems, after importing all its data (through an
FOSS utility called "readpst"). The operator dropped his jaw looking at the
difference in speed as apparently long searches in the message base were among
his duties.

~~~
renkenn
I advise you to load plugins provided by claws mail such as the PGP related
ones, vCalendar, SpamAssassin and obviously the Notification plugin.

------
cs702
The _least worst_ choice, for me, is Gmail on a web browser. Switched over
from Thunderbird and prior to that Evolution after many years of using both.

Don't misunderstand. I do NOT want to use Gmail, and there are a lot of things
about it that fall short... but nothing else has given me such pain-free
integration with calendar, contact, and office apps, on my desktop, my laptop,
and my phone.

I'm also keeping an eye on ownCloud, which seems to be on its way to become a
viable alternative.

~~~
693471
If you think GMail is pain free you'd be even more pleased with Fastmail. I
simply cannot self host my mail/contacts/calendar because nothing that exists
-- free or not -- can compete with the usability and available power user
features of Fastmail.

~~~
cs702
Thanks, I'll take a look. FYI, I used Fastmail many years ago (back when
Jeremy Howard ran it, well before its sale to Opera), but haven't taken a look
at it recently.

~~~
the_narrator
Fastmail is no longer owned by Opera, it was spun off in 2013.

~~~
693471
Bought back by the original team, if I recall correctly

------
stevekemp
I used mutt for years, but then wrote an alternative with integrated lua
scripting:

* [https://lumail.org/](https://lumail.org/)

* [https://github.com/lumail/lumail/](https://github.com/lumail/lumail/)

Since large parts of it are configured in Lua it suits my needs perfectly.
Recently I've been considering a third and final rewrite of a console-based
mail-client. But I find it hard to be too enthusiastic..

------
nulbyte
I've been using mu4e and thoroughly enjoying it. The HTML support is a bit
wonky (or perhaps more accurately, HTML emails themselves are usually wonky),
but most of the HTML mail I get is trash anyway. Combined with org-mode, I
find it pretty slick.

~~~
Bnshsysjab
I considered mu4e, are you concerned with security at all? I feel like an
email client would be risky in emacs for some reason

~~~
SamReidHughes
My biggest concern would be image files getting parsed by native libs. There's
also some version or hack of mu4e that uses the gnus rendering engine, that
I've turned on, and I can't remember the default rendering engine's behavior
(maybe it just does text?), but I'd turn off image rendering and then feel
comfortable.

------
Piskvorrr
IMNSHO, it gets slower because your inboxes get bigger. I moved ooold mail to
"archive-20xx" folders, and it gets snappier again. Perhaps do the cleanup-
compact dance, too?

(So far, I haven't found anything that I would like more - even though TB does
have its share of bugs, warts, and UX issues. Opera's mail client was great
while it lasted.)

~~~
TekMol

        it gets slower because your inboxes get bigger
    

I am pretty much an inbox-zero person. None of my inboxes have more then 5
messages in them.

Or do you mean folders in general, like "sent" and "trash" etc?

~~~
Piskvorrr
Hmm, no, I meant in-box specifically, as I have encountered that previously.
But your suggestion could be applicable, yes.

------
gnufx
Emacs is the answer; what was the question again?

It's nothing specifically to do with the Kernel pr operating system. I use
Gnus after starting with RMAIL on SunOS and using VM for some time. I often
use it in tty mode, typically with emacsclient. It would work OK with
relatively recent Exchange IMAP at work if it wasn't for the VPN required to
access it. Gnus is obviously good for mail lists via Gmane's NNTP.

~~~
jkepler
At what point does emacs cease to be a text editor and become an entire
operating system in a terminal or X11?

~~~
anonuser123456
Emacs is not an operating system. It is a high bandwidth peripheral that
connects your brain to the operating system using lisp.

------
pskiba
Neomutt is good but it can be a pain to configure without a script. I
recommend people who want to use Neomutt for the first time use this wizard
[https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-
wizard](https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/mutt-wizard)

~~~
KingMachiavelli
I justed started using mutt configured using this wizard since I have to use
exchage/outlook for work which still has a really buggy web UI. So far it's
working a lot better than when I've previously tried to manually set up mutt.

------
paulcarroty
[https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary)

Thunderbird, Evolution and another clients UI looks like designed 10-15 years
ago.

~~~
Kenji
Yes, and that's good? UI designed 10-15 years ago is actual usable desktop UI
back when desktop was the number one way to do personal computing.

Or what exactly is bad with e.g. Thunderbird's UI? As far as I'm concerned,
I'd be happy if it stayed that way for 30 more years.

~~~
wayneftw
Geary reminds me of the reddit redesign or some other UI that Apple or Google
would create. Information density and convenience where obviously sacrificed
for someones idea of aesthetic.

They removed button labels for no apparent reason other than to confuse you
with duplicate icons as far as I can see in the screenshot. Looks like it
takes at least 2 clicks to sort emails. I'd bet that probably the most
annoying thing though is the lack of features and options.

It looks really nice though and if it fits your needs, I'm sure it's great.
But those of us who like desktop software and not things like Gmail probably
won't.

------
noir_lord
Evolution because with the evolution-ews package it can talk to exchange via
exchange web services, it's reliable unlike the IMAP access to exchange that
our external IT provider messes up constantly somehow.

------
TheChaplain
I use Thunderbird with 10 imap-accounts. Takes about 3s to start, with one
mail account being checked on initialization.

I've pondered a move to mutt, but it's a bit of a pain to configure to "get it
right" to fit my workflow and nitpicks.

------
mpol
I use Claws Mail, and have been using it for 10 years. It is fast and can
handle a lot of email. It has many options and integraes nicely into the XFCE
desktop. It is a fork of Sylpheed, and I assume the two have diverted quite a
bit.

------
brudgers
What's it really worth?

    
    
      8 sec/load / 3600 sec/hour = 0.002 hours/load
    

If switching takes one hour [1]. Assuming you wait for Thunderbird to start
500 times, there's roughly equal time cost. Restarting Linux once a week at 50
work weeks per year amortizes one hour of switching cost out over ten years.
[2] Ten hours spent switching puts the break even well into the twenty-second
century. Automating Thunderbird initialization via your boot, session or login
scripts is likely to take less time and produce fewer
bugs/glitches/incompatibilities than switching email applications. Manual
startup will always require more of a users time than automation. [3] [4]

[1]: It won't because monitoring this thread and investigating alternatives
and setting up the new software will take several hours.

[2]: Of course some people restart their OS more frequently. That more
strongly suggests integrating email startup into a boot/session/login script.

[3]: Personally, I find automation is often more satisfying than switching
from one manual process to another manual process. In part because the problem
just gets done. But that's me.

~~~
TekMol
If switching takes one hour, then ROI will be positive after less then two
months. I start Thunderbird about 10 times per day. After two months that is:

    
    
        8s * 10times * 30days * 2months
        = 4800 seconds
        = 1.3 hours.

~~~
brudgers
Curious about the causes of frequent restarts.

~~~
TekMol
I open applications only when I use them. And close them afterwards. I also
turn off my machine when I don't use it.

~~~
brudgers
Thanks for the explanation. I use a similar method: putting applications on
their own 'virtual desktop' to create a similar experience. I run Thunderbird
in it's own visual workspace and only see my mail when I deliberately switch
to that workspace...and I've turned off all Thunderbird's notifications. It
works for me because my machine is not resource constrained to a point leaving
most applications running is likely to slow other workloads.

"Virtual Desktops" lets me handle _my_ issues with application clutter the
same way for every application...social media like HN get their own visual
workspaces too. I use the tiling window manager Xmonad. After the learning
curve it became easier to use than my distro's (Ubuntu) virtual desktops
interface.

Of course all that required _changing the way I work_. Then again, I guess
switching applications would require changing the way I work too.

Good luck.

------
upofadown
Used to use neomutt on Debian. Still use it on OpenBSD. Have it set up to
convert weird file formats to text automatically which ends up covering most
of the stuff I get. Few emails actually need docx, html, etc formating so it
is not much of a bother to just save any that do and use the appropriate
program. Much more convenient than having to deal with random spawned programs
for everything.

~~~
jkepler
Could you share you for files and/or setup. I used neomutt on Debian but am
not pleased with the friction html mails cause me.

~~~
upofadown
Contents of my .mailcap file:

    
    
        image/*;                sxiv %s
        application/pdf;        xpdf %s
        text/html;              lynx %s; description=HTML Text; nametemplate=%s.html
        video/mp4;              mplayer %s
        audio/x-wav;            mplayer %s
        application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document; docx2txt <%s|fold -s|less
        application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text; odt2txt %s|less
        audio/mpeg;            mplayer %s
    

There is a key macro you can do to spawn something like a firefox session
instead of lynx but I have not had to bother yet.

------
JpMaxMan
Mail spring is great. Easily handles multiple emails and in addition to
traditional imap will user the google api integration for your google mail
accounts. You can mix and match account types with one view into all your
mail. Or filter your views easily. The click and open tracking can be turned
off so it is optional and is not even available in the free version.

------
jolmg
I use a modified nodejs-imapnotify to watch for incoming mail using IMAP IDLE
and automatically run mbsync[1] to sync it to my maildirs in ~/mail/. Then, I
use mu4e to view them and compose mail.

I've been wanting to try out nmh[2] for a more CLI experience, but the book[3]
seems kind of big and daunting.

[1] [http://isync.sourceforge.net/](http://isync.sourceforge.net/)

[2] [https://www.nongnu.org/nmh/](https://www.nongnu.org/nmh/)

[3] [https://rand-mh.sourceforge.io/book/](https://rand-
mh.sourceforge.io/book/)

------
pzmarzly
I moved from Mailspring to Thunderbird because it was possible to integrate
message filters with desktop notifications (via FiltaQuilla, which hasn't been
updated to T68 yet), so I was getting notifications only when message was
coming from certain email addresses or had certain keywords. Then I just got
used to this program. To my eye, Thunderbird got a lot better in the last few
months - faster startup (though still a bit slow, but I'm restarting it maybe
once a week), better responsiveness, no "action interrupted" popup when using
it while a folder is compacting. Search is still meh, though.

------
sombragris
I use Claws Mail. It can handle loads of mail with a multigygabyte inbox, it's
fast and very stable. Recommended.

------
subbz
I use Rainloop web-mail
([https://www.rainloop.net/](https://www.rainloop.net/)) on a remote machine.

Integrates seamlessly great into all of my environments.

~~~
vageli
> I use Rainloop web-mail
> ([https://www.rainloop.net/](https://www.rainloop.net/)) on a remote
> machine.

> Integrates seamlessly great into all of my environments.

How have you set this up? I looked at this solution briefly and toyed with the
idea of writing a dockerfile at the very least. Also, are you on the community
version?

------
messe
Mutt is good enough for what I need. I'm on OpenBSD, not Linux, but the
recommendation still applies.

------
stephen82
I use sylpheed; so far it loads like a bullet with 3 IMAP email accounts.

------
pengo
We have Thunderbird on all our machines; three different operating systems,
but a majority are Linux Mint. Startup on Linux is 3s to 6s depending on the
machine. All machines have mulitple accounts, from two to six, some use IMAP4
and some use POP3.

At various times we've tested other clients, but Thunderbird is the only one
that has all the features we want. These include complex filtering,
calendaring (external and our own iCal server) and productivity add-ons.

At the end of every year we archive all mail that's more than a year old into
a new Thunderbird profile, so there's now a list of historic profiles for some
accounts going back twelve years. That does make searches for specific
messages a hassle, but these are thankfully rare, and it means the current
profile is relatively trivial for backups and history is available to all
machines via our local server.

------
blaser-waffle
Thnderbird with Enigmail. Though I gather there may be some implementation
weaknesses with engimail but, as of right now, I'm not doing anything where
I'm too concerned about key or message integrity. If that changes I'll
probably revoke the key and move to something else.

------
commoner
Thunderbird works quickly for me even with multiple IMAP accounts, much faster
than any webmail solution.

Try compacting your folders:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-
folders](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders)

------
tarboreus
I use Gnus in Emacs and fall back to the Gmail web client for a few things.

[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/)

------
abvr
Just use anything command line, I personally stick to Mutt.

Check it out or neomutt or even Alpine if your taste suits that.

------
dddddaviddddd
I switched from Thunderbird to just the Gmail web interface. TB was too slow
(esp switching between tabs), and like most open-source email clients, just
couldn't manage Gmail's labels elegantly (e.g. search should only search "All
Mail"). Also seemed to use 30+ % CPU all the time (on a laptop, so power
impact not acceptable). I gave it a go over a few weeks but just went to
having Chrome open all the time in one workspace with Gmail and Calendar.

~~~
gtirloni
It's a shame but I've done the same.

Went from pine/mutt because HTML is annoying and HTML is everywhere. Then from
TB to pure Gmail because labels are weird, general slowness, etc.

I know Gmail is a slow-ish SPA but.. whatever. Properly formatted plain text
emails are not appreciated as they used to. I guess I caved in.

------
GrayShade
I have a couple of years of archive, but Thunderbird starts in about 2 seconds
for me. Do you have an SSD? If not, you should invest in one.

------
Bnshsysjab
What do you all use for Office365? I tried the thunderbird o365 plugin but it
failed to send and was requesting 2fa every time I restarted

~~~
mxuribe
Oooh, I'd be curious to hear people's opinions here. I'm on GSuite (using a
combo of gmail via web browser and Thunderbird on local desktop), but really
wanting to go elsewhere like Fastmail...But fastmail is just a tad too pricey
for me and my family (when adding in all family members)...So I was
considering to go to office365 - that is, add on the plan which includes
email/exchange online, whatever its called now. This is not ideal, but because
i'm already paying an annual subscription for my family to use the office 365
stack (word, excel, and especially the tons of storage on onedrive)...i'm
begrudgingly likely going to use their email product. But, what do people use
for office 365 mail on linux?

~~~
Bnshsysjab
fwiw, I don’t think they use standard IMAP which I’ve found limiting.

I don’t particularly like the product and have spent a considerable amount of
time avoiding it where I can, but I don’t make the decisions around it.

The best solution I’ve found has been outlook in a windows vm

------
amiga_500
mutt + offlineimap with EDITOR=emacsclient, but also gmail

At work I also use mutt instead of outlook for some tasks, as outlook is very
poor.

------
JacKTrocinskI
Is there an e-mail app out there that integrates nicely with Google Calendar
and looks nice as well?

~~~
pizza234
Thunderbird does integrate with GC, however, the quality is arguable. For my
use case is good enough, however, for wide adoption, YMMV depending on the
expectations.

------
stockkid
I just login to my email service provider on a browser to check my email.
During work I keep a tab open and it gives me alert when emails come in.

Are there any advantages that email clients such as thunderbird can offer me?

~~~
vageli
> I just login to my email service provider on a browser to check my email.
> During work I keep a tab open and it gives me alert when emails come in.

> Are there any advantages that email clients such as thunderbird can offer
> me?

Offline access/search is a big one.

------
yellowapple
I used to use Thunderbird on my work laptops, but currently it's been easier
to just use Rambox to wrap the Gmail web interface.

At home I typically use Claws or Alpine.

------
elkos
After a long while I started reusing KMail (I'm using KDE on Debian boxes
mostly) I would recommend it in a heartbeat if you are already using KDE.

~~~
JohnFen
I had to stop using KMail years ago because its IMAP support was thoroughly
broken. Has that been fixed?

~~~
elkos
Me too actually. But things have changed.

------
rootio
Mailpile (it's open source) -
[https://www.mailpile.is/](https://www.mailpile.is/)

------
mcqueenjordan
I use mu4e + offlineimap with emacs. I highly recommend taking the 1-2 hours
to set it up if you're an emacs user. Well worth it.

------
sydney6
If you like CLI MUAs, give [https://aerc-mail.org/](https://aerc-mail.org/) a
look..

------
JohnFen
I use Thunderbird on both Linux and Windows. I'm very happy with it, but I
haven't experienced the symptoms you describe.

------
swiley
I used to use alpine, but after it was abandoned I realized the only place I
could find the source was on my personal laptop.

I’ve since switched to mutt.

------
giaour
Evolution because it works with Exchange and integrates with Gnome
notifications. Not a very modern UI, though.

------
bdibs
I use Mailspring mostly for aesthetic reasons.

~~~
tombrossman
_" Activity tracking is built into Mailspring so you get notified as soon as
contacts read your messages and can follow up appropriately."_

 _" How contacts engage with your content gives you insight into what's
working and what's not. Mailspring can notify you when your links are clicked
so you know what's generating interest."_

That's something I would actively avoid or circumvent if I discovered it. Do
you tell people who you email about this, or hope they don't notice (or care)?

~~~
bdibs
I disabled that feature entirely.

------
ttz
Mailspring. Excellent, except it doesn't have Outlook Calendar integration.

------
dddw
evolution is very usable imo, geary looks nicer but tends to crash more.
mailmate for mac!

~~~
tenebrisalietum
Evolution doesn't seem to have rules that move messages automatically unless
I've overlooked it. Other than that I like it.

------
carc1n0gen
My browser. And if I want to do multiple emails, Gmail on my phone
unfortunately

------
Vogtinator
KMail. Startup is immediate even with > 200K mails in multiple accounts.

~~~
jrepinc
Same here. The fastest and the most feature packed.

------
billars
thunderbird is good if you don't have to search through your past messages, is
slow and often get a lot of false positive. never experienced a slow start
though, sorry.

------
taozhijiang
Still using thunderbird. And this guy eats lots of memory!!!

------
ShankarWarang
Any browser!

~~~
Insanity
True at this point I find clients not offering much more than what I get from
a browser.

But as far as clients go, Thunderbird works pretty well for me.

------
toploaded
You can use Claws Mail

------
lousken
evolution since it supports exchange

------
matthewfelgate
Gmail

