Poll: do you use gmail.com or a desktop email client?

4 points by lsiunsuex ↗ HN
As the title suggests - while on a desktop, do you use gmail.com to access your gmail account (@gmail.com or @domain.com) or do you prefer a desktop client? (Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, etc...)

Specifically curious about Gmail accounts, but as most all email accounts have a web interface, no harm in voting for which one for those.

11 comments

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Web interface (gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc...)
Desktop client (Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, etc...)
I use the web interface for personal email (specifically, Google Inbox for gmail) & Alpine for work (because the web interface for that service is Outlook Web, which is unusable).
Desktop client.

Being productive in Gmail feels impossible. Even in comparison to the decade old outlook 2007 I feel like I'm in less control.

The interface feels slow. The gui controls are limited, opaque and have all the GUI concessions that only webapps have to have. I don't know if users would ever accept this from a native desktop application, and it's a damn shame that they've still managed enough market-share to kill Thunderbird and turn that into a directionless turd. I don't how I'd ever mange my professional email workload in gmail.

With their interface, emails are something that happen to you and unless you get to click "archive" and never think about 99.9% of then again, it's impossible to keep up.

> […] all the GUI concessions that only webapps have to have. I don't know if users would ever accept this from a native desktop application […]

I bet you would be impressed by the GUI we have built for Missive - https://missiveapp.com/

It’s 100% web, yet it feels just as snappy as the best native clients. We also have a native macOS app that wraps the webview and provides a Dock icon, system notifications and Quick Look (space bar to view attachments).

Web. I use Inbox and using a desktop app would negate the benefits of Inbox.
Zoho Mail because it supports custom domain use for free.