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Ask HN: Which email software do you use on Linux?

62 points by TekMol ↗ HN
I have been happily using Thunderbird for years now. But for some reason it get's slower and slower to start it. Even though all my email accounts are IMAP. And I set it up to not query them on startup. So startup should be immediately. But it takes 8 seconds.

So I am playing with the idea to switch.

What do you guys use?

101 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] thread
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.
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.
abvr
Just use anything command line, I personally stick to Mutt.

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

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
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.
bdibs
I use Mailspring mostly for aesthetic reasons.
JacKTrocinskI
Just took a look at the screenshots, looks nice.
lnx01
It does look nice, but I hate electron apps.
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.
stephen82
I use sylpheed; so far it loads like a bullet with 3 IMAP email accounts.
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.
lnx01
Evolution does, whether or not you think it looks nice is subjective. I like it, it's utilitarian; especially with 'plaintext only' enabled.
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.

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.
adimitrov
Mu4e has a handy shortcut to open any html mail in a bcowser. I'm wondering whether it shouldn't be possible to use a GTK web view to display HTML mail.
messe
Mutt is good enough for what I need. I'm on OpenBSD, not Linux, but the recommendation still applies.
subbz
I use Rainloop web-mail (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/) 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?

Vogtinator
KMail. Startup is immediate even with > 200K mails in multiple accounts.
jrepinc
Same here. The fastest and the most feature packed.
paulcarroty
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.

giancarlostoro
Everyone has their own preference. I just kinda like the idea of more lightweight software. Thunderbird is based on a lot of old Mozilla code, if it were redone solely off of Servo that would be something, servo for message rendering but the rest of the UI can be native or just similar and not too JS heavy if the UI is some Servo HTML UI.
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.

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GrayShade
Unfortunately, Geary doesn't seem to support POP3, which might matter for some.
patchtopic
if it is a good design, this is a positive feature.. constantly breaking a good UI just to be hip and cool is not. I'm not against new designs if they bring improvements to the table, but mindless bandwagon jumping is a waste of time.
JohnFen
I consider that a good thing, personally, but (at least with Thunderbird), you can always use a different skin.
girzel
Just wait till you see Emacs plus Gnus!
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.
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.
lousken
evolution since it supports exchange
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.
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
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.

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.

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.
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.

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.