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Ask HN: What email client do you use?

21 points by dawie ↗ HN
Wondering what email client people use?

I have 3 or 4 different gmail accounts and it's a pain keeping up with all of them. I have an email address for support, one for feedback and a personal one.

70 comments

[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] thread
jseliger
Apple's Mail.app, which is Good Enough. I have five accounts, all of them are checked with a single click, and I don't have to worry beyond that.
modoc
And it syncs all the accounts over to my iPhone:)
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antidaily
I just wish there was an Inbox that combined all incoming mail from my 4 accounts.
jamie_ca
I don't know what you're missing, but I've got one Inbox folder with four accounts underneath it (3 imap, 1 pop) - the root Inbox contains all messages in the sub-inboxes.
modoc
Not on your iPhone you don't. Unless you've found something really cool:)
nickyp
Not to mention drag-and-drop support, which is why I don't use a webmail client as my main vehicle for email (which allows some nice workflow together with Exposé)

I'm also used to the excellent inline PDF viewing, quicklook for attached foto's and documents and the data detectors for addresses and phone numbers.

jasonlbaptiste
straight up google apps gmail with gmail notifier. As far as multiple accounts:

1) set other accounts up to forward to your gmail/gapps email 2) setup a filter + auto label system for those emails 3) add it as an outgoing email that you can reply from (limited to 7 i THINK)

mrshoe
Those are all good suggestions, and I would add:

4) Use Mailplane (http://mailplaneapp.com/). Disclaimer: Mailplane is not free and I'm not affiliated with it at all.

tdm911
I use the Google Apps/Gmail interface also. I've found that as it has matured over time there are less reasons I would want a desktop client and more reasons for having the portability of a cross platform, location independent web interface.

Gmail is a class act when it comes to web apps.

sidmitra
I use IMAP on gmail with opera. I need a desktop client, for times when i'm not connected and quickly need to search an old email for some small little detail.

I just use it as an offline backup, and keep it synced.

trefn
Google has an offline gmail version in beta. Requires Google Gears (not available for FF3.5, last I checked) but works for Safari.

All my mail is synced locally but I can still use the Gmail interface.

aquinn
it doesn't sync all your mail.
CGamesPlay
It is available for Firefox 3.5 and it does sync all your recent mail, including attachments. It uses an automatic, non-configurable heuristic to determine how much mail to sync. I believe mine syncs the past 1 year's.
wooby
Me too - using Gmail + Gears w/ Safari 4 Fluid app, and a dock badge 'inbox count' userscript. Google will tell you you can't install gears with safari 4 - but it works.
jhancock
seems a shame to have to jump through these hoops simply because the gmail web client doesn't handle account switching. Gmail really needs to fix this!!!
PStamatiou
same google apps gmail setup except i dont use gmail notifier (used to). instead i have an SSB (fluid.app) running it and it gives me the red dock icon counter thing.
Derrek
This is the setup I use too, but the main downside of it is that sending a message from within Gmail, as an account other than the main account you're logged in as, reveals your main account email address.

For example, if you're logged in as somebody@gmail.com, but send the message as evilperson@gmail.com, you'll reveal somebody@gmail.com to the recipient. In fact, Outlook proudly displays this address by stating "From: evilperson@gmail.com on behalf of somebody@gmail.com". I think you can also easily get this info from the mail headers from most web-based clients.

Maybe this isn't an issue for most folks, but it can create havoc with your filters if folks start replying to an address you had hoped to keep hidden from them.

sound2man
Outlook for my exchange based email (at work), Thunderbird for IMAP (at home).
thorax
Thunderbird latest beta.

I also use the iPhone email client just about as much as Thunderbird.

dawie
I also use my iPhone's client, but mostly for reading emails.
californiaguy
Mail.app in the office, mutt if I'm terminal bound.
warfangle
pine.

I kid, I kid. I use google apps all around (work & home).

trafficlight
I used Pine for a long time. It was great. I use Thunderbird now.
moai
SquirrelMail, Thunderbird
SwellJoe
Thunderbird, Usermin (our webmail client), GMail, and the Android mail application, in that order.

All of my @virtualmin.com mail comes to one mailbox via aliases, and I can access that box from home on Thunderbird, the web with Usermin, and my phone with the G1. GMail is for personal stuff, and for chat.

Our support is handled through a ticket tracker, which makes things dramatically easier to manage.

zackham
Mail.app with MailActOn (http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html) which I am not affiliated with and is not free. Use it for 7 email accounts, lots of RSS, all filtered carefully into one combined inbox and organized manually but quickly into local folders with that MailActOn app.

In my experience heavy use of Mail.app results in accounts that do not get checked for email, and show no connection error or indication of a problem. No email for an hour and I restart the app. I wish refreshing my accounts actually displayed the status of checking each account, it is very obvious sometimes that the refresh button does basically nothing or at least doesn't inform me in any way what it is doing...

smutt
I second that complaint about Mail.app. It's a great client and I use it for my main job email account. But the refresh button is essentially useless.

More than once our mail server has been down at work and I don't notice until I try and send something.

naish
Turn on the Activity Viewer: Window->Activity Viewer or ⌘-0. Shows each account being accessed and all related activity. Also allows actions to be cancelled.
bgnm2000
I can't believe I'm going to say this

don't laugh, but I use outlook, and .........AOL.

I've had the AOL account for years and I've never cared enough to switch it over (it handles all of my spam like e-mails anyway).

I've never really cared about my e-mail client in general. If I were motivated to switch - which is the most intuitive for organization?

Titanous
Gmail in a Fluid app, and Mail.app on iPod Touch.
vulpes
Surprised there isn't any votes for Postbox app (http://getpostbox.com).

  * It integrates well with gmail 
  * does great with multiple accounts 
  * multiple outgoing addresses 
  * great search functionality 
  * GTD tools such as assigning emails a topic. 
  * Integration with facebook/twitter to pull up contact info 
  * Extensions such as calendar and contacts
Based on thunderbird, all around awesome client.
HalcyonMuse
I, too, was surprised there weren't more. I use this; I like it quite a lot. The search feels quite superior to Thunderbird's native search.
eapen
postbox is not free :(
ErrantX
Gmail: all my accounts syndicate to there and I use multiple inboxes lab feature to sort it all.
sidmitra
Opera.

Mainly because it's open almost the entire day on my laptop.

TweedHeads
Gmail forwarding all my accounts to my main account.
ryanwaggoner
Mail.app with Gmail / Google Apps, so I have backup in the cloud, access anywhere, and IMAP syncing with iPhone. Works great.
deimos
GMail on Mozilla Prism then Mail.app for everything else - I don't have a clue how Thunderbird performs on the Mac, but Mail.app works fine atm.

Lastly, Thunderbird on Windows

rythie
thunderbird for work, home and projects on the desktop. ipod mail.app and nokia n96 mailer the most rest of the time. If all those unavailable, squirrelmail.
bkudria
Google Apps GMail, mail app on the iPhone (and occasionally web app).

Mail sucks, GMail makes it ok.

mjgoins
fetchmail -> procmail -> mutt -> vim -> gpg -> ssmtp
revertts
This is similar to what I use, except offlineimap instead of fetchmail and esmtp instead of ssmtp.

I like offlineimap because it does a bidirectionaly sync, meaning I can keep a local backup of mail, but still use the web client when I need to (without a ton of old mail sitting around).

I started using esmpt because it handles local mail delivery when paired with procmail, allowing me to get the infrequent messages to root without having to run a full MTA on my laptop. There's also a script to allow mail queuing, but I haven't ever bothered with it.

larryfreeman
gmail for my main account and yahoo!mail for any sign ups, etc. that I don't really care about.
garnet7
You might've made this a poll. From the HN FAQ:

> How do I submit a poll?

> http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

> This is an experimental feature so there is currently a fairly high karma threshold for submitting new polls.

jrockway
Gnus. (Local IMAP fed by offlineimap from my real IMAP server.)

I use K9 on my phone.