A good e-mail client for linux?
from dontblink@feddit.it to linux@lemmy.ml on 27 Mar 2025 12:50
https://feddit.it/post/16059247
from dontblink@feddit.it to linux@lemmy.ml on 27 Mar 2025 12:50
https://feddit.it/post/16059247
I have been using KDE for a while, while I like many features I am looking for suggestions to the default email client:
Kmail - completely unusable for me and the only one which could maybe be integrated with kontacts, it could not receive mails from IMAP or pop or would receive only sometimes
Geary - good but too minimal, I need at least some kind of contact list and mailing lists feature, maybe this integrates with gnome contacts? I couldn’t find anything in settings
threaded - newest
Thunderbird is the usual recommendation for an email client. So try that
I have no idea if Betterbird is actually better than regular Thunderbird, but I use that cause people said so and I read about it a bit. If it does die I guess I’ll switch to Thunderbird, just a little cautious about Mozilla after the privacy policy fiasco.
Betterbird is in flathub too which is great for newbies like me.
Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird
Ah that’s a relief
I’d be wary of that fork. It’s run by a former Thunderbird dev that got banned for his toxic attitude and hasn’t really improved since. Just take a look at the projects website. Being so unrespectful towards your upstream project should have no place in open-source.
Thunderbird
I used Claws Mail at some point in the past. Now notmuch+Emacs.
I landed on Claws Mail myself. It does look a bit dated, but the UI is functional and the client works. I’m content with it.
<img alt="still of Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars with subtitle “Now, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time.”" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/98cf2c42-4714-43fc-b148-6ffb7f6cdecf.png">
At first i thought, wow, cool they’re still developing that? Doing a release or two a year, i see.
I used to use it long ago, and was pretty happy with it.
But looking closer now, what is going on with security there?! Sorry to be the bearer of probably bad news, but... 😬
The only three CVEs in their changelog are from 2007, 2010, and 2014, and none are specific to claws. Does that mean they haven’t had any exploitable bugs? That seems extremely unlikely for a program written in C with the complexity that being an email client requires. All of the recent changelog entries which sound like possibly-security-relevant bugs have seven-digit numbers prefixed with “CID”, whereas the other bugs have four-digit bug numbers corresponding to entries in their bugzilla. After a few minutes of searching, I have failed to figure out what “CID” means, or indeed to find any reference to these numbers outside of claws commit messages and release announcements. In any case, from the types of bugs which have these numbers instead of bugzilla entries, it seems to be the designation they are using for security bugs. The effect of failing to register CVEs and issue security advisories is that downstream distributors of claws (such as the Linux distributions which the project’s website recommends installing it from) do not patch these issues. For instance, claws is included in Debian stable and three currently-supported LTS releases of Ubuntu - which are places where users could be receiving security updates if the project registered CVEs, but are not since they don’t. Even if you get claws from a rolling release distro, or build the latest release yourself, it looks like you’d still be lagging substantially on likely-security-relevant updates: there have actually been numerous commits containing CID numbers in the month since the last release. If the claws developers happen to read this: thanks for writing free software, but: please update your FAQ to explain these CID numbers, and start issuing security advisories and/or registering CVEs when appropriate so that your distributors will ship security updates to your users!
I have used Evolution in the past. It was very Outlook like and did a decent job talking to Exchange. Now days i just use the web interface.
I’ve been using Betterbird for a while and I like it. It’s based on Thunderbird.
I second this! It seems to have more features than Thunderbird while being just a fifth of the file size.
I can‘t confirm this, but I have read elsewhere that Thunderbird is a bit bloated.
Aren’t you concerned that the development is in the hands of just one guy?
Not the above poster, but for me: it’s a slight concern but AFAIK the profiles are interchangeable so it’s pretty trivial to just switch back to Thunderbird if anything does happen.
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That‘s not how it works. The mails are not stored on BetterBird servers (there are none). Your mails are stored on your E-Mail providers server (like Gmail) and downloaded to your local client via IMAP or POP3.
The developer of BetterBird does not have access to any of that.
Oh, understood. Dumb me, lol.
So, aren’t there security risks associated with using Betterbird?
IMHO, you should consider doing more troubleshooting on Kmail. I’ve never used it personally, but from my understanding, it’s a stable program and shouldn’t have problems doing the basics of email, like you’re reporting.
The problem of kmail is the underlying subsystem that is evertything other than stable.
90% of the time I use web interfaces, but I often have spotty connectivity while boondocking. So I need a client that can get/send gmail POP3 in narrow windows of connectivity.
I started with thunderbird but something (can’t remember what) wasn’t working well. Ended up with Evolution. It also syncs well to google calendar and google tasks.
So what is the point of an email client? I’ve only ever really used web pages because it did everything I need.
For me it’s handy because I have multiple email accounts so I can just open Betterbird and check them all at once without having to log into several different pages.
@dukeofdummies @CrabAndBroom +1 for Betterbird, it's Thunderbird that works
Thunderbird already works.
@Spaniard It's all good if it works for you, no problem.
For me TB lacks a few things, I have a vague feeling that BB is what TB would have been if Mozilla still cared for users more than other things 🥲
Multiple accounts, offline backup, better UI, don’t need to log in, etc.
I am A big fan of Vivaldi and its built-in email client ^^ Works like a charm for me.
evolution
I’m no Betterbird. For mail it’s just fine. OTOH, I find the calendar a bit annoying, as doesn’t allow to set email reminders when creating new event in a caldav calendary.
Claws mail
If you arena opposed to GNOME, you add your online accounts and it integrates them into evolution mail, calendar and contacts. And also Gdrive becomes a mounted folder if you add Google account.
No I actually prefer GNOME, but have to use KDE because I need specific features (kiosk mode), but yes I feel like Gnome is so much better integrated with its defaults apps!
Would this help help.gnome.org/…/lockdown-single-app-mode.html.en
Or github.com/GNOME/gnome-kiosk
What mailing list features do you need?
This recent post may be of interest to you: https://lemmy.ml/post/27474047
You may also find some ideas here or there.
I personaly use the power of neomutt and notmuch, but it’s not a GUI option if that’s what you’re looking for.
Thunderbird
It is bot the most feature rich and the most annoying thing, but it works
Nothing has beat mutt so far. But that’s not for everyone, naturally.
If your into Linux and a decent admin. Nothing is better than neomutt. Add not much.
Filtering and searching is faster than Google on gigs of mail.
It will take a long time to configure it well. But it’s worth it. I rarely change the config.
I have been using Linux since 1992.
I can’t wait to poke around neomutt when I set up my computer
You can use on windows or vm
At the time of posting, my most powerful computing device was my phone lol
.
Every time I look around for a new mail client I come back to thunderbird. Nothing else ticks all the boxes
Seamonkey
with every reinstall, i go hunting for decent calendar- and email-apps. always go back to Evolution eventually
Is anybody still using mailspring? I remember trying it back in '16 or '17 or so, liked it, but didn’t really feel the need for a standalone client at the time.
Now I’m looking forward to creating more email addresses, and multiple tabs of webmail are getting gradually less appealing. Sure, Thunderbird works…
Depends on what you want. Email client or groupware client?
Evolution is really great. I was able to make Kmail work, so because it integrates best into Plasma, I am using that. But setting it up was not a fun experience.
Kmail, Thunderbird, Evolution. That’s pretty much it.
There’s always some weird niche client somewhere but it won’t be a hidden gem. Although I guess you can always use Pine (or rather Alpine nowadays) if you want to appear ubergeeky.
Has anyone got gmail or outlook working via SMTP in the past couple years? I was using the former with emacs gnus and then it started demanding additional auth that I couldn’t provide via a simple file, then in the past 6 months the latter stopped letting me log in.
My
~/.gnusfile was like this -setq user-mail-address "my.name@hotmail.co.uk" user-full-name "My Name") (setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "outlook" (nnimap-address "imap-mail.outlook.com") (nnimap-server-port 993) (nnimap-stream ssl))) (setq smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp-mail.outlook.com" smtpmail-smtp-service 587 gnus-ignored-newsgroups "^to\\.\\|^[0-9. ]+\\( \\|$\\)\\|^[\"]\"[#'()]")~/.authinfo(encrypted with gpg) -I think I might need to start hosting my own email server because every authentication option on these services requires some extra step or fingerprinting that gnus can’t provide. Maybe I should give up and try Thunderbird to see if that would work.
Ok going to try Thunderbird tomorrow and if it works then I’ll see if I can reverse engineer whatever it does into gnus
I spun up a mailcow instance relatively simply through elestio (new to me devops as a service). Takes a few clicks, let’s you pick your cloud provider and has pretty slick admin UI to manage firewalls and dockerfiles etc.
I’ve never setup an SMTP server before, but I’ve decided to with my “buy Canadian” initiative to eschew the tech-oligarchy at every turn I can. Not for Canadians sovereignty alone, but to help get rid the planet of billionaires by starving them of their capital.
But I digress, mailcow makes setting up DNS a breeze and elestio makes mailcow a breeze. I’ve actually spun up this Lemmy instance on elestio too, just so nice its a game changer. Here’s info about mailcow elest.io/open-source/mailcow and no I’m not affiliated with elestio, just seems solid thus far (only been using it for a month, but support is on point too).
I honestly just use webmail.
Try Betterbird.
That is the correct answer
Damn these guys are very passionate about how shitty thunderbird is
Mailspring
I’ve used Thunderbird since forever as my go-to client, I used mutt as well for a while and that met my needs pretty well.
I use evolution and it’s great even on kde
I use
aercthruhome-manageraccounts on NixOSThere is always good old Thunderbird.
According to the official fediverse account of Thunderbird, they are not going to adopt the new Firefox EULA.
No one has mentioned the command line: aerc
I use it and it’s very minimal and clean.
I use alpine when I want a text client, Thunderbird when I want graphical.