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Ask HN: recommendations for a mail client?
Looking for a desktop mail client to replace Outlook. I'll use it to access a Gmail account as IMAP and a POP3 account. I'm dissatisfied with Outlook 2007 (home) and even more dissatisfied with Outlook 2010 (work). I'm also dissatisfied with Gmail's web-based client. Outlook is unintuitive in practically every common task (and worse for the uncommon tasks). Gmail is too minimalistic. I'm getting ready to evaluate Thunderbird. I just want to solicit some recommendations. Seamless interface to Google contacts and calendar would be a plus.
- sidmitra 16y ago- If you want to go old school, you might try Alpine. - I use Opera a lot, which has an email client built in. Since my browser is open all day, it makes it easier to search through old indexed mail with just a click. I don't like keeping multiple apps open all the time. So it works out for me. Its RSS feed client interface is neatly tied into that as well(although minimal). I subscribe to important notification, project activity feeds there(which don't belong in my regular Google reader). So i would you suggest you take take it out for a spin. it doesn't have GCal integration, but thats on my speed dial anyways.
- bediger 16y agoYou beat me to recommending "alpine" (http://www.washington.edu/alpine/ http://www.washington.edu/alpine/). Alpine is super fast, you can use it just about under any OS (as long as it has terminal window) and it understands SMTP and other protocols well enough that I've managed to use it in a lot of different situations from my basement DSL server.
- madhouse 16y agoThunderbird would be a good choice. Mozilla has a few calendar solutions aswell: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ (haven't used them, I'm happy with google calendar's web interface).
- jackfoxy 16y agoI like Google calendar, and Google contacts meets my needs, so I'd like to work with them, and I see Thunderbird has several add-ins to work with both, but see my reply above, I just can't come to terms with the Gmail client.
- sandipagr 16y agoMay I know why do you think outlook is unintuitive and also why is Gmail minimalistic? I love Gmail personally and would love to know if I there can be other features in other clients that you are looking for which will make managing emails easier.
- jackfoxy 16y agoOutlook unintuitive -- Here's an example: Try to access your signature(s) for adding/updating without starting a new email message first. I think I'm mostly peeved at 2 things: changes to menus in Outlook 2010, and poor handling of the message list for IMAP accounts. Gmail minimalistic -- I just never caught on to the label thing. I know some people love it. It also seems I can't choose a different signature while composing an email. And the arrangement of buttons never seemed right to me. Probably the biggest thing is by default I want to see a folder tree of my email, arranged in the state I last left it in. The Gmail client is just a different paradigm.