6 ms·

I switched back to Thunderbird sometime in late 2017, in part because I was working from abroad with spotty Internet at the time. Since coming home, it's stuck.

I switched back to Thunderbird sometime in late 2017, in part because I was working from abroad with spotty Internet at the time. Since coming home, it's stuck. The experience is so much better than waiting for a Gmail tab to "boot up". I still nip into Gmail quite regularly, especially when I'm already in the browser or a tab is already open, but if I'm sitting at the desktop and need to compose an e-mail, at some point the default returned to alt-tabbing to Thunderbird. No waiting around, no messing, blank e-mail window up on the screen as fast as I can hit CTRL+N. Back when everyone switched to Gmail circa 2005ish, hitting CTRL+N quite probably meant a firestorm of random IO hitting a magnetic disk, on a machine with barely any RAM for cache. The equation has long since changed, and your reason to use Gmail might now be your reason to use a desktop client. Highly recommend giving it a shot

z3t4 7y ago
Webmail could work great offline if we could store more then 5MB on the client.
- jamesgeck0 7y ago
  IndexedDB should be a solution to this, but it's not as widely supported as localStorage.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    96.5% vs 97.5%, doesn't seem to be the holdback any longer.
  - z3t4 7y ago
    Could also use service worker to prime the cache. And generate static pages for each e-mail/thread. New mail could be pushed using web push. The problem is the outbox, how to send sent mail once user go online !?
- inetknght 7y ago
  > if we could store more then 5MB on the client. I recently stopped using Slack because their web client started storing 600MB in local storage. If gmail did that too, it would be the last nail in the coffin. I absolutely do not want random (or not-random) websites using my computer to store their data.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    It doesn't have to be "let every site store 600 MB or none can store more than 5 MB". Seems like a great thing for a permission really.
    - inetknght 7y ago
      Not just a permission but a limit too. If I could set the limit to something reasonable, like 1MB, that'd be fine.
brandonwamboldt 7y ago
Obligatory comment that Gmail has a basic HTML view that is substantially faster and less resource intensive, but not as pleasant to use: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ It loads almost instantly for me, and is quite quick to navigate.
longtom 7y ago
You can use the HTML-only version of Gmail at the bottom of the page which loads in 300 ms or so. Gmail view: standard | >basic HTML<
- slovenlyrobot 7y ago
  I find it embarrassing that this feature needs to exist at all
  - longtom 7y ago
    Gmail is a free product, hence it has possibly low priority.
    - mey 7y ago
      I am paying for it, as are many businesses.
    - jmathai 7y ago
      Some % of Google's $30 billion quarterly revenue comes from Ads in Gmail. This does not include revenue generated from enterprise G Suite licenses.
    - wasdfff 7y ago
      My tuition pays for g suite.
      - godzillabrennus 7y ago
        It’s free for colleges. Your tuition pays for bloated administrative staff salaries.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      The older versions were faster. Every new update becomes slower and more bloated.
  - sp332 7y ago
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
One Thunderbird extension I miss is FireTray that let me minimize it to Tray. Number of new emails would show on the icon, so you never missed an email without it also getting in the way of my other work while alt-tabbing.
- andsanmar 7y ago
  Birdtray extension (https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray) does that work quite well, I'm so happy with it. It also lets you keep Thunderbird as a background process.
  - abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    Thanks. This will make my life so much better - or return it to how good it was before.
Lucadg 7y ago
I never left Thunderbird. I never really got in what way gmail on browser was better.
- Groxx 7y ago
  They popularized tags instead of folders. Tags I get - I can toss emails into "todo" + "personal" + etc and remove it from other views, without deleting it, and without using up more space. Many local apps still struggle to support this smoothly, though it's gradually improving. Same goes for server-side support, e.g. on Fastmail a duplicate in another folder costs duplicated storage. Other than that, dunno. Desktop email clients have basically always been faster to use IMO, and setup has been borderline trivial ever since imap/smtp discovery strategies became common.
  - secfirstmd 7y ago
    Also Thunderbird and Enigmail/PGP etc had been fairly solid for a long time.
  - Lucadg 7y ago
    Moving a message in a folder in Thunderbird makes a duplicate?
    - gattilorenz 7y ago
      No, but you're moving it. Can you have the same message in three folders?
      - Lucadg 7y ago
        Ok I see what you mean, thanks
    - Groxx 7y ago
      Most Thunderbird / desktop tag implementations are done by just copying the message to multiple folders (which achieves nearly identical behavior, which is great. It's just not usually optimized UX). And most servers don't deduplicate messages globally (I'm not sure why, tbh. probably there's some rational-but-depressing reason).

z3t4 7y ago

Webmail could work great offline if we could store more then 5MB on the client.

jamesgeck0 7y ago
IndexedDB should be a solution to this, but it's not as widely supported as localStorage.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  96.5% vs 97.5%, doesn't seem to be the holdback any longer.
- z3t4 7y ago
  Could also use service worker to prime the cache. And generate static pages for each e-mail/thread. New mail could be pushed using web push. The problem is the outbox, how to send sent mail once user go online !?
inetknght 7y ago
> if we could store more then 5MB on the client. I recently stopped using Slack because their web client started storing 600MB in local storage. If gmail did that too, it would be the last nail in the coffin. I absolutely do not want random (or not-random) websites using my computer to store their data.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be "let every site store 600 MB or none can store more than 5 MB". Seems like a great thing for a permission really.
  - inetknght 7y ago
    Not just a permission but a limit too. If I could set the limit to something reasonable, like 1MB, that'd be fine.

brandonwamboldt 7y ago

Obligatory comment that Gmail has a basic HTML view that is substantially faster and less resource intensive, but not as pleasant to use: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ It loads almost instantly for me, and is quite quick to navigate.

longtom 7y ago

You can use the HTML-only version of Gmail at the bottom of the page which loads in 300 ms or so. Gmail view: standard | >basic HTML<

slovenlyrobot 7y ago
I find it embarrassing that this feature needs to exist at all
- longtom 7y ago
  Gmail is a free product, hence it has possibly low priority.
  - mey 7y ago
    I am paying for it, as are many businesses.
  - jmathai 7y ago
    Some % of Google's $30 billion quarterly revenue comes from Ads in Gmail. This does not include revenue generated from enterprise G Suite licenses.
  - wasdfff 7y ago
    My tuition pays for g suite.
    - godzillabrennus 7y ago
      It’s free for colleges. Your tuition pays for bloated administrative staff salaries.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    The older versions were faster. Every new update becomes slower and more bloated.
- sp332 7y ago

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

One Thunderbird extension I miss is FireTray that let me minimize it to Tray. Number of new emails would show on the icon, so you never missed an email without it also getting in the way of my other work while alt-tabbing.

andsanmar 7y ago
Birdtray extension (https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray) does that work quite well, I'm so happy with it. It also lets you keep Thunderbird as a background process.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Thanks. This will make my life so much better - or return it to how good it was before.

Lucadg 7y ago

I never left Thunderbird. I never really got in what way gmail on browser was better.

Groxx 7y ago
They popularized tags instead of folders. Tags I get - I can toss emails into "todo" + "personal" + etc and remove it from other views, without deleting it, and without using up more space. Many local apps still struggle to support this smoothly, though it's gradually improving. Same goes for server-side support, e.g. on Fastmail a duplicate in another folder costs duplicated storage. Other than that, dunno. Desktop email clients have basically always been faster to use IMO, and setup has been borderline trivial ever since imap/smtp discovery strategies became common.
- secfirstmd 7y ago
  Also Thunderbird and Enigmail/PGP etc had been fairly solid for a long time.
- Lucadg 7y ago
  Moving a message in a folder in Thunderbird makes a duplicate?
  - gattilorenz 7y ago
    No, but you're moving it. Can you have the same message in three folders?
    - Lucadg 7y ago
      Ok I see what you mean, thanks
  - Groxx 7y ago
    Most Thunderbird / desktop tag implementations are done by just copying the message to multiple folders (which achieves nearly identical behavior, which is great. It's just not usually optimized UX). And most servers don't deduplicate messages globally (I'm not sure why, tbh. probably there's some rational-but-depressing reason).