4 ms·

I've never understood why people don't prefer desktop email clients. Thunderbird is really great. I remember growing up, we used Outlook with our ISP-provided

I've never understood why people don't prefer desktop email clients. Thunderbird is really great. I remember growing up, we used Outlook with our ISP-provided email addresses. The first time I ever saw webmail (it was probably Yahoo or Hotmail at the time) I was just confused. To me, web browsers are for browsing the web, and email clients are for accessing email. Eh, but what do I know. The article was interesting though.

Accacin 7y ago
I love Thunderbird, have used it for years and use it on all my laptops and desktops. But the search is absolutely awful! I can search for something using Mail App on my iPhone and it'll mostly find pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. On Thunderbird it never seems to even get close.
savingGrace 7y ago
+2 for Thunderbird I prefer my legacy desktop client that everyone else at my company bemoans.
sweeneyrod 7y ago
Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are good (at least if you're a vim user). You can easily get them in a desktop client with Mailspring though.
efdee 7y ago
On the other hand, I used Thunderbird for almost a decade, then switched to Gmail and never looked back. Mileages vary.
aequitas 7y ago
I've been only using desktop mail until Inbox by Gmail came along (and it's most important features where ported to Gmain). For me email has become my main TODO management. So everything goes into email and I heavily rely on Gmail's snooze to schedule stuff. On mobile the Gmail app is great but I haven't found a desktop client that is nothing more than 'Gmail in a standalone browser'. So I'm sticking with just having an extra tab open with Gmail.
matsz 7y ago
Web apps are simply easier to use, go to a given URL, log in and you're there.
- m4r35n357 7y ago
  Which is why we can't have nice things.
  - m4r35n357 7y ago
    See what I mean?
- Vrondi 7y ago
  As opposed to "click an icon one time, and you're there".
thrower123 7y ago
Gmail, at least before this last UI regression, was always markedly better than desktop email clients. I think they've tried to fix things, but it still is considerably worse than the old UI. Outlook and Thunderbird are not great. However they probably are better than the current Gmail webapp...
- Macha 7y ago
  Issues that thunderbird solves that Gmail does not: * Smarter filters: I can e.g. delete all twitch "streamer has gone live" messages that are 5+ hours old - they simply aren't relevant once the stream has ended. * Bulk actions. When I get behind on my emails, I tend to sort by sender to decide what to do with 10s of emails at a time. e.g. I might archive a lot of older PayPal payment notifications by clicking the first one, shift clicking the last one and hitting archive. Gmail needs me to click each email to do so. Or search for PayPal, and do another search for the next sender I want to deal with. Honestly nice interfaces for working on items in bulk have kind of vanished with the transition to web and mobile. Was looking for a replacement for Clementine with its Spotify support dead but the only options were mopidy front ends which sucked for bulk management of tracks in playlists. * Expandable threading view. I can view an email thread as a tree of email titles and follow the flow. Gmail shows only a single item and then presents it as a flat sequence if I open it up.
  - Izkata 7y ago
    That last one, at least, was claimed as a feature when gmail first went live: Grouping messages more smartly based on content, and showing them strictly chronologically instead of in a "confusing" tree so recipients wouldn't miss a response that was in another branch.
djaychela 7y ago
I used to be much the same, but being able to have my mail available anywhere I am is useful - even running 3 computers and a phone it always seemed a pain to get IMAP working (nearly always ended up having to stay on POP3 as a result). And gone are the days when you have to worry about having local files on a computer - backing up your email store file of whatever form. Having said that, I'd love to jump the Google ship if I could find any other mail provider that had a good app for mobile and had snooze, which for me is the killer feature for email.
- AndrewDucker 7y ago
  IMAP takes the same amount of time to set up for me as POP does. And I have it on my phone, laptop, and desktop without any issues, giving me access to all of my email everywhere. Even when I'm entirely offline.
  - kitsunesoba 7y ago
    YMMV and all, but I’ve also had very good luck with IMAP. The only exceptions have been with Gmail due to it not following IMAP spec correctly, but that’s easy to fix… just use email services with proper IMAP implementations instead of Gmail.
raxxorrax 7y ago
I have never been in any corp that doesn't use dedicated e-mail clients. Outlook mostly of course, but some did indeed use Thunderbird. Thunderbird could use some monetary support last I heard. And/or developers. Gmail has a good webmail interface, but I only use it in dire circumstances. It is not my primary mail either.
ekingr 7y ago
I guess beyond UI/UX, a key pain point that webmail solved is synchronisation. Whatever the change you do on whatever device, the state is managed by the server and reflected the same everywhere. Much easier than POP/IMAP/Exchange. The drawback is that you have to be always connected.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  Thunderbird synchronizes too. IMAP works online and I have a copy while I am offline. I don't see how a webmail client is any better.
bishalb 7y ago
For one I find search to be slow in desktop clients.
m4r35n357 7y ago
Or Claws mail for the Raspberry Pi.
tyingq 7y ago
"I've never understood why people don't prefer desktop email clients" I used to, but these days I switch between a work desktop, my phone, my home desktop, etc. So consistency of features matters. Also things like a "draft" I did on my mobile shows up on the web client on my Linux desktop, custom filters, signatures, are the same everywhere, etc. The web and mobile-native clients for Gmail, Outlook, etc, work more the same than switching between something like Thunderbird and something else.
jlelse 7y ago
I used web mail too, but when I switched to a self-hosted mail server, I learned to love Thunderbird and K9-email (on Android).
grawprog 7y ago
My first email address was an address through our ISP I accessed through outlook and then Thunderbird. I was too young to really have a use for an email so I never really used it. By the time I got my own computer when i was a bit older, I realized my step dad had access to the email from the ISP(as well as a creepy amount of logging and monitoring on the computers in the house I ended up having to find ways around) so I got a hotmail address and have used webmail ever since. These days, I just don't really have a need for an email client, I do most of my emailing through my phone and don't use it as often as I did between 2008-2012 or so. Those were probably my heaviest emailing years.

Accacin 7y ago

I love Thunderbird, have used it for years and use it on all my laptops and desktops. But the search is absolutely awful! I can search for something using Mail App on my iPhone and it'll mostly find pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. On Thunderbird it never seems to even get close.

savingGrace 7y ago

+2 for Thunderbird I prefer my legacy desktop client that everyone else at my company bemoans.

sweeneyrod 7y ago

Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are good (at least if you're a vim user). You can easily get them in a desktop client with Mailspring though.

efdee 7y ago

On the other hand, I used Thunderbird for almost a decade, then switched to Gmail and never looked back. Mileages vary.

aequitas 7y ago

I've been only using desktop mail until Inbox by Gmail came along (and it's most important features where ported to Gmain). For me email has become my main TODO management. So everything goes into email and I heavily rely on Gmail's snooze to schedule stuff. On mobile the Gmail app is great but I haven't found a desktop client that is nothing more than 'Gmail in a standalone browser'. So I'm sticking with just having an extra tab open with Gmail.

matsz 7y ago

Web apps are simply easier to use, go to a given URL, log in and you're there.

m4r35n357 7y ago
Which is why we can't have nice things.
- m4r35n357 7y ago
  See what I mean?
Vrondi 7y ago
As opposed to "click an icon one time, and you're there".

thrower123 7y ago

Gmail, at least before this last UI regression, was always markedly better than desktop email clients. I think they've tried to fix things, but it still is considerably worse than the old UI. Outlook and Thunderbird are not great. However they probably are better than the current Gmail webapp...

Macha 7y ago
Issues that thunderbird solves that Gmail does not: * Smarter filters: I can e.g. delete all twitch "streamer has gone live" messages that are 5+ hours old - they simply aren't relevant once the stream has ended. * Bulk actions. When I get behind on my emails, I tend to sort by sender to decide what to do with 10s of emails at a time. e.g. I might archive a lot of older PayPal payment notifications by clicking the first one, shift clicking the last one and hitting archive. Gmail needs me to click each email to do so. Or search for PayPal, and do another search for the next sender I want to deal with. Honestly nice interfaces for working on items in bulk have kind of vanished with the transition to web and mobile. Was looking for a replacement for Clementine with its Spotify support dead but the only options were mopidy front ends which sucked for bulk management of tracks in playlists. * Expandable threading view. I can view an email thread as a tree of email titles and follow the flow. Gmail shows only a single item and then presents it as a flat sequence if I open it up.
- Izkata 7y ago
  That last one, at least, was claimed as a feature when gmail first went live: Grouping messages more smartly based on content, and showing them strictly chronologically instead of in a "confusing" tree so recipients wouldn't miss a response that was in another branch.

djaychela 7y ago

I used to be much the same, but being able to have my mail available anywhere I am is useful - even running 3 computers and a phone it always seemed a pain to get IMAP working (nearly always ended up having to stay on POP3 as a result). And gone are the days when you have to worry about having local files on a computer - backing up your email store file of whatever form. Having said that, I'd love to jump the Google ship if I could find any other mail provider that had a good app for mobile and had snooze, which for me is the killer feature for email.

AndrewDucker 7y ago
IMAP takes the same amount of time to set up for me as POP does. And I have it on my phone, laptop, and desktop without any issues, giving me access to all of my email everywhere. Even when I'm entirely offline.
- kitsunesoba 7y ago
  YMMV and all, but I’ve also had very good luck with IMAP. The only exceptions have been with Gmail due to it not following IMAP spec correctly, but that’s easy to fix… just use email services with proper IMAP implementations instead of Gmail.

raxxorrax 7y ago

I have never been in any corp that doesn't use dedicated e-mail clients. Outlook mostly of course, but some did indeed use Thunderbird. Thunderbird could use some monetary support last I heard. And/or developers. Gmail has a good webmail interface, but I only use it in dire circumstances. It is not my primary mail either.

ekingr 7y ago

I guess beyond UI/UX, a key pain point that webmail solved is synchronisation. Whatever the change you do on whatever device, the state is managed by the server and reflected the same everywhere. Much easier than POP/IMAP/Exchange. The drawback is that you have to be always connected.

kwhitefoot 7y ago
Thunderbird synchronizes too. IMAP works online and I have a copy while I am offline. I don't see how a webmail client is any better.

bishalb 7y ago

For one I find search to be slow in desktop clients.

m4r35n357 7y ago

Or Claws mail for the Raspberry Pi.

tyingq 7y ago

"I've never understood why people don't prefer desktop email clients" I used to, but these days I switch between a work desktop, my phone, my home desktop, etc. So consistency of features matters. Also things like a "draft" I did on my mobile shows up on the web client on my Linux desktop, custom filters, signatures, are the same everywhere, etc. The web and mobile-native clients for Gmail, Outlook, etc, work more the same than switching between something like Thunderbird and something else.

jlelse 7y ago

I used web mail too, but when I switched to a self-hosted mail server, I learned to love Thunderbird and K9-email (on Android).

grawprog 7y ago

My first email address was an address through our ISP I accessed through outlook and then Thunderbird. I was too young to really have a use for an email so I never really used it. By the time I got my own computer when i was a bit older, I realized my step dad had access to the email from the ISP(as well as a creepy amount of logging and monitoring on the computers in the house I ended up having to find ways around) so I got a hotmail address and have used webmail ever since. These days, I just don't really have a need for an email client, I do most of my emailing through my phone and don't use it as often as I did between 2008-2012 or so. Those were probably my heaviest emailing years.