5 ms·

Person/author here. Yes, I have considered other email clients. Evolution is the least bad of the available options and still sees active development. Most oth

by d2wa 6y ago

Person/author here. Yes, I have considered other email clients. Evolution is the least bad of the available options and still sees active development. Most other clients don’t support CardDAV or LDAP so I can’t sync my address book. An email client is mostly useless without the contact details of the people want to contact. Newscommers to the email client market have all been proprietary subscription-based middleware instead of actual email clients. The market has been standing mostly still for the last 10 years.

the_pwner224 6y ago
As others have mentioned, Thunderbird is the least worst option (in our opinions :). I use it with CalDAV/CardDAV synced to my Nextcloud instance. The three good options are KMail, Thunderbird, and Evolution. Everything else is CLI or lacks features like DAV. KMail and Evolution both bring in the entire KDE/Gnome PIM suite with daemons and other programs, making them not great unless you are using Gnome or KDE - as another HN commenter said about Java web applications, you wanted a banana and instead got the entire jungle and an angry gorilla. But they do integrate very well. Thunderbird is standalone. I tried Evolution for a week, about a month ago, and have used KMail and Thunderbird a lot. KMail is fully-featured, with native support for CalDAV/CardDAV and 'send later.' But it's incredibly complex and easy to misconfigure. When upgrading to a new computer recently, I tried doing an export => import to transfer data, but it apparently permanently borked the KMail installation on the new computer. Tried uninstalling/reinstalling and deleting all KDEPIM-related files in ~, and it still would not work... Even on my old computer I still kept Thunderbird installed along with KMail sometimes didn't work properly. Thunderbird is very straightforward to use and is quite stable. I use the TbSync add-on (Thunderbird has an official add-on repository like Chrome/Firefox). You'll also need the 'Provider for CalDAV & CardDAV', which adds that functionality to TbSync but is distributed as a separate add on. Set up cal/carddav account, then go to calendar, right click the toolbar => Customize, and drag the 'Synchronize' button onto the toolbar so you can force a synchronization if needed (in addition to the timer-based background sync). There's also a 'send later' add-on available. Aside from that, I only have a few minor issues with Thunderbird: To switch between HTML and plain-text emails, you need to shift-click the 'compose new email' button. Can't switch in the middle of composing; you'll need to make a new email and copy-paste over. Changing the default from HTML to plain text requires going into about:config. And you can't enable/disable text wrapping on the fly for plain text emails; it's an about:config pref. With Gmail accounts, it incorrectly lists the inbox/sent/etc. folders in a subfolder of the account (functions properly, but ugly). You have to right click the account, go to Settings => Server Settings => Advanced and set the IMAP Server Directory to '[Gmail]'. Finally, TB has its own Spam filtering mechanism. You can't fully disable it. Even if you go to account settings and disable junk filtering for that account, it still shows a button to mark as junk and overrides the J key for that. Annoying if you are used to vim controls and press J often. Also J has the homing nub on the keycap so I like pressing it a lot... KMail has all of this stuff built in / fixed, but is just way too complex and brittle. Actually, after seeing your article's screenshot of Evolution with KDE titlebars, and a person replying suggesting that Evolution is good for this purpose, I'm trying it out on KDE. Never thought that would happen! I don't use signatures so hopefully this bug doesn't affect me... I did have to separately install the gnome-keyring package to get it to remember the IMAP/SMTP password but aside from that it appears to work fine.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  I'm not saying Thunderbird isn't right for you, but evolution had all those things and sounds no harder to use... this is just one bug. It just reminds me of Eudora mail and outlook more I think.
- d2wa 6y ago
  (replying where I have something semi-intelligent to add.) > Thunderbird is the least worst option (in our opinions :). I use TB when I use macOS. TB does weird thing to plain-text email formatting, though. E.g. it sometimes refuses to let me delete lines that contain "> ", and it sometimes freaks out when I try to insert al line break in a section of quoted text. (I reply inline, like a civilized emailer.) > I tried Evolution for a week, about a month ago, and have used KMail and Thunderbird a lot. I’ve used all three for years. KMail would be my preferred option if it was way more stable and less buggy. It has great features and I feel at home in it. But it works way less reliably than Evolution. The version of KMail shipping on Flathub doesn’t even start. —and that’s when it’s running in a sandboxed environment that’s identical on everyone’s systems! > There's also a 'send later' add-on available. I know. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/kmail-cve-2017-9604-openpgp.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/kmail-cve-2017-9604-openpgp.html On a related note, I couldn’t login to my IMAP account with KMail maybe ten years ago. My password back then contained an apostrophe. KMail didn’t encode it properly and would crash every time it tried to submit the password to the server. The bug also made it impossible to overwrite the saved password with a new one from the UI. > Actually, after seeing your article's screenshot of Evolution with KDE titlebars. The screenshot is manipulated, see disclaimer at the bottom of the article. It’s indeed running under Plasma, though.
neltnerb 6y ago
I agree and also use evolution because it feels more comfortable and well thought out than the alternatives. Thunderbird feels wrong for some reason, and webmail doesn't let me have ten accounts in one place... I love being about to readily move an entire email folder to a different imap amount entirely with drag and drop. I think it mostly just reminds me the most of Eudora so I just like it for being familiar. (I've never encountered this bug, I guess I just don't have changing my signature in the workflow.)
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Have you looked at Geary? I haven't personally used it, I just know that it shares a lineage (?) with the elementaryOS project, and they seem to be making great stuff.
- pabs3 6y ago
  elementaryOS' mail client is now a separate implementation to Geary and is based on libraries that underly the Evolution mail client. https://github.com/elementary/mail https://github.com/elementary/mail
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Yep, but my understanding was the Geary's lineage was the same in that both projects originally grew up together before elementary decided to change direction. Not true?
    - pabs3 6y ago
      Right, they used to share lineage but don't any more.
axaxs 6y ago
Did you open a bug? I've opened 3 Evolution bugs over the past few years, and the devs are always helpful. They even changed some behavior that was annoying to me, which made me wonder if I was in fact the only user...
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > which made me wonder if I was in fact the only user... Nope, there's at least three of us :) It's by far my favorite client. Not only is the UI nice (for some reason I can't stand Thunderbirds UI), but it works well with integrations and multiple accounts.
- d2wa 6y ago
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/905 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/905

by d2wa 6y ago

the_pwner224 6y ago

As others have mentioned, Thunderbird is the least worst option (in our opinions :). I use it with CalDAV/CardDAV synced to my Nextcloud instance. The three good options are KMail, Thunderbird, and Evolution. Everything else is CLI or lacks features like DAV. KMail and Evolution both bring in the entire KDE/Gnome PIM suite with daemons and other programs, making them not great unless you are using Gnome or KDE - as another HN commenter said about Java web applications, you wanted a banana and instead got the entire jungle and an angry gorilla. But they do integrate very well. Thunderbird is standalone. I tried Evolution for a week, about a month ago, and have used KMail and Thunderbird a lot. KMail is fully-featured, with native support for CalDAV/CardDAV and 'send later.' But it's incredibly complex and easy to misconfigure. When upgrading to a new computer recently, I tried doing an export => import to transfer data, but it apparently permanently borked the KMail installation on the new computer. Tried uninstalling/reinstalling and deleting all KDEPIM-related files in ~, and it still would not work... Even on my old computer I still kept Thunderbird installed along with KMail sometimes didn't work properly. Thunderbird is very straightforward to use and is quite stable. I use the TbSync add-on (Thunderbird has an official add-on repository like Chrome/Firefox). You'll also need the 'Provider for CalDAV & CardDAV', which adds that functionality to TbSync but is distributed as a separate add on. Set up cal/carddav account, then go to calendar, right click the toolbar => Customize, and drag the 'Synchronize' button onto the toolbar so you can force a synchronization if needed (in addition to the timer-based background sync). There's also a 'send later' add-on available. Aside from that, I only have a few minor issues with Thunderbird: To switch between HTML and plain-text emails, you need to shift-click the 'compose new email' button. Can't switch in the middle of composing; you'll need to make a new email and copy-paste over. Changing the default from HTML to plain text requires going into about:config. And you can't enable/disable text wrapping on the fly for plain text emails; it's an about:config pref. With Gmail accounts, it incorrectly lists the inbox/sent/etc. folders in a subfolder of the account (functions properly, but ugly). You have to right click the account, go to Settings => Server Settings => Advanced and set the IMAP Server Directory to '[Gmail]'. Finally, TB has its own Spam filtering mechanism. You can't fully disable it. Even if you go to account settings and disable junk filtering for that account, it still shows a button to mark as junk and overrides the J key for that. Annoying if you are used to vim controls and press J often. Also J has the homing nub on the keycap so I like pressing it a lot... KMail has all of this stuff built in / fixed, but is just way too complex and brittle. Actually, after seeing your article's screenshot of Evolution with KDE titlebars, and a person replying suggesting that Evolution is good for this purpose, I'm trying it out on KDE. Never thought that would happen! I don't use signatures so hopefully this bug doesn't affect me... I did have to separately install the gnome-keyring package to get it to remember the IMAP/SMTP password but aside from that it appears to work fine.

neltnerb 6y ago
I'm not saying Thunderbird isn't right for you, but evolution had all those things and sounds no harder to use... this is just one bug. It just reminds me of Eudora mail and outlook more I think.
d2wa 6y ago
(replying where I have something semi-intelligent to add.) > Thunderbird is the least worst option (in our opinions :). I use TB when I use macOS. TB does weird thing to plain-text email formatting, though. E.g. it sometimes refuses to let me delete lines that contain "> ", and it sometimes freaks out when I try to insert al line break in a section of quoted text. (I reply inline, like a civilized emailer.) > I tried Evolution for a week, about a month ago, and have used KMail and Thunderbird a lot. I’ve used all three for years. KMail would be my preferred option if it was way more stable and less buggy. It has great features and I feel at home in it. But it works way less reliably than Evolution. The version of KMail shipping on Flathub doesn’t even start. —and that’s when it’s running in a sandboxed environment that’s identical on everyone’s systems! > There's also a 'send later' add-on available. I know. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/kmail-cve-2017-9604-openpgp.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/kmail-cve-2017-9604-openpgp.html On a related note, I couldn’t login to my IMAP account with KMail maybe ten years ago. My password back then contained an apostrophe. KMail didn’t encode it properly and would crash every time it tried to submit the password to the server. The bug also made it impossible to overwrite the saved password with a new one from the UI. > Actually, after seeing your article's screenshot of Evolution with KDE titlebars. The screenshot is manipulated, see disclaimer at the bottom of the article. It’s indeed running under Plasma, though.

neltnerb 6y ago

I agree and also use evolution because it feels more comfortable and well thought out than the alternatives. Thunderbird feels wrong for some reason, and webmail doesn't let me have ten accounts in one place... I love being about to readily move an entire email folder to a different imap amount entirely with drag and drop. I think it mostly just reminds me the most of Eudora so I just like it for being familiar. (I've never encountered this bug, I guess I just don't have changing my signature in the workflow.)

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

Have you looked at Geary? I haven't personally used it, I just know that it shares a lineage (?) with the elementaryOS project, and they seem to be making great stuff.

pabs3 6y ago
elementaryOS' mail client is now a separate implementation to Geary and is based on libraries that underly the Evolution mail client. https://github.com/elementary/mail https://github.com/elementary/mail
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Yep, but my understanding was the Geary's lineage was the same in that both projects originally grew up together before elementary decided to change direction. Not true?
  - pabs3 6y ago
    Right, they used to share lineage but don't any more.

axaxs 6y ago

Did you open a bug? I've opened 3 Evolution bugs over the past few years, and the devs are always helpful. They even changed some behavior that was annoying to me, which made me wonder if I was in fact the only user...

Sebb767 6y ago
> which made me wonder if I was in fact the only user... Nope, there's at least three of us :) It's by far my favorite client. Not only is the UI nice (for some reason I can't stand Thunderbirds UI), but it works well with integrations and multiple accounts.
d2wa 6y ago
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/905 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/905