5 ms·

I would pay an extra $0.10 per month to any service which offered plaintext only emails... Ah, a man can dream.

chrismorgan 5y ago
In Fastmail’s webmail: Settings → Preferences → Show advanced preferences → Reading → View HTML, select Always display messages in plain text. Settings → Preferences → Show advanced preferences → Compose & Reply → Compose format, select Plain text, plus untick When replying, use the same format as the original message. I don’t think this is such a rare feature, though it’s generally not made obvious at least.
- l0b0 5y ago
  That's about three levels deeper than most users are comfortable navigating, and as such only a negligible fraction of users will ever see this setting, understand what it does, and change it. Too bad every enterprise solution defaults to HTML anyway.
  - chrismorgan 5y ago
    I wrote out the full path to it, but Preferences is the default page in Settings, and Reading and Compose & Reply are just sections inside it. So it’s actually more like “go to Settings, click Show advanced preferences at the bottom of the page, and search for ‘plain’”. And yeah, it is an advanced preference, whether you’d prefer otherwise or not.
  - TheSmiddy 5y ago
    Only a negligible fraction of users care about this feature and it only needs to be toggled once so it's clearly in the right place.
  - sidpatil 5y ago
    Most users probably don't care about HTML versus plaintext emails. The ones that do care would be the ones willing to pay $0.10 extra per month to enforce plaintext receipt, or willing to dig through a few levels of configuration to enable plaintext receipt.
  - loh 5y ago
    TricepMail has granular/heritable switching between plain text or HTML, with or without images. For example, if you have a mailbox set to plain text but receive an email that you would like to render as HTML, it's just one click away for either the entire thread or just that message.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  Sorry, I suppose I wasn’t very clear. I do this through Posteo and Tutanota already (though perhaps you could sell me on Fastmail with your insider knowledge ;). What I mean is I wish companies would send their transactional emails and newsletters in plaintext. Images and the like could be sent as attachments, as opposed to creepy weblinks that track your opens and IP and everything. I would pay each company $0.10 if they offered me the option of receiving all their emails in plaintext like this.
  - oblio 5y ago
    They'd probably make less money if you paid them, that's the problem. And you'd also need to be able to somehow force them to <<only>> monetize you through direct payment, because what most companies do is, take your money <<and>> also sell your data, on top of that.
    - pembrook 5y ago
      If you hang out on HN a lot, I can see how you might think “most companies” are selling your data. But this is hilariously false. Nowhere near “most” companies are selling your data. In fact, an overwhelmingly vast majority of all businesses don’t sell your data. This is true inside Silicon Valley and even more true outside of the Valley. Even in Silicon Valley, most companies understand that selling products and services to customers is more profitable than trashing a customer relationship by selling a customer’s personal info to third parties.
      - nerdponx 5y ago
        They don't sell it. But they entrust a lot of it to disreputable 3rd parties, who exist to track me all over the internet and then try to show me ads.
      - OJFord 5y ago
        But possibly only because they haven't yet added 'tech' to the hip abbreviation of their industry, and realised that data is valuable, possibly more valuable than whatever their actual business is? I think people use 'selling my data' as an (inaccurate, sure) shorthand for 'collecting so much data about me and I don't really trust them not to sell it at some point'.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
intc 5y ago
We are soon opening https://c1.fi https://c1.fi - Horde webmail (https://wm.c1.fi https://wm.c1.fi) can do this. (Preferences -> Mail -> Composition -> Default method to compose messages: "Plain Text")

In Fastmail’s webmail: Settings → Preferences → Show advanced preferences → Reading → View HTML, select Always display messages in plain text. Settings → Preferences → Show advanced preferences → Compose & Reply → Compose format, select Plain text, plus untick When replying, use the same format as the original message. I don’t think this is such a rare feature, though it’s generally not made obvious at least.

l0b0 5y ago
That's about three levels deeper than most users are comfortable navigating, and as such only a negligible fraction of users will ever see this setting, understand what it does, and change it. Too bad every enterprise solution defaults to HTML anyway.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  I wrote out the full path to it, but Preferences is the default page in Settings, and Reading and Compose & Reply are just sections inside it. So it’s actually more like “go to Settings, click Show advanced preferences at the bottom of the page, and search for ‘plain’”. And yeah, it is an advanced preference, whether you’d prefer otherwise or not.
- TheSmiddy 5y ago
  Only a negligible fraction of users care about this feature and it only needs to be toggled once so it's clearly in the right place.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  Most users probably don't care about HTML versus plaintext emails. The ones that do care would be the ones willing to pay $0.10 extra per month to enforce plaintext receipt, or willing to dig through a few levels of configuration to enable plaintext receipt.
- loh 5y ago
  TricepMail has granular/heritable switching between plain text or HTML, with or without images. For example, if you have a mailbox set to plain text but receive an email that you would like to render as HTML, it's just one click away for either the entire thread or just that message.
sebmellen 5y ago
Sorry, I suppose I wasn’t very clear. I do this through Posteo and Tutanota already (though perhaps you could sell me on Fastmail with your insider knowledge ;). What I mean is I wish companies would send their transactional emails and newsletters in plaintext. Images and the like could be sent as attachments, as opposed to creepy weblinks that track your opens and IP and everything. I would pay each company $0.10 if they offered me the option of receiving all their emails in plaintext like this.
- oblio 5y ago
  They'd probably make less money if you paid them, that's the problem. And you'd also need to be able to somehow force them to <<only>> monetize you through direct payment, because what most companies do is, take your money <<and>> also sell your data, on top of that.
  - pembrook 5y ago
    If you hang out on HN a lot, I can see how you might think “most companies” are selling your data. But this is hilariously false. Nowhere near “most” companies are selling your data. In fact, an overwhelmingly vast majority of all businesses don’t sell your data. This is true inside Silicon Valley and even more true outside of the Valley. Even in Silicon Valley, most companies understand that selling products and services to customers is more profitable than trashing a customer relationship by selling a customer’s personal info to third parties.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      They don't sell it. But they entrust a lot of it to disreputable 3rd parties, who exist to track me all over the internet and then try to show me ads.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      But possibly only because they haven't yet added 'tech' to the hip abbreviation of their industry, and realised that data is valuable, possibly more valuable than whatever their actual business is? I think people use 'selling my data' as an (inaccurate, sure) shorthand for 'collecting so much data about me and I don't really trust them not to sell it at some point'.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

intc 5y ago

We are soon opening https://c1.fi https://c1.fi - Horde webmail (https://wm.c1.fi https://wm.c1.fi) can do this. (Preferences -> Mail -> Composition -> Default method to compose messages: "Plain Text")