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Can someone explain to me why so many people insist on using webmail instead of a proper mail client and act as if webmail is the only way of doing email? Every

Can someone explain to me why so many people insist on using webmail instead of a proper mail client and act as if webmail is the only way of doing email? Every single email service I know of, except hey.com, offers IMAP and SMTP.

Dave_TRS 5y ago
Mail clients have issues like emails getting "stuck in outbox", it not being clear when new emails have loaded, etc. Also if I use a mail client then my setup is tied to a particular machine so if I'm away from it, or lose it, or it dies, then I have to go and reconfigure it all again, remember how I set it up, etc. Plus I see no benefit, webmail is great. I'm on my last year of 10+ years of free Google Workspace email. There's one perspective.
jedberg 5y ago
For me personally it's because I can't manage priority emails or use the search through a 3rd party mail client. Most of my time in Gmail when I'm not just reading messages is using gmail specific functionality that isn't supported in 3rd party clients.
kiwijamo 5y ago
Honestly email clients have not really improved a lot in recent years. I personally use Fastmail which has a fantastic web interface which is honestly so much better than e.g. Thunderbird, Evolution, etc. I do use Outlook/Mac for my work which is pretty decent but I'd still prefer Fastmail Web over it.
akshayshah 5y ago
I used to feel the same way: I used mutt for ~10 years, Thunderbird and Sylpheed Claws for about a year each, and then gave up.* Despite webmail's many flaws, I haven't found an MUA that's as good for me as the Gmail web UI. - Most MUAs choke on my archive. Simple searches take seconds. - Every modern email service has a tag-like construct. Representing tags in IMAP duplicates messages. - Decades later, IMAP sync is still slow, unreliable, and annoying to debug. - A surprising number of MUAs ignore account boundaries when integrating with my contacts. - Depending on my job, I go through years-long periods with lots of calendar-related mail. Tight integration between Google Calendar and my mail client is very convenient. - I use snoozes and (especially) delayed sends often. - I use all these features on my phone, too. I haven't found an email client that solves all these problems, on both my laptop and my phone, that's better than Gmail web UI + Gmail iOS app. With two exceptions, all the clients I've tried are slower and less reliable, and they often have fewer features important to me. These days, they're often a less-polished, poorly-tested website in an Electron container. I'm happy to pay for GSuite (or whatever they're calling it these days), because I get ad-free clients that work for me and excellent uptime/deliverability. * The only genuinely good clients I've found are Mailbox (never shipped a stable desktop client, but had useful innovations) and Superhuman. Mailbox was discontinued post-acquisition, and Gmail has implemented their best features. Superhuman is fine, but not worth paying for (though I'd perhaps feel differently if I spent hours each day in email).
notRobot 5y ago
It's convenient having everything in the browser. Multiple tabs. Good password autofill. No sync issues. No complicated set up. Good search functionality. No using up disk space. Don't have to worry about keeping another piece of software (mail client) updated. I use webmail + Firefox containers to access multiple inboxes at the same time. I have like half a dozen email accounts that I access regularly, so it works well.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Pinned tabs + containers + bookmark sessions makes keeping things silo'd on the internet much easier.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I would love to see mainstream operating systems with support for grouping different application windows into single tabbed windows.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
A couple generations now have been introduced to email via Webmail rather than email clients so it's momentum and most people just don't gaf.
tzs 5y ago
I’ve found that Fastmail’s webmail is actually a nicer mail client on my Mac than either Apple’s Mail or Microsoft’s Outlook.
gxnxcxcx 5y ago
With webmail I can right-click on links and send them to the appropriate Firefox container. The last time I tried a dedicated mail client this was a sorely missed feature.

Dave_TRS 5y ago

Mail clients have issues like emails getting "stuck in outbox", it not being clear when new emails have loaded, etc. Also if I use a mail client then my setup is tied to a particular machine so if I'm away from it, or lose it, or it dies, then I have to go and reconfigure it all again, remember how I set it up, etc. Plus I see no benefit, webmail is great. I'm on my last year of 10+ years of free Google Workspace email. There's one perspective.

jedberg 5y ago

For me personally it's because I can't manage priority emails or use the search through a 3rd party mail client. Most of my time in Gmail when I'm not just reading messages is using gmail specific functionality that isn't supported in 3rd party clients.

kiwijamo 5y ago

Honestly email clients have not really improved a lot in recent years. I personally use Fastmail which has a fantastic web interface which is honestly so much better than e.g. Thunderbird, Evolution, etc. I do use Outlook/Mac for my work which is pretty decent but I'd still prefer Fastmail Web over it.

akshayshah 5y ago

I used to feel the same way: I used mutt for ~10 years, Thunderbird and Sylpheed Claws for about a year each, and then gave up.* Despite webmail's many flaws, I haven't found an MUA that's as good for me as the Gmail web UI. - Most MUAs choke on my archive. Simple searches take seconds. - Every modern email service has a tag-like construct. Representing tags in IMAP duplicates messages. - Decades later, IMAP sync is still slow, unreliable, and annoying to debug. - A surprising number of MUAs ignore account boundaries when integrating with my contacts. - Depending on my job, I go through years-long periods with lots of calendar-related mail. Tight integration between Google Calendar and my mail client is very convenient. - I use snoozes and (especially) delayed sends often. - I use all these features on my phone, too. I haven't found an email client that solves all these problems, on both my laptop and my phone, that's better than Gmail web UI + Gmail iOS app. With two exceptions, all the clients I've tried are slower and less reliable, and they often have fewer features important to me. These days, they're often a less-polished, poorly-tested website in an Electron container. I'm happy to pay for GSuite (or whatever they're calling it these days), because I get ad-free clients that work for me and excellent uptime/deliverability. * The only genuinely good clients I've found are Mailbox (never shipped a stable desktop client, but had useful innovations) and Superhuman. Mailbox was discontinued post-acquisition, and Gmail has implemented their best features. Superhuman is fine, but not worth paying for (though I'd perhaps feel differently if I spent hours each day in email).

notRobot 5y ago

It's convenient having everything in the browser. Multiple tabs. Good password autofill. No sync issues. No complicated set up. Good search functionality. No using up disk space. Don't have to worry about keeping another piece of software (mail client) updated. I use webmail + Firefox containers to access multiple inboxes at the same time. I have like half a dozen email accounts that I access regularly, so it works well.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Pinned tabs + containers + bookmark sessions makes keeping things silo'd on the internet much easier.
DangitBobby 5y ago
I would love to see mainstream operating systems with support for grouping different application windows into single tabbed windows.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

A couple generations now have been introduced to email via Webmail rather than email clients so it's momentum and most people just don't gaf.

tzs 5y ago

I’ve found that Fastmail’s webmail is actually a nicer mail client on my Mac than either Apple’s Mail or Microsoft’s Outlook.

gxnxcxcx 5y ago

With webmail I can right-click on links and send them to the appropriate Firefox container. The last time I tried a dedicated mail client this was a sorely missed feature.