4 ms·

I've been using Aerc, works well for me. Has anyone tried both, and if so, what's your preference? https://aerc-mail.org https://aerc-mail.org

ninjin 4y ago
Last time I tried aerc (some time over a year ago), mutt had better threading and I stayed with mutt. Having read the aerc source and used it though, it comes across as a very nice modern take on a TUI MUA.
igemnace 4y ago
I use both. I mainly still keep mutt for encryption and signing. For general, day-to-day use, I prefer aerc because I grok its configuration more -- I believe one of its key advantages is its simplicity of configuration. I find it much easier to think of a keybind or string of commands to make some menial task faster. aerc still crashes on me from time to time. Not too much that I'm turned off from it, but definitely enough that I feel it's less stable than mutt. I also find it easier to work with attachments in general with mutt: picking which attachment to view and piping it into different programs.
- gnull 4y ago
  Aerc has rolled out signing and encryption support recently. I've tested signing, seems to work fine. And now it uses normal GPG keystore, not its own.
hectorhector 4y ago
Has Aerc added support for email threads yet? I tried it when it first came out and that was my biggest disappointment.
- gnull 4y ago
  Aerc can display a thread in a tree-view of a directory, yes. Run :toggle-threads to see it (I'm using Maildir backend). Using notmuch backend, one could also have a key to display all the emails that are in the same thread as the current one, so that you get a nice conversation-like view which includes sent emails as well (Purebred does this by default, for example). This is not supported out of the box yet, but I'm thinking of implementing a patch for it in the coming weeks.
gnull 4y ago
I've moved to Aerc from Neomutt a few months ago and never regretted it. Aerc has filters and builtin terminal support. This allows cool syntax highlighting for displayed emails and also support for previewing unusual formats. Aerc has well-made multiple accounts support and tabs out of the box, while with Mutt I had to keep two separate muttrc files for my two accounts and create bash alias for them. Aerc can filter the emails in the current folder and show only the ones that match an expression, I could never do that it Mutt. And overall, it just feels more modern and reasonable, even its config file format feels better. I had a few things I found weird in mutt and never could fix them through config. For example, PgDown in Mutt goes to next email when I reach the bottom of the current one. Or deleting email keeps it displayed in the list (making you spam $ after each deletion) but doesn't allow navigating to it to undelete (Mutt devs want me to select emails to undelete using regexp? seriously?). I kept having wtf moments like this with Mutt all the time, I almost never have them with Aerc. Some things still need polishing in Aerc, but it's improving fast.
- jpe90 4y ago
  Any examples of things that you feel need polishing with Aerc?
  - gnull 4y ago
    Notmuch backend doesn't allow saving sent messages to the maildir. Gpg encryption produced an error when I tried it just now. Scripting is limited: actions that you can assign to keybindings can do only very simple actions (which might be a good thing if aerc finds just the right set of simple actions to make available). Recently it was producing errors if the mime-type of an email attachment is quoted. This is something very rare, but some mailers do that. The issue was fixed within a couple of days after my report.
- tome 4y ago
  > PgDown in Mutt goes to next email when I reach the bottom of the current one. set pager_stop=yes > Or deleting email keeps it displayed in the list ... but doesn't allow navigating to it to undelete -bind index n next-undeleted -bind index p previous-undeleted -bind pager n next-undeleted -bind pager p previous-undeleted +bind index n next-entry +bind index p previous-entry +bind pager n next-entry +bind pager p previous-entry (Not sure why these aren't the defaults. They seem much more usable than the defaults!)

ninjin 4y ago

Last time I tried aerc (some time over a year ago), mutt had better threading and I stayed with mutt. Having read the aerc source and used it though, it comes across as a very nice modern take on a TUI MUA.

igemnace 4y ago

I use both. I mainly still keep mutt for encryption and signing. For general, day-to-day use, I prefer aerc because I grok its configuration more -- I believe one of its key advantages is its simplicity of configuration. I find it much easier to think of a keybind or string of commands to make some menial task faster. aerc still crashes on me from time to time. Not too much that I'm turned off from it, but definitely enough that I feel it's less stable than mutt. I also find it easier to work with attachments in general with mutt: picking which attachment to view and piping it into different programs.

gnull 4y ago
Aerc has rolled out signing and encryption support recently. I've tested signing, seems to work fine. And now it uses normal GPG keystore, not its own.

hectorhector 4y ago

Has Aerc added support for email threads yet? I tried it when it first came out and that was my biggest disappointment.

gnull 4y ago
Aerc can display a thread in a tree-view of a directory, yes. Run :toggle-threads to see it (I'm using Maildir backend). Using notmuch backend, one could also have a key to display all the emails that are in the same thread as the current one, so that you get a nice conversation-like view which includes sent emails as well (Purebred does this by default, for example). This is not supported out of the box yet, but I'm thinking of implementing a patch for it in the coming weeks.

gnull 4y ago

I've moved to Aerc from Neomutt a few months ago and never regretted it. Aerc has filters and builtin terminal support. This allows cool syntax highlighting for displayed emails and also support for previewing unusual formats. Aerc has well-made multiple accounts support and tabs out of the box, while with Mutt I had to keep two separate muttrc files for my two accounts and create bash alias for them. Aerc can filter the emails in the current folder and show only the ones that match an expression, I could never do that it Mutt. And overall, it just feels more modern and reasonable, even its config file format feels better. I had a few things I found weird in mutt and never could fix them through config. For example, PgDown in Mutt goes to next email when I reach the bottom of the current one. Or deleting email keeps it displayed in the list (making you spam $ after each deletion) but doesn't allow navigating to it to undelete (Mutt devs want me to select emails to undelete using regexp? seriously?). I kept having wtf moments like this with Mutt all the time, I almost never have them with Aerc. Some things still need polishing in Aerc, but it's improving fast.

jpe90 4y ago
Any examples of things that you feel need polishing with Aerc?
- gnull 4y ago
  Notmuch backend doesn't allow saving sent messages to the maildir. Gpg encryption produced an error when I tried it just now. Scripting is limited: actions that you can assign to keybindings can do only very simple actions (which might be a good thing if aerc finds just the right set of simple actions to make available). Recently it was producing errors if the mime-type of an email attachment is quoted. This is something very rare, but some mailers do that. The issue was fixed within a couple of days after my report.
tome 4y ago
> PgDown in Mutt goes to next email when I reach the bottom of the current one. set pager_stop=yes > Or deleting email keeps it displayed in the list ... but doesn't allow navigating to it to undelete -bind index n next-undeleted -bind index p previous-undeleted -bind pager n next-undeleted -bind pager p previous-undeleted +bind index n next-entry +bind index p previous-entry +bind pager n next-entry +bind pager p previous-entry (Not sure why these aren't the defaults. They seem much more usable than the defaults!)