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Who are all of these people who struggle with email? What's causing so many problems? I use the built-in macOS Mail app, and it works brilliantly. It threads co

Who are all of these people who struggle with email? What's causing so many problems? I use the built-in macOS Mail app, and it works brilliantly. It threads conversations, and I can quickly mark multiple messages as read. It's responsive and native, and even themes non-HTML email in a reliably readable dark mode. I have a few filters set up to send annoying things to spam or a dedicated folder (alas, dear JIRA, I have never wanted to read one of your notifications). But my personal account works perfectly without any kind of filters or folders at all. I even use my protonmail accounts through the protonmail app and those work fine. Is there something wrong with me? Am _I_ the one using email wrong? But it works well for me, and I seem consistently better at responding to messages, so... I'm mostly just confused. I use read/unread as a means of triaging "email I have to deal with" and "email I've already dealt with", but that's basically my only system. Seriously, can someone explain this problem? In my eyes, email and RSS are pretty much the only internet protocols that have JUST WORKED for 20-30 years, my entire life. Everything else has been infected by adware and spyware and garbage. Maybe they're stagnant... or maybe they're just mature?

thrown_22 4y ago
>Who are all of these people who struggle with email? The default outlook app is terrible. It keeps hiding important emails from me and putting unimportant ones front and center. It's bad enough I use thunderbird exclusively to manage those mail boxes and read emails only on the desktop/laptop.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  You can turn off focus mode in settings. Nothing will be hidden. I personally find Gmail is much worse at hiding things. I try to be responsive but for whatever reason the way they handle threading tends to cause me not just to neglect to read, but to not know that there is something there. I think the difference is Outlook shows all of the emails (from all folders) in a thread in a way that makes sense. Google randomly chooses a point in the middle of the list to just stop showing a bunch of emails and you have to manually click to see. I constantly hear that gmail is better but I just can’t see it. Not in a matter of taste way, but like if people said they preferred being stabbed in the face repeatedly with a dull knife to eating their favorite food. I just can’t understand or empathize and I wish I did. It is kind of lonely being one of the few who not just likes email, but likes the Outlook approach to email.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Are outlook-hosted email accounts incompatible with Thunderbird? That's been a solid choice for me in the past, even with their recent stagnant period of development. I do agree that there are a lot of crappy email clients out there, but if you have freedom of choice of the client you use, why not switch?
  - abdullahkhalids 4y ago
    They work perfectly. The only thing that doesn't fully work in Thunderbird is Outlook calendar. You can't create/edit/delete events from Thunderbird, but can read and accept them fine.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
      The big issue is if your company opts into Exchange’s features that limit which clients can connect to the server.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    >It's bad enough I use thunderbird exclusively Please read the post before you reply to it. It's only a few lines.
    - dont__panic 4y ago
      Sorry, I phrased things poorly: why does the outlook app matter at all if you use Thunderbird exclusively?
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        Up until recently Thunderbird had no phone client. Which meant I needed to be at a laptop/desk to respond to an email. That was fine apart from the 1% of cases where I needed to known that I got an email right away.
Shank 4y ago
Email works remarkably well when you can easily control who gets your address. It works absolutely abysmally for anyone who gets subjected to a constant deluge of random semi-reasonable emails from unknown senders. Some are outright spam, some are actually legitimate professional inquiries, and some are a blend between the two. I think fundamentally the problem is that email works great if you aren't the subject of a random influx. If you create an address and never tell anyone except a handful of good sites, you're okay! If your address is everywhere, ends up in a data breach, or ends up on a marketing list for "important business people / decision makers to try to pitch products to" then you're in for a much different experience. Why not just use filters? It's truly random who sends what when. The only email provider that I truly appreciate is HEY, which has deny-by-default email. You explicitly allow people to contact you, which is a different and very nice approach. It has other problems, though, which make it hard for me to suggest it as a solution.
- djbusby 4y ago
  Grey listing in Postfix does a similar thing, and works amazing! Drawback is senders have to try at least twice - spammer don't (usually) and all proper/legit does.
- eropple 4y ago
  FWIW, you can cut down a lot of the B2B spam by unsubscribing on Apollo. (IME, it does work.) https://www.apollo.io/privacy-policy/remove/ https://www.apollo.io/privacy-policy/remove/
giantrobot 4y ago
I don't think you're wrong, I too use Apple's Mail. It works pretty well. It's got a good filtering system that can sort incoming mail properly. It doesn't try to make e-mail into anything but e-mail. It also integrates into Spotlight/QuickLook so searching for mail messages can happen outside of Mail and has all the expressiveness of Spotlight. From memories long ago of using Outlook and Thunderbird I think I can see where people get a hate for e-mail clients. I don't remember either of those being particularly good clients. They've likely changed over the years and could be better but I have no desire to drop Apple Mail.
throwaway892238 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with you. The same people who complain about talking to someone on the phone are the ones who can't deal with e-mail. Ironically they prefer chat, which is probably the worst way to manage information, but definitely the least-effort. That said, some e-mail clients are worse than others. Outlook for Mac is the worst client I've used in years. It doesn't even use Mac's notification system.
- wruza 4y ago
  Can’t see really how phone anxiety may connect to email issues.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  What problems do you see with Mac OS Outlook. It works well for me. Of course I would never have email notifications enabled anyway, so I don’t see that as a problem. Everything else works well. The biggest complain I have is that it can’t open Windows EML files that some people forward as attachments. I have to go into the web version to see those. Just a weird miss there.
  - proamdev123 4y ago
    What is a Windows EML file?
    - Asmod4n 4y ago
      It’s a format developed by Microsoft to store single email’s with headers and attachments.
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      If you locally save an email to a file in Outlook for Windows, it uses the EML format. For some reason, the Mac OS Outlook uses a different format. They have not been able to read the other’s format. I have some people who like to send emails with previous emails sent as attachments in EML format. It takes some gymnastics to be able to read those attachments. I see from another comment that the Mac OS Outlook may finally be able to read those files now.
bo1024 4y ago
1, you bothered to use a good desktop client, putting you ahead of 95% of people. 2, you got a choice of which client to use, not always true in the workplace. 3, how many emails do you get? I averaged 60 emails per day in 2021, or probably 80-90 work emails per work day. More than half don't need to be read, but even spending 30 seconds per email would be a problem. Many people probably get a lot more.

thrown_22 4y ago

>Who are all of these people who struggle with email? The default outlook app is terrible. It keeps hiding important emails from me and putting unimportant ones front and center. It's bad enough I use thunderbird exclusively to manage those mail boxes and read emails only on the desktop/laptop.

n8cpdx 4y ago
You can turn off focus mode in settings. Nothing will be hidden. I personally find Gmail is much worse at hiding things. I try to be responsive but for whatever reason the way they handle threading tends to cause me not just to neglect to read, but to not know that there is something there. I think the difference is Outlook shows all of the emails (from all folders) in a thread in a way that makes sense. Google randomly chooses a point in the middle of the list to just stop showing a bunch of emails and you have to manually click to see. I constantly hear that gmail is better but I just can’t see it. Not in a matter of taste way, but like if people said they preferred being stabbed in the face repeatedly with a dull knife to eating their favorite food. I just can’t understand or empathize and I wish I did. It is kind of lonely being one of the few who not just likes email, but likes the Outlook approach to email.
dont__panic 4y ago
Are outlook-hosted email accounts incompatible with Thunderbird? That's been a solid choice for me in the past, even with their recent stagnant period of development. I do agree that there are a lot of crappy email clients out there, but if you have freedom of choice of the client you use, why not switch?
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  They work perfectly. The only thing that doesn't fully work in Thunderbird is Outlook calendar. You can't create/edit/delete events from Thunderbird, but can read and accept them fine.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
    The big issue is if your company opts into Exchange’s features that limit which clients can connect to the server.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >It's bad enough I use thunderbird exclusively Please read the post before you reply to it. It's only a few lines.
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    Sorry, I phrased things poorly: why does the outlook app matter at all if you use Thunderbird exclusively?
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      Up until recently Thunderbird had no phone client. Which meant I needed to be at a laptop/desk to respond to an email. That was fine apart from the 1% of cases where I needed to known that I got an email right away.

Shank 4y ago

Email works remarkably well when you can easily control who gets your address. It works absolutely abysmally for anyone who gets subjected to a constant deluge of random semi-reasonable emails from unknown senders. Some are outright spam, some are actually legitimate professional inquiries, and some are a blend between the two. I think fundamentally the problem is that email works great if you aren't the subject of a random influx. If you create an address and never tell anyone except a handful of good sites, you're okay! If your address is everywhere, ends up in a data breach, or ends up on a marketing list for "important business people / decision makers to try to pitch products to" then you're in for a much different experience. Why not just use filters? It's truly random who sends what when. The only email provider that I truly appreciate is HEY, which has deny-by-default email. You explicitly allow people to contact you, which is a different and very nice approach. It has other problems, though, which make it hard for me to suggest it as a solution.

djbusby 4y ago
Grey listing in Postfix does a similar thing, and works amazing! Drawback is senders have to try at least twice - spammer don't (usually) and all proper/legit does.
eropple 4y ago
FWIW, you can cut down a lot of the B2B spam by unsubscribing on Apollo. (IME, it does work.) https://www.apollo.io/privacy-policy/remove/ https://www.apollo.io/privacy-policy/remove/

giantrobot 4y ago

I don't think you're wrong, I too use Apple's Mail. It works pretty well. It's got a good filtering system that can sort incoming mail properly. It doesn't try to make e-mail into anything but e-mail. It also integrates into Spotlight/QuickLook so searching for mail messages can happen outside of Mail and has all the expressiveness of Spotlight. From memories long ago of using Outlook and Thunderbird I think I can see where people get a hate for e-mail clients. I don't remember either of those being particularly good clients. They've likely changed over the years and could be better but I have no desire to drop Apple Mail.

throwaway892238 4y ago

There's nothing wrong with you. The same people who complain about talking to someone on the phone are the ones who can't deal with e-mail. Ironically they prefer chat, which is probably the worst way to manage information, but definitely the least-effort. That said, some e-mail clients are worse than others. Outlook for Mac is the worst client I've used in years. It doesn't even use Mac's notification system.

wruza 4y ago
Can’t see really how phone anxiety may connect to email issues.
Tagbert 4y ago
What problems do you see with Mac OS Outlook. It works well for me. Of course I would never have email notifications enabled anyway, so I don’t see that as a problem. Everything else works well. The biggest complain I have is that it can’t open Windows EML files that some people forward as attachments. I have to go into the web version to see those. Just a weird miss there.
- proamdev123 4y ago
  What is a Windows EML file?
  - Asmod4n 4y ago
    It’s a format developed by Microsoft to store single email’s with headers and attachments.
  - Tagbert 4y ago
    If you locally save an email to a file in Outlook for Windows, it uses the EML format. For some reason, the Mac OS Outlook uses a different format. They have not been able to read the other’s format. I have some people who like to send emails with previous emails sent as attachments in EML format. It takes some gymnastics to be able to read those attachments. I see from another comment that the Mac OS Outlook may finally be able to read those files now.

bo1024 4y ago

1, you bothered to use a good desktop client, putting you ahead of 95% of people. 2, you got a choice of which client to use, not always true in the workplace. 3, how many emails do you get? I averaged 60 emails per day in 2021, or probably 80-90 work emails per work day. More than half don't need to be read, but even spending 30 seconds per email would be a problem. Many people probably get a lot more.