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Real question from someone genuinely curious: why would one use Thunderbird, or any third-party email client? What benefits does this offer over using the UI pr

Real question from someone genuinely curious: why would one use Thunderbird, or any third-party email client? What benefits does this offer over using the UI provided by your email provider (assuming that you aren't self-hosting)? I assume there are benefits -- I guess one I can think of off the top of my head is that your email is accessible offline. Surely there are others though

rf15 3y ago
Because you usually don't have a single email provider. Thunderbird allows you to have a unified interface for all mail accounts instead of having n+1 UIs and apps for each of your accounts. Having your mails accessible offline is more of a protocol question.
testermelon 3y ago
Two benefits comes to my head instantly: - I can search all of my emails at once. - I don't need to worry that much about account management.
pomian 3y ago
first and most important, is you can keep a copy of all your email, on your own computer both sent and recurved. You can store on a backup drive. Second you can use it as a collections centre for all your other emails, for example, your account at Microsoft, and or Google, and or Yahoo, etc. By having a copy on your own device you can delete old emails from the host that your provide. Saves room, and is less secure.
stjohnswarts 3y ago
All my email in one place rather than flipping between tabs. I know I have a backup when the service fails.
rationalist 3y ago
The service becomes a mailbox instead of a filing cabinet. Supposedly mail after sitting in your digital mailbox for so long, is available to law enforcement without a warrant.
lelanthran 3y ago
> why would one use Thunderbird, or any third-party email client? What benefits does this offer over using the UI provided by your email provider (assuming that you aren't self-hosting)? 1. Unified single entry-point into all my email accounts. I I can search through all of them even while keeping them isolated from each other (to allow searching individually). 2. Latency: when I want to open an email it does not require a 500ms delay, as in gmail, roundcube, whatever. You may think this is not a problem, but if you perform a search and want to quickly open all 15 of the results, that latency adds up quickly. 3. Slicker UI, in most cases. Especially in searching (which is different from "filtering"). UI for adding rules to kill based on patterns is a lot easier than gmail, for example. To be honest though, looking at my points above, it basically comes down to "searching is better on local client".
CrampusDestrus 3y ago
Why are you implying my email provider has a good UI or UX? Why are you implying I only use one provider?

rf15 3y ago

Because you usually don't have a single email provider. Thunderbird allows you to have a unified interface for all mail accounts instead of having n+1 UIs and apps for each of your accounts. Having your mails accessible offline is more of a protocol question.

testermelon 3y ago

Two benefits comes to my head instantly: - I can search all of my emails at once. - I don't need to worry that much about account management.

pomian 3y ago

first and most important, is you can keep a copy of all your email, on your own computer both sent and recurved. You can store on a backup drive. Second you can use it as a collections centre for all your other emails, for example, your account at Microsoft, and or Google, and or Yahoo, etc. By having a copy on your own device you can delete old emails from the host that your provide. Saves room, and is less secure.

stjohnswarts 3y ago

All my email in one place rather than flipping between tabs. I know I have a backup when the service fails.

rationalist 3y ago

The service becomes a mailbox instead of a filing cabinet. Supposedly mail after sitting in your digital mailbox for so long, is available to law enforcement without a warrant.

lelanthran 3y ago

> why would one use Thunderbird, or any third-party email client? What benefits does this offer over using the UI provided by your email provider (assuming that you aren't self-hosting)? 1. Unified single entry-point into all my email accounts. I I can search through all of them even while keeping them isolated from each other (to allow searching individually). 2. Latency: when I want to open an email it does not require a 500ms delay, as in gmail, roundcube, whatever. You may think this is not a problem, but if you perform a search and want to quickly open all 15 of the results, that latency adds up quickly. 3. Slicker UI, in most cases. Especially in searching (which is different from "filtering"). UI for adding rules to kill based on patterns is a lot easier than gmail, for example. To be honest though, looking at my points above, it basically comes down to "searching is better on local client".

CrampusDestrus 3y ago

Why are you implying my email provider has a good UI or UX? Why are you implying I only use one provider?