[Techtalk] Linux mail clients?

[carla]

On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:47:45 +0000
Conor Daly <conor.daly-linuxchix at cod.homelinux.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 09:41:29AM -0800 or so it is rumoured
> hereabouts, Akkana Peck thought:
> > [Carla asks about mailers]
> > 
> > I notice you didn't list any command-line mailers in your list.
> > I use mutt. Simple UI, fast and works fine over ssh. Some things
> > about it drive me batty, but not as batty as the other mailers I've
> > tried. The mutt motto is "All mailers suck, but mutt sucks less"
> > and I guess I'd have to agree with that.
> > 
> > 	...Akkana
> 
> +1 for mutt.  I use it at home on mbox (and maildir IIRC) and at work
> over IMAP to an MS Exchange server.  No filtering or anything,
> doesn't even do SMTP (it expects a sendmail process locally to handle
> outgoing messages). I use procmail for filtering (or on-server rules
> for the Exchange server).
> 
> Conor
> 

I like pointy-clicky and pretty colors for some things. Mutt has its
advantages, though procmail makes me cry. Maildrop is a pretty cool
procmail alternative and is actually understandable by tired dumb old
people like me. Alpine is nice, though it makes me sad for the good old
days of Usenet.

The weird thing is support for different mail stores is inconsistent,
in fact it's downright bizarre. Icedove/Thunderbird only supports mbox.
Claws only supports mbox and mh. There is a Claws plugin for maildir I
will try even though they warn it is unmaintained and buggy. Import and
export tools in Linux mail clients are pitiful when they even exist--
mbox, mh, and maildir are standard formats that have been around
forever, seems that migrating should be a long-ago solved problem.
Prolly some third-party conversion tools out there for the hardy
hunter, musn't make it too easy!

Another weird inconsistency is a screen font resizer. Balsa and
Icedove use the standard ctrl ++/-- to resize the screen font,
Claws makes you edit the config file to change the actual font size.
Kmail lets you set different fonts for every window, though you can't
resize on the fly. Listen up younguns, old coots with bad eyes are
everywhere! And your time will come!!

Icedove's folder view is different as the default is to create a
new set of folders for each mail account. Though you can tweak that any
way you like.

Anne Wainright mentioned Pegasus-- I used to use it and I still miss
it. Eudora was super-nice too. Seems like in a lot of ways we've gone
backwards.

Kmail's handling of mailing lists is superb, better than any of these.

There might be an article in this, though it seems downright dinosaur
to even want to use a standalone POP mail client in these here modern
times. Maybe I'll have to do like Jennifer and code my own. After
learning how to code.

best,
Carla