email revisited

[ThaMan]

I know we've discussed e-mail clients in the past, but that was on the old boards. I've just installed Windows 7, and I forgot to backup my e-mail. I backed up everything else, twice ;) Oh well.

Since I have to start from scratch, I am debating on replacing Thunderbird with something else.

What is everyone using, that they are happy with?

I used to use Pegasus, and liked it, but they don't update very often, so when I stopped using it, the features were limited. I want something that will be updated frequently to keep up with new features.

[Jormagund]

What're your complaints with Tbird? Don't recall what/if you may have said about it in the past. I exclusively use Gmail at this point, and find it integrates quite nicely. I'm certainly not opposed to new product, but there'd need to be some genuine advantage for me.

[ThaMan]

I don't really have any problems with Thunderbird. If I had to name a complaint, my only complaint would be that you can't search through all your e-mail boxes at once. You have to choose them individually, unless you mix them all into one folder. That sux.

I do use Copernic though, so it's not that big of a deal.

As far as gmail is concerned, I don't consider that a real email package. Webmail is not e-mail to me. Plus I use my own domain names.

[Enosh]

honestly? I've given up on desktop email clients... both gmail, hotmail and yahoo have excellent webmail interfaces and gmail's now supports offline usage using Google Gears.

You can also, for free, use gmail to back end the mail on your own domain up to a certain number of users and $50/user/year beyond. (I think the user count is 100).

If you're really in the mood for desktop email I would look at either thunderbird or windows live mail. I'm leaning more towards windows live mail myself for those few times when I want a desktop mail experience.

[Avalloc]

I've been using TheBat! for my email and freaking LOVE it. Easily manages multiple accounts with each having own folders for inbox, plus you can setup nice filters too. I've got Antispam Sniper plugin too, which works well with it. :)

[Namoric]

Been playing around with Windows Live Mail - works well with 3 seperate email accounts (hotmail, gmail and my ISP). Like TheBat (which I haven't tried yet) handles all 3 accounts seperately with independant inboxes as well as one box for an overview of all of it.

And I'll go ahead and say it "but it's micro$oft blah blah blah"

[Kheldin]

I could see the frustration with email clients, especially if one is still tied to using POP3... man.. its so irritating.

I also agree web mail isn't real email.. plus all it does is give free advertising to whatever company you go with. Looks lame on business cards too..

I still use TBird using all IMAP accounts.. don't ever have to worry about backing up my email, but when my client connects, it does in fact pull down a copy of the message locally for offline viewing/redundancy though.

I'd say if it's possible, get off POP3 (if your using it) and on to IMAP.. TBird handles IMAP hands down better than any client out there.

I host an up to date mail server that supports both SSL POP3 and IMAP and SSL SMTP. Would be happy to host the MX part of a domain if your looking for a good, secure IMAP server to use.

[Mykos]

I use windows live email client like Nam and have really had no issues to speak of. I have three separate accounts as well and it works just fine. Plus all contacts are stored online, so if I add one at work, its added for me to use at home or on the road as well.

[ThaMan]

Looks lame on business cards too..That right there hits the nail on the head. I can't believe how many businesses out there, even computer businesses, use Yahoo.com, gmail.com etc. as their main e-mail address.

Tell you one thing, in my world, if I go to buy something from you, and you aren't professional enough to have your own domain, at least for an e-mail address, then you don't get my business. Period.

[Enosh]

That right there hits the nail on the head. I can't believe how many businesses out there, even computer businesses, use Yahoo.com, gmail.com etc. as their main e-mail address.

Tell you one thing, in my world, if I go to buy something from you, and you aren't professional enough to have your own domain, at least for an e-mail address, then you don't get my business. Period.

can't argue with that, but with an apps account you can have your gmail AND a professional sounding domain for your business. :)

I'm a google whore I know :P The problem is I WANT to use Windows Live services, but gmail is just too good :)

[Jerith|Tony]

Windows Live Mail.

[Jormagund]

Here is a question about IMAP v. POP3 and the ability to sync mail with my iPhone.

I use Thunderbird and would prefer to continue doing so. I have three email addresses... two are Gmail, and the third is my .edu for school. I currently have them all set up and working just fine on both my laptop and my iPhone. Prior to upgrading to Win7, I was using POP3 to handle the mail. That was fine. Since the upgrade I've changed to IMAP. I have no particular reason why aside from generally hearing that it was "better". Fine. But here is my current issue:

I have numerous local folders used for sorting mail. Advertisements go to one folder, receipts go to another, love letters from Neve Campbell to yet another, and so on. As before with POP3, this works just fine with the IMAP setup. The problem occurs when I happen to FIRST read messages on my iPhone. With the old POP3 setup, even if I read my mail on the phone... when I would later use my laptop the same messages would download and follow the filter instructions going to their appropriate folders. But now when using IMAP it seems that reading them on the phone means that once they are downloaded onto my laptop they DON'T filter into the folders. They just sit in the inbox. Any fix for this? Is there any real reason I should be using IMAP? Am I better off just going back to POP3 to obtain the behavior I'm looking for?

[ThaMan]

That is the advantage of IMAP. Once you read it on one device, it shows up read on all devices. You could mark it "Unread" on your iPhone, and that would fix the problem. I think it is a Thunderbird issue. I don't think Outlook does this, but I'm not sure, because I use Thunderbird as my main e-mail as well. I hope they do a complete overhaul on Thunderbird soon. There are too many quirky little annoyances with Thunderbird, IMHO.

[Jormagund]

I agree that it is probably a shortcoming in Thunderbird. The only thing that comes to mind to correct this is what I am about to TRY. Hopefully this will work...

I'm going to remove all of my filters in Thunderbird, and create filters in Gmail instead. I suspect that this will correct the issue, but the downside is that I cannot consolidate messages from different email accounts into one common folder (ie - Advertisements).

[Freejack]

The problem occurs when I happen to FIRST read messages on my iPhone. With the old POP3 setup, even if I read my mail on the phone... when I would later use my laptop the same messages would download and follow the filter instructions going to their appropriate folders. But now when using IMAP it seems that reading them on the phone means that once they are downloaded onto my laptop they DON'T filter into the folders. They just sit in the inbox. Any fix for this? Is there any real reason I should be using IMAP? Am I better off just going back to POP3 to obtain the behavior I'm looking for?
That's not how IMAP is supposed to work, so there's a problem somewhere. Basically, everything should be identical across all clients in terms of the folders, mail in each folder, and the read/unread status of each message. It seems more likely that it's the iPhone that isn't syncing status back to the server, though that doesn't explain why Thunderbird isn't applying the filters (which should actually be applied at the server). So that raises the question, where are your filters located? Are they client filters or server filters?

[Jormagund]

That's not how IMAP is supposed to work, so there's a problem somewhere. Basically, everything should be identical across all clients in terms of the folders, mail in each folder, and the read/unread status of each message. It seems more likely that it's the iPhone that isn't syncing status back to the server,

I did check out the Gmail FAQ regarding IMAP and the instructions specific to iPhone. I already had it set up the way it instructed.


...though that doesn't explain why Thunderbird isn't applying the filters (which should actually be applied at the server). So that raises the question, where are your filters located? Are they client filters or server filters?

The several dozen filters I have are set up within Thunderbird. So since this issue exists, it's obvious they are client-only filters. I'm going through each of them now and re-creating them on the Gmail web page and then deleting the corresponding filter in T'Bird. It's a pain in the ass, but hopefully the only time I'll ever have to go through this again. Even if my computer were to explode, everything should remain intact @ Gmail.

[ThaMan]

The other problem that it could be is, if you have the filters set up in Thunderbird, and move the e-mails to a folder outside the IMAP server, it will not be consistent on the iPhone, etc. The way I get around that is, I never close my Thunderbird app on my desktop, and the computer is always on.