[GTALUG] what MUA do people like? Use?

[Giles Orr]

On Sun, 21 Mar 2021 at 11:57, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk
<talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
>
> | From: William Park via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> | Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:52:21 -0500
>
> | I'm beginning to like Thunderbird.  It replaces fetchmail, procmail, sendmail,
> | mutt, and vim for mailing.  I miss vim, though.
>
> I'm interested in improving my email routines.  I spend a lot of time
> with email so any improvement would be useful.
>
> So: what do you use?  Why?
>
> Here's my answer.  It is not a recommendationo.
>
> Most of us in this household use Alpine.  Thats a venerable text-based-GUI
> mail user agent.  I've been using Pine/Alpine since the early 1990s (when
> I switched from Berkeley mail (like mailx on Linux)).  As you can tell,
> I'm quite conservative.  I used to say that I changed MUAs every decade,
> but I'm behind now.
>
> Why do I like and stay with Pine?
> - inertia
> - modest subset of EMACS keystrokes
> - stable but well-maintained
> - works well through SSH
> - I'm very comfortable with it
> - has most features that I know that I want.
> - Alpine does not hold my mail hostage: ordinary UNIX text tools can get
>   at it.  (Alpine supports various formats but I use mbox.)
>
> Molly (my wife) uses Thunderbird.
> - she's used to WIMP GUIs
> - she does not use any advanced features
> - dislikes and avoids updates
>
> Thunderbird:
>
> - seems attractive
>
> - was busted by a Ubuntu update that I had to diagnose and back out of.
>   I pinned the version of Thunderbird and the library at fault.
>   Nothing said by Ubuntu folks convinces me that it is safe to unpin
>   (archived mail is very important).
>
> - I don't know how to export the Thunderbird mail archives (but I haven't
>   put my mind to the problem)
>
> - future looks precarious.  Mozilla seems to have cut the Thunderbird
>   project loose
>
> GMail:
>
> - seems to be taking over the world
>
> - I'm sometimes forced to use it.
>
> - runs well on smart phones
>
> - someone else does the maintenance
>
> - But: I want control over my mail.  I don't want it in the cloud.  I
>   don't want it to go through Google's hands (we run our own mailserver).
>
> - I want painless offline access to mail archives---
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I have two primary email accounts, one at Gmail and one at Protonmail
(Protonmail has free accounts: I like them enough that I'm paying for
their account, although on usability Gmail is definitely better ...).
I was intending to move entirely to Protonmail, I seem to have stalled
on that.

I have Thunderbird set up at home, primarily as a way to back up Gmail
and Protonmail to my hard drive: it's rare that I use Thunderbird as a
client, but it's always worked fine when I do.  Protonmail, because of
its encryption, requires a special "bridge" software to allow local
clients to access their mail server.  It's a lousy arrangement, but
does seem to work - and I bought into their service in part because of
that encryption.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com