Email Clients - where to start....

[cmr_for3]

I've never really bothered with one before (just use web based Hotmail, now Outlook) I am however creating a folder which contains research links and other things of interest and would like to be able to back this up for offline use should something go wrong with the web based version. Is this something mail clients offer? I'm out of the loop on this.

I briefly used Thunderbird years ago but saw no need for me to keep using it. I also though it was slightly awkward for spam as the default way thunderbird was set up would display part of the spam message in the lower display pain whilst you deleted it, potentially exposing you to risky links (that shows my lack of knowledge at the time I suspect!)

Any advice/recommendations for clients appreciated!

[Frances_iom]

Any advice/recommendations for clients appreciated!

Thunderbird - links are only dangerous if followed - never ever (esp on Windoze) machine allow auto loading or similar - plain text is harmless

If you want to give private detail away then gmail + windoze offerings may mean you get more relevant adverts on your machine

[cmr_for3]

Thunderbird - links are only dangerous if followed - never ever (esp on Windoze) machine allow auto loading or similar - plain text is harmless

If you want to give private detail away then gmail + windoze offerings may mean you get more relevant adverts on your machine

Thanks for the tip - Thunderbird is on my list. I understand it is no longer being developed which is a shame.

[Dave2002]

This is interesting, as I've been going the other way! Not from choice, but because of some recent computer disasters.

Email clients can offer a lot - including local folders - to keep copies of emails, and filtering. They can also work with rules to automatically put some email in folders. Apple mail also has smart folders, which don't copy the emails, but effectively file them. A single email can be several (many) smart folders. I think Windows does have mail systems which do this kind of thing too. One thing which concerns me about smart folders is that I think they rely heavily on local search operations, and do slow things down, but often the smart folders are a life saver for finding older emails, though sometimes a multi-pronged attack is needed to find an email which has been buried in years of electronic correspondence.

I am finding at the moment that using Gmail in web browsers causes more pain than I'd anticipated, whereas I used to find it very manageable in mail clients.

I'm not sure I can offer specific advice. You mention Thunderbird - I think that is one of the better ones. I've been using one called Spark for a month or two now - which seemed a good idea at the time. It's not bad, but I'm not really happy with it. Despite some problems, I generally have preferred Apple mail. If you are on a PC, then I think there are Windows emall clients which work quite well. When I used to use Windows, I nearly always used a mail client, rather than webmail, but I'm not sure what the current flavour of the month is in that environment.

[cmr_for3]

This is interesting, as I've been going the other way! Not from choice, but because of some recent computer disasters.

Email clients can offer a lot - including local folders - to keep copies of emails, and filtering. They can also work with rules to automatically put some email in folders. Apple mail also has smart folders, which don't copy the emails, but effectively file them. A single email can be several (many) smart folders. I think Windows does have mail systems which do this kind of thing too. One thing which concerns me about smart folders is that I think they rely heavily on local search operations, and do slow things down, but often the smart folders are a life saver for finding older emails, though sometimes a multi-pronged attack is needed to find an email which has been buried in years of electronic correspondence.

I am finding at the moment that using Gmail in web browsers causes more pain than I'd anticipated, whereas I used to find it very manageable in mail clients.

I'm not sure I can offer specific advice. You mention Thunderbird - I think that is one of the better ones. I've been using one called Spark for a month or two now - which seemed a good idea at the time. It's not bad, but I'm not really happy with it. Despite some problems, I generally have preferred Apple mail. If you are on a PC, then I think there are Windows emall clients which work quite well. When I used to use Windows, I nearly always used a mail client, rather than webmail, but I'm not sure what the current flavour of the month is in that environment.

Thanks for the tips Dave. I think I shall ask Reddit about the "new Thunderbird" equivalent. Reddit is the only social media site I recommend - It's knowledge being 2nd to this place!

[Dave2002]

I installed Thunderbird recently on one of our machines, as I wanted to see if I could use it to send out a message to a group. It didn't work for that - probably because of ISP blocks - but in other ways it was fine. Even if it is not being actively updated, it may be sufficiently mature to suit your needs. It's probably worth a try anyway. I think it is one of the better ones.

I was shocked a bit earlier today - with the Gmail snooping. I tried to send out an email with a section forwarded from someone else, which happened to refer to an "attachment" in the text. Gmail (browser based) didn't send it straight away, but "warned" me that there wasn't an attachment. I realy don't like the way Gmail takes it upon itself to "make my life easier" by putting in text before I've written it, and the latest snoop really bothered me. Perhaps other people don't mind and find this helpful, but I don't like the notion that some organisation is mapping out all my keystrokes and words "in my own interests"!

[gurnemanz]

I used Thunderbird for several years when email first came in and found it very good. Not being totally au fait at time with settings and how things worked, I had not realised that it was deleting emails on the server when they were downloaded. I think in the early days it was set to do so by default, since at the time the allocated server storage space was not as massive as it is now. I tend to prefer to leave them on the server. It might be worth checking out this setting if you have a preference. Not great shakes but I did lose some older mails I might have liked to refer back to. I have since got into the habit of only using webmail.

[Dave2002]

I used Thunderbird for several years when email first came in and found it very good. Not being totally au fait at time with settings and how things worked, I had not realised that it was deleting emails on the server when they were downloaded. I think in the early days it was set to do so by default, since at the time the allocated server storage space was not as massive as it is now. I tend to prefer to leave them on the server. It might be worth checking out this setting if you have a preference. Not great shakes but I did lose some older mails I might have liked to refer back to. I have since got into the habit of only using webmail.

Some people like to delete email as soon as received and read, others don't. Sadly (???) I"m one of the latter. I may have inadvertently deleted a mailbox a few days ago, and it's an account I don't use any more. However, I can see most of the headings using Time Machine, and I think I've got all the downloaded email from that one on another machine.

Some people I know use a rule to forward a copy of each incoming mail (perhaps suitably filtered) to another email account, so there's usually a backup. There are ways of making these things work. Another way is to forward more important emails to yourself using another email account.

One thing to watch out for is whether your email client hides or archives messages if it thinks you've already read them. Some even delete them, so you will need to test and check the settings to make sure they're working as you want. I don't like systems which try to be too clever, but ones which are too stupid aren't much fun, either.

I do prefer a decent email client to webmail, as a rule.

[cmr_for3]

Some people like to delete email as soon as received and read, others don't. Sadly (???) I"m one of the latter. I may have inadvertently deleted a mailbox a few days ago, and it's an account I don't use any more. However, I can see most of the headings using Time Machine, and I think I've got all the downloaded email from that one on another machine.

Some people I know use a rule to forward a copy of each incoming mail (perhaps suitably filtered) to another email account, so there's usually a backup. There are ways of making these things work. Another way is to forward more important emails to yourself using another email account.

One thing to watch out for is whether your email client hides or archives messages if it thinks you've already read them. Some even delete them, so you will need to test and check the settings to make sure they're working as you want. I don't like systems which try to be too clever, but ones which are too stupid aren't much fun, either.

I do prefer a decent email client to webmail, as a rule.

Good point you raise there Dave. I'm awful at deleting email (I do not as a rule, I like to keep proofs etc) this will be a storage issue so careful thought is needed.

[Dave2002]

I think I solved one problem today on my laptop. Over the last few months using the Apple Mail client with gmail has presented huge problems, as it tried to download vast quantities of previous email. This has been such a problem that I have had to use webmail on my laptop, but it's not very good.

I did a search today for other possible systems, and it seems that both Seamonkey and Thunderbird are still viable. I installed Thunderbird some while back to do with trying to send mail to a user group, but today I revisited Thunderbird, and set it up so that it would only synchronise the last 30 days of mail. It was slightly worrying noticing the message that I could give Thunderbird the ability to delete ALL my mail, but in the end I decided to risk that. When it was connected to Gmail it looked at first as though it was going to scan, and download all the email from around 2005, which was the problem with the Apple Mail client, but in fact it looks as though it did the scan, but has only copied the messages from the last month across, and it hasn't completely crashed the machine by using up all the backing store.

At some stage I might still be able to fix Apple Mail, which in some ways I still prefer, but being able to access this mail easily without having to go via web pages is a big improvement.

[cmr_for3]

I think I solved one problem today on my laptop. Over the last few months using the Apple Mail client with gmail has presented huge problems, as it tried to download vast quantities of previous email. This has been such a problem that I have had to use webmail on my laptop, but it's not very good.

I did a search today for other possible systems, and it seems that both Seamonkey and Thunderbird are still viable. I installed Thunderbird some while back to do with trying to send mail to a user group, but today I revisited Thunderbird, and set it up so that it would only synchronise the last 30 days of mail. It was slightly worrying noticing the message that I could give Thunderbird the ability to delete ALL my mail, but in the end I decided to risk that. When it was connected to Gmail it looked at first as though it was going to scan, and download all the email from around 2005, which was the problem with the Apple Mail client, but in fact it looks as though it did the scan, but has only copied the messages from the last month across, and it hasn't completely crashed the machine by using up all the backing store.

At some stage I might still be able to fix Apple Mail, which in some ways I still prefer, but being able to access this mail easily without having to go via web pages is a big improvement.

Thanks for the info Dave. I do need to revisit Thunderbird. Sounds like the way to go. Please you have made some headway with your issues as I know you have had some frustrating email episodes.