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alecsargent @lemmy.zip

Reading Emails

Hello Lemmy, I would like to know how do you all read email.

  • What email clients (or web UI) do you use? And on what platform?
  • What is something you don't like from the client?
  • What is something you like from the client?
  • What is something you don't like from the email service?
  • What is something you like from the email service?.
  • Is there a feature you would like your client implemented?
  • Do you have any particular method or workflow of going through and extensive inbox?

If you have any other comment it would be appreciated as well.

On my computer I use the web interface and on my phone I use Thunderbird. One thing I do is to delete or archive any message that does not need any action, and it has been a blessing, my emails are so much easier to go through.

That's all, thank you in advance.

31 comments

  • Thunderbird on Linux and FairEmail on Android. I don't like Thunderbird's opt-out telemetry, I just haven't found something that works better for me at the moment on Linux. I have zero complaints about FairEmail. I like Thunderbird's fast and frequent updates, FairEmail's respect for privacy. I think both have the features I want. I just check my email on either when it is most convenient.

  • Thunderbird
    Search Index constantly breaking (fuck outlook)
    Good themes
    I am too removed from services to have too much an opinion
    Email always sucks. It is no longer what is was.
    I would like my client to fully support m365
    My inbox is kept tiny. Dont let it get big. Theres no reason for that.

  • Thunderbird

  • I use Thunderbird on both desktop (Linux) and mobile (Android). I currently have five accounts in a unified inbox:

    • Gmail (2 accounts): 'professional' one I give to people and the other one for generic account signups - currently migrating away from both of these.
    • Mailbox.org: the replacement for both my gmail accounts as mailbox.org allows aliases. They are completely EU based and don't sell your data. Costs a small fee of €15 a year.
    • Zoho: for my own domain which is public and attached to my various projects as a developer contact address
    • Microsoft 365 🤢: Had to add this one literally today because I'm going back to uni in September. Hate that they use microsoft, but thankfully the uni enabled IMAP/SMTP instead of only allowing Microsoft's proprietary OWA protocol.

    As for general usage, I treat my inbox like a to-do list. Once I've completed all tasks relating to an email, it gets deleted if it's not important or archived (usually if it's anything to do with money like a receipt or invoice). I usually only have at most 3-4 emails in my inbox at once.

    The only thing that annoys me about Thunderbird is that occasionally if I delete a message, it will leave a blank 'ghost' message where the old one used to be that has a date of 01/01/1970 which only goes away when the program is restarted.

    • I feel you, I also had to use either gmail or outlook in university. At the moment I'm trying to clean the mess of all the accounts I have signed up for.

  • Outlook classic for work. Outlook for iOS for work. Sometimes I use the iOS calendar for both work and personal. Personal is Gmail workspace web and iOS app.

    No complaints for outlook. Gmail isn’t snappy.

  • Outlook with a 365 account.
    Like about the application: The close button actually closes the application not minimising it to a tray icon.
    Dislike about the application: Vaguely gestures at it
    Dislike about the provider: it's run by M$
    Like about the provider: I don't have to deal with Exchange anymore.

  • mu4e with Emacs

    It's great because:

    • process a big bulk of emails quickly
    • renders emails in a consistent format, lowering mental overhead
    • can link to individual emails in my notes
    • many mail providers through the same interface
    • custom views crossing many (or some) mailboxes and providers
    • emails available offline
    • tracking pixels and the likes don't work
    • can search/filter through many mails quickly

    It's bad because:

    • requires Emacs, high learning curve
    • first setup was cumbersome for Gmail
    • rendering emails as text loses some information (rarely a problem, can view the email as html)
    • no backlink from email thread to my notes yet (should be ok to write)
    • I use another interface on mobile
    • I send emails as plain text which is weirdly rendered in some clients (mostly fine, emitting html possible)

  • I use https://port87.com/

    It’s great, because all my email is sorted into labels by address, and everyone I’ve given my email to has been given a different address. So basically, I’ll go into each label I care about, set it to show only unread and in reverse order, then click each one.

    It really works well for me, because mode switching is hard on me. When all my emails are placed in one inbox all mixed up, I get overwhelmed really quickly. So, having to only switch mental modes once I’m completely done with one sender’s emails is something I can manage a lot better.

    It also has labels that require a challenge, so when you give a real person your email, they can email you, but robots can’t.

    Full disclosure, I invented the delivery system for Port87, and I run the service.

  • What email clients (or web UI) do you use? And on what platform?

    Mail on iOS, macOS

    What is something you don't like from the client.

    Searching is difficult because you have to keep fighting with it.

    • What is something you like from the client.

    The UI, its ability to block remote content.

    What is something you don't like from the email service.

    I’m confused by this part, are you talking about the email client or email provider?

    I use primarily Gandi, and I don’t like their pricing model.

    What is something you like from the email.

    I love their spam headers and Sieve filtering.

    Is there a feature you would like your client implemented?

    Not really, most my problems with email come from how it’s implemented on various servers (lack of encryption) and its support for HTML rather than something more sane, like Markdown.

    Do you have any particular method or workflow of going through and extensive inbox?

    Not really, I just quickly work through the emails.

  • My ISP mail with a personal domain name in front. A self hosted roundcube web client for desktop use, thunderbird on my android phone.

    In case of client failure I still have the ISP web mail as a backup. With my own domain name and mail alias I can change provider at will.

    Oh yes and I run dovecot as an email backup on top of that.

  • Edison Email on Android for now.

    Don't like combined Inbox being default. Do like how fast it loads up and the rest of the GUI doesn't annoy me. Good dark theme.

    Betterbird on Desktop. Marginally better GUI options I care about over Thunderbird. Multi-line View. Linux/Windows. I like everything, no negatives.

    I use Runbox who've existed since 2000 out of Norway and a separate service for a domain name as my backend. Runbox has a comically outdated web GUI. Very web 1.0. Very slowly replacing it with Runbox version 7. I don't care as I never use the website except for creating sorting rules and email aliases.

    Mobile I mainly just use for 2factor on mobile so the app matters less since I infrequently use it. Main usage I'm still primarily a desktop user when it comes to dealing with my email. Runbox I set up to sort my email for me so Betterbird isn't doing much advanced stuff besides flagging Junk/Not Junk. Aliases are themed and I sign up for stuff with them, autosorted into dedicated folders for each alias. This also makes setting up on a new machine quick and simple.

  • Thunderbird on desktop Linux, no mail on mobile.

    I love the UI. Looks nice, feels nice and mostly functional.

    About the mostly:

    1. Search is terrible. Mail is listed in one way in "regular" display mode. As you search, the regular display gets filtered. Cool. But, as soon as you hit enter and commit to the search, for some godforsaken reason Thunderbird opens a new tab with your query. In some ugly (probably legacy) display. Oh, and sugar on top: the results are different than before hitting enter. Probably different by being completely empty. Apparently Thunderbird can't search.
    2. The address book and calendar are very lacking. They do look nice like the rest of the app, but the actual features availiable are so few and far between it's comical. I gave up on using that quickly.
    3. The tabs. I love them as a concept, but I don't get why having one tab would make the tab bar disappear, having two splits the bar into two giant tabs, and having a lot splits it into tiny, ewualky unmanageable tabs. Probably the remnants of a time long by, which i'll touch upon shortly.
    4. The new message window. Making it a modal (like on pretty much all web clients), with the additional option of popping it out (for example like Firefox handles videos, but with an icon in the taskbar) would be nice. Since i used Gmail web for 10+ years, I tend to forget about the half-written message somewhere beneath the other windows. Not a dealbreaker, but a bit annoying. Again, probably a remnant of simpler times.
    5. The folders. They're a bit hit or miss. Better than any web client I've used, but still with its own quirks. For example, making a new folder is easy. Moving or deleting one is next to impossible.
    6. The calendar notificantions. I don't want to use my mail client as a perpetually open calendar. Ideally, it'd have my appointments so I can jot new ones agreed in the e-mails I get and suggest new ones according to the schedule in the calendar. I do not need to be reminded of my appointments. Especially not when I check my mail a few times per day and reck up a few calendar entries in between mail checks. Getting bombarded by a (small) shower of notifications (on by default and boring as hell to remove from each entry manually) gets annoyig fast.

    Now for the likes:

    1. The filters. Simole yet quite powerful. While not as good as I'd hope (ideally doing first-pass triage for me), they're still something mail clients don't have. Great for filtering stuff into large categories and discarding old mail, with how old is too old being heavily category-dependant. Usually I don't use the "run automatically every" option. I feel it's overkill, and I like having a look before filtering, running filters when I feel is necessary. I also love to look at the filters run and the numbers on folders move. Very calming, unlike the calendar notifications.
    2. The privacy. Specifically, the option to disable fetching remote content (mostly images abd fonts). They're unnecessary, use up bandwidth and slow down loading, sure. But why I like it is that it removes the visual clutter of images, as well as rendering the text in a more "textbook" format, as opposed to a flyer. Useful for quickly glancing at the text and getting its meaning out fast, instead of having to decipher highly stylized bullshit.
    3. The "old-fashioned" way of dealig with (some) stuff. Tabs, calendar, search and address book get a fail in this regard. They shoukd be uodated and improved.

    3.1 I love the way Thunderbird asks you to compress your mailbox. In today's world of Electron apps not caring about anything, let alone storage space, Thunderbird (although being huge itself) still asks to compress your 40 MB mailbox, and tells you to how much it compressed it to. Is the telling you neccesary? No. But it is a nice touch.

    3.2 I love the way Thunderbird puts PGP signatures front and center. I also love the fact it tells you generating a pair if keys will last "a few minutes", when it's in fact seconds. While PGP has mostly been driven out by more modern stuff, I like its simplicity. Generate a new pair of keys whenever you want and sign with any amount of keys. But it's also powerful. The signature stays on-device by default. That's actually useful fir me to differentiate mail sent once in a blue moon from my phone or a public computer (no signature) or from Thunderbird. The ability to aslo encrypt with PGP is also nice. While I've never used it, it does seem like a good extra layer of privacy. For example, sending a private email from a monitored work account, or keeping stuff private from the mail provider (since the signature is client/device based).

    I use gmail. I'd absolutely love to jump ship, but it's just too ingrained in my life. I tried switching from it about three years ago, but didn't manage. I've already been using it for too long. While not longer than Thunderbird, i did use it consistently unkike Thunderbird (I've used Thunderbird in the early 2010s, but dropped it when I started using gmail), and for some reason I still don't use the new (or did I ever use the old Thubderbird) so much I'd consider myself intimately acquainted with it. Unlike gmail.

    Gmail is fine. It works. It has its quirks, to which I'm perfectly used to already. What I hate the most is opening the web client on a public PC every blue moon and having to go through new privacy popups and saying "No, thanks" wherevar it lets me. The Gemini stuff is also annoying. I want to write an e-mail, not have it do it for me with potebtially disasteous consequences. The privacy stuff is also a huge issue I'd like to tackle, but couldn't.

    But, if you asked me "I'm building my own web service with its client (web or ohberwise). What should I shamelessly rip off from the one you use?", my answer would be "The general look and feel (UX) of Gmail. However, not the new one. Maybe a 2016 or 2018 snapshot. Perhaps one or two older ones as well. Gmail is pretty much the mail sevice a lot of people use. The tech-unsavvy ones will adjust easier, and the tech-savvy ones woukd feel at home.

    As for my workflow: I check my email 2 to 5 times a day (while not on vacation), including weeknds. I have a bunch of filters set up. As I already said, I use Thunderbird desktop and run the filters manually. The first group of filters seperates stuff into categories. Stuff like "Bills", "Insurance", "Work" (further divided into "Meetings", various current projects, "HR stuff", "Payroll" etc). You get the idea. Bills also get their own subfolders. Each vendor/utility gets its own subfolder in Bills. Insurance is seperate from bills because it's a special can of worms that apparently needs special treatment. Oh, and there are a bunch of other main folders. Listing them all would take too much time and space.

    Inside of the main folder (e.g. Bills), each subfolder has its "new", "general", "paid", "unpaid", "old" abd "retained" subfolders. A bunch of filters look into the inbox and sort the appropriate new mail into the apropriate "new" folder. Mail in the "new" folder older than two weeks ia moved into the "general" folder, since if it's not paid, unpaid or old, it's clearly not important. Stuff from paid and general gets moved into old after a year. I do all deleting manually, since the volume of mail I get never required me to have filters for clearing mail altogether, just for sorting. When deleting, I usually open up the relevant old folder, have a quick glance at the mail subjects, select everything and delete. Every now and then I do get the odd mail I feel might be important. That gets moved manually into the retained folder by hand before purging. Rinse and repeat a similar process for the other main categories of mail.

    That's aboit it for my little disertation on my use of Thunderbird. As this ebtire thing was somehow typed up on my phone, pkease excuse all the misclicks and typos up there. I just can't be bothered to read all of that again. Sorry.

    1. Thunderbird Stable on Desktop (want to figure out nightly tho), TB Beta on Android.
    2. Hard to say, as I only ever used gmail as "alternative". On that, the TB search on a gmail is worse than gmail's own client's search.
    3. Compared to gmail, that it's much less corpo and much more customizable.
    4. My provider (me) has no password reset flow. I have to manually generate a new pw for an account with doveadm (postfix uses saslauth with dovecot for auth) and edit /etc/dovecot/users.
    5. Basically, I'm the most privacy preserving and flexible provider you can think of. Except that the gov and pigs now just have to question my domain to get my address for any email I send. But oh well.
    6. Skins. So it can eg. look like Outlook. Would help me switch my grandparents from M$ to FOSS. My grandpa is of the "it doesn't work, so an immediate screaming meltdown follows"-type, and my grandma survives solely on knowing which button is where, because she's almost blind.
    7. All services have their own address, so I can block whole services and default others to eg. spam. Helps me keep the traffic low, and know where an email slipped to spammers/scammers. Though, that never happened in the 1-2 years I'm using it. The only spam is PayPal and Twitch (will change that) telling me that one of my 10 or so subscriptions is going to renew soon.

  • i use seamonkey mail. it literally just works.

  • Mail.

    Like mail on the terminal.

    It works.

  • Dude, my email handling is a huge mess, no matter what angle we're looking at it.

    Let's start with my private email on my private devices, as I have full freedom of doing whatever the fuck I want:

    For more than 20 years up until about a year ago, my strategy was to keep everything in my inbox. That's it. No custom folders, no labels, no filters. And I had been using the web UI, as it was clean, convenient and the search function was good, I always found everything I needed. I only deleted those emails that didn't carry absolutely any value to me, like some promotions that didn't automatically end up in Spam. I kept even registration confirmations just so I know when exactly I signed up on a website. This worked very well. At some point I created another account at a different provider, just to be able to pick a username that didn't suck (as much as the previous one I made as a kid), and used that one for professional purposes only (job seeking basically).

    Then as my long and painful degoogling process started last year, I signed up to proton (I should've done tuta instead), and I decided I wanna be more organized, because I've read how cool it was. I created a few aliases strategically: one I'd never share with anyone else other than financial institutions (I blew it right away with PayPal, because PayPal does share it with all webshops where you pay with it), I made one for personal communication (friends and family only), and a few others. Also, for a while I wanted to keep my old accounts to make sure I won't miss changing my email somewhere important.

    So I ended up with a crazy lot of email addresses, therefore I started to use Thunderbird on desktop and on mobile, but on mobile I also have to use proton mail, because there's no proton bridge for mobile. But still, two email clients are manageable.

    And I also started to create a meticulously designed folder structure in all my accounts, plus set up filters for every kinds of emails I regularly receive. I processed thousands of emails, and there are tens of thousands more in my inbox, and I'm so damn drained of dealing with them, I basically gave up. Now I have a half-baked solution, everything is all over the place.

    I receive an email, I open it on my phone, but then I decide to deal with it later, and I forget to mark it unread. Then, when later comes, I try to open it on my computer, but I forgot which folder it was in (I have hundreds of folders by now), and it wasn't marked as unread, so it wasn't easy to spot. Also, generally, when I just receive an email, even if it's clearly marked as unread, it's still hard to spot, because the list is quite long on the left side when even just one account is not collapsed. I'd have to scroll a lot to actually see it.

    Also, there are many emails that could fit in multiple folders. I hate that so much.

    Thunderbird considerably slowed down due to the hundreds of filters, even though I have a pretty beefy desktop PC.

    At work I don't have much choice. We're using Outlook and it sucks so much. I tried to do the same organization there, and even though I have much fewer emails there, I sucked at it the exact same way. It's also a half-finished mess.

    On top of that, Outlook filters don't even work properly. You cannot apply the same condition twice within one filter (e.g. subject contains X AND subject contains Y), and those that I set up just simply stop working after a while. Some folders don't indicate the count of new messages, some do. It's the shittiest email software I've ever seen.

    Overall I really like Thunderbird, it's very flexible and it works well, I just suck at organizing my emails efficiently. Maybe I should just go back to the inbox-only mode, that one worked well.

  • I use Outlook - I have an M365 account. Actually, I have several, since I have accounts for all of my clients and they all use M365.

    New Outlook is terrible. It is like Microsoft asked themselves, is there a way to remove the most useful parts while poorly trying to mimic Google with a cartoon flair? And they were able to achieve this lofty goal.

    I use the old Outlook as a result and have figured it out well enough. I have several accounts in the app, which is nice. The search is terrible, but can be improved if you ask Copilot for search formulas. I can setup .oft templates so others can send mails I write. I can easily set up branded colors and fonts. So it is fine.

    Androids version of Outlook is shameful, but I have to use it.

    In terms of email management. I get somewhere between 75 and 150 each day, so I just tackle them as they come in. It I can't take action right away, I mark it unread so I come back to it later.

  • Mostly Mac Mail. Does what it says on the tin. Wish it had tagging support though. Flags aren’t descriptive enough.

31 comments