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by sebastian 3110 days ago
Even though Mutt, Alpine, Sup and Notmuch might work great for some people they seem to be accessible only from a terminal, emacs, etc and very text heavy. As much as I love spending time on the terminal, I prefer a GUI app for my email.

Postbox unfortunately doesn't support Linux, besides that while I don't mind paying licences for great software, it doesn't look like Postbox is fully opensource [1].

[1] https://www.postbox-inc.com/coveredcode
1 comments
nine_k 3110 days ago
BTW what makes you prefer GUI over text almost-GUI? My experience with email is that it's 99% text.

I use gmail because of the labels (no, folders are inadequate), full-text search, and the fact that it runs in browser which I keep always open anyway. I wish there was a comparable open-source solution.

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dalai 3109 days ago
> BTW what makes you prefer GUI over text almost-GUI? My experience with email is that it's 99% text.

For me it is the fact that setting up a GUI client takes 10 minutes and learning to use it even less. If it was the same with mutt, I would switch in a heartbeat.

I tried gnus and mutt in the past, but gave up on them after a few days. I was spending too much time tweaking the config, trying to remember shortcuts or googling how to get it to work the way I wanted to. IIRC even displaying Greek with an ok font was a problem on gnus. That was 10+ years ago, could be that the documentation is better now and a good-enough setup is easier to achieve.

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dsr_ 3108 days ago
My experience is that mutt is a tool which rewards the learning process with massively improved productivity.

By way of contrast, people who use Outlook or Thunderbird feel comfortable in ten minutes, but they never make much progress.

If you deal with a lot of email, using the right tools is important. If email is not your primary communications method, there's no point in putting in the time to learn more advanced tools.

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busterarm 3110 days ago
Mail that gmail sends isn't actually plaintext! ;)

If you use a not-busted mail client (like mentioned above) you can actually participate in project mailinglists.

TUI clients are where it's at.

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Tharkun 3109 days ago
> 99% text

I wish. My mailbox is 80% attachments or embedded image nonsense.

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