Best Desktop Email Client?

OrangeWolf

Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
884
Hey all.

I've used Thunderbird in the past for my home computer, and I use Microsoft Outlook at work.

I want to manage 3-4x e-mail addresses at home, but here's the thing... I'd prefer it NOT download and store all my e-mails locally. I just installed two new hard drives and was looking in AppData for things to move to the updated computer, and noticed that Thunderbird had about 8gb of files hanging around.

I know that you can delete e-mails in Thunderbird and 'compact' it and it will delete them then, but I don't tend to delete e-mails, and I have thousands.

Is there a client that just organizes things for you but otherwise doesn't take up space on your desktop? I know this would have to be IMAP instead of POP3, but Thunderbird supports IMAP and still does this.

It's possible I just have the settings wrong, however. I've heard good things about EM Client & Inky, but I don't know enough about it to judge.
 
Webmail (Gmail), add POP accounts?
All three of the accounts I want to manage are Gmail, but I don't know how to set up Gmail to show me all three accounts at once like Thunderbird can do. It's gotten inconvenient to log in and out of gmail in a browser (and I'd prefer not to use a browser anyway).
 
For Thunderbird, have you tried messing with the Synchronization and Storage section in the account's settings? There's a setting right at the top for controlling messages.

Also make sure you have "allow windows search to search messages" unchecked in preferences or Thunderbird will create a copy of each message as an eml file, which basically causes Thunderbird to store each message twice on your drive.

Note also that with Gmail IMAP, you have an extra copy of each message for each label ("Inbox", labels you create) besides the one in the All Mail folder. You also have 2 copies of each sent message: one in the All Mail IMAP folder (as sent messages are part of a conversation in Gmail) and one in the "Sent Mail" folder.

For IMAP, when you move a message from one IMAP folder to another, that involves copying the message to the other folder, adding the \Deleted flag on the original and expunging the original. However, by default, Thunderbird doesn't expunge the original until you compact the folder. But, you can fix this in advanced -> general -> config editor in Thunderbird. Just set mail.imap.expunge_after_delete to true.

Thunderbird also only downloads attachments for messages on demand by default. There's a setting for it in te config editor. Search for parts_on_demand.

You can also right-click each IMAP folder, goto "properties" and change the setting on the synchronization tab.

You can further save some hard drive space by turning off the global search and indexer (advanced -> general in preferences).

However, it's really just a nicer experience to have all your messages cached in full (including attachments) on your computer. But, it's up to you.

Another thing you can do for Gmail IMAP is to uncheck "show in IMAP" for "All Mail" at mail.google.com so that Thunderbird doesn't see it and therefore doesn't download those copies. But, dragging/moving messages to "All Mail" is used for archiving messages (removing a label like "Inbox" for example). If "All Mail" isn't present, you can't really archive a message unless you change the delete setting in Thunderbird to just mark a message as deleted where you'd then press del to archive a message and dragh to [Gmail]/Trash" when you want to actually trash a message. You'd probably have to unset your Trash folder in the account's settings also.

As for doing all/any of that after your IMAP accounts have already been set up, you might have to unsubscribe and then resubscribe to each IMAP folder to get Thunderbird to rebuild the mbox files it uses to store the messages for each IMAP folder. Or, you could just remove the account and add it back in (but change all the settings you can before entering a password).
 
All three of the accounts I want to manage are Gmail, but I don't know how to set up Gmail to show me all three accounts at once like Thunderbird can do. It's gotten inconvenient to log in and out of gmail in a browser (and I'd prefer not to use a browser anyway).

You can be signed into more than 1 GMail account at a time and have them on separate browser tabs.

I routinely have 2-4 of them open while at work.

Sign into one of them, then click the icon in the top right and select "Add Account", then sign into the next one, and repeat for the third. Should give you three tabs, one with each account.

Assuming I'm understanding what you want correctly.
 
I'm a fan of Postbox, but it's just a heavily modified Thunderbird client. I suspect the issues described will be present in it as well.
 
I just use the Windows 10 Mail app. I know, I'm lame like that.
 
Forced to use outlook at work because #governmentemployee

It crushes my soul every time.
 
We switched to gmail two years ago at work.
I have kept using Outlook as email client - I actually like it a lot.
 
What, Outlook 2003? 2016 is awesome.
I can see it from the POV of someone who comes from a simpler email client, like Outlook Express. Regular Outlook was always bloated, with too much UI dedicated to non-email tasks.

Of course, if one did not have too much email, then anything works equally well. Outlook used to choke on 5+ GB of email archives (among other issues), whereas OE stored every email as an individual text file. I think they have since resolved the problem with Outlook.
 
I'm a big fan of Outlook 2016, but all I use (home and personal) are Exchange accounts.
 
You can be signed into more than 1 GMail account at a time and have them on separate browser tabs.

I routinely have 2-4 of them open while at work.

Sign into one of them, then click the icon in the top right and select "Add Account", then sign into the next one, and repeat for the third. Should give you three tabs, one with each account.

Assuming I'm understanding what you want correctly.
+1 to this. Have business Gmail on one monitor, personal on another monitor. :)
 
I vote for Lotus Notes.

No I don't. I hate Lotus Notes.

We use Outlook 2016 at work and at home for my 3 email accounts. Its adequate. For gmail I just use the web interface.
 
I vote for Lotus Notes.

No I don't. I hate Lotus Notes.

We use Outlook 2016 at work and at home for my 3 email accounts. Its adequate. For gmail I just use the web interface.
I don't even know why Lotus Notes is even around, that program has been garbage since inception. Yet, IBM still loves it. :dunno:
 
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