Best mail manager?????

[Dean Calvert]

I've used Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird and now Mailbird.  Was thinking to try Postbox, but haven't been impressed with the comments here.

Does anyone have a recommendation for the BEST mail manager?  I haven't been impressed with anything since leaving Eudora (including my current Mailbird).  Seems like the 20 year old Eudora would still run circles around all of them!

Thoughts?

[S Tyler]

I'm really not sold on Postbox myself yet.  Very worried since it appears to copy from Thunderbird so much.  My main concern is if PB will handle the adaptive junk settings since TB seems to fail on them over time.

I've also got The Bat!.  Can't remember why I'm not using it right off-hand.  I'll have to give it a shot again.  I do know it's very "long-winded".  LOTS of options...not necessarily a good thing.

[David Kirk]

Well, it's a tough question. Thunderbird is planning a major release in July, Thunderbird 115 SuperNova. This is a serious rewrite of a lot of old code and the interface has many enhancements. So far, I'm impressed with what I've seen. Much yet to be done, but it will no longer have the same look and feel as Postbox (which is a fork of Thunderbird). My dear spouse still uses Eudora, but I would never go back to it. TheBat is tremendously powerful, does everything but pour coffee. But it's a steep learning curve because of that flexibility. You might want to try that, or wait for the next Thunderbird release.

[dor...@bluehattery.com]

I, too, still miss Eudora and would switch back in a heartbeat if it were revived. But I've been reasonably satisfied with Postbox since I switched a few years ago. It can do most of what I need and want as a very heavy email user, and I really like its templates and my ability to insert pre-written replies easily.

For me the one thing Postbox cannot do that drives me crazy is schedule emails to be sent at a future date/time, or (related) add a universal delay before sending all emails (like, I hit Send and the email actually sends 3 minutes later). The last email application I tried (Thunderbird, I think?) could do that, and my understanding is that Gmail can. When I switched to Postbox, I incorrectly thought Postbox had that same feature. Only after switching did I realize that I think older versions of Postbox could do that, but current versions no longer can.

I was intrigued by the mention of TheBat above, but bummed to see it is only for Windows. I'm a Mac person here...

[Bryan Smith]

Hello David,

Responding to your message of Sun, 26 Mar 2023 11:52:17 -0400:

Eudora still works fine.

I have used T'bird (with add-ons) since Adam was a lad, and trialled many other mail clients because it has been through some difficult periods during that time. I am looking forward to the rewrite, (I think) although I am more interested in capabilities than how pretty it looks. I would be unhappy if it lost the ability to mailmerge, for instance.

PostBox doesn't seem to change much.

Some years ago I had great hopes for EmClient but it was so buggy at that time that I eventually just gave up!

--
Best regards,
Bryan Smith

[Dean Calvert]

Don't mind a long learning curve, as long as the system is powerful enough to do what I want. I'm a heavy email user - it's the primary source of communication for me with two different organizations.

 In hindsight, the searching functions of Eudora were exceptional (sounds like a stupid thing...but it's true).  Mailbird can't come anywhere close, and they don't seem to have the ability to improve.

I'll try The Bat!  hadn't heard of that one.  

Thanks!

On Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 9:59:07 PM UTC-4 S Tyler wrote:

[Dean Calvert]

dsk...@gmail.com

10:28 AM (7 hours ago) 

to Postbox Discussion

Well, it's a tough question. Thunderbird is planning a major release in July, Thunderbird 115 SuperNova. This is a serious rewrite of a lot of old code and the interface has many enhancements. So far, I'm impressed with what I've seen. Much yet to be done, but it will no longer have the same look and feel as Postbox (which is a fork of Thunderbird). My dear spouse still uses Eudora, but I would never go back to it. TheBat is tremendously powerful, does everything but pour coffee. But it's a steep learning curve because of that flexibility. You might want to try that, or wait for the next Thunderbird release.

Both great suggestions.  Thank you!  

On Sunday, March 26, 2023 at 10:28:21 AM UTC-4 dsk...@gmail.com wrote:

[TonyV]

Eudora was great. I've tried many email clients since and haven't found one that's better than PostBox. That's not to say PostBox is great. I have a Google suite subscription for my email backend and I go back to gmail to do searches because for some reason PostBox can't find old emails, but gmail can. PostBox doesn't seem too responsive to suggestions. One thing that is other email clients do is show the details of meeting invitations such as date, time, and any notes. Postbox doesn't, I have to use another app.  

[Bryan Smith]

David, you are so right about this. T'bird is a treasure created and maintained by hundreds of generous dedicated and talented coders who gave their time for free. It also, imho, happens to be an excellent mail client. Although not without its problems, it has for many years been the most comprehensive and useful - indeed the best mail client - and deserves to be so again.

I've had a Postbox licence for many years and it is always on my desktop along with Thunderbird and Betterbird. I rarely use Postbox because it is just a pared-down version of Thunderbird and Betterbird just sits on top of Thunderbird. Postbox and Betterbird owe their existence to Thunderbird and use the same mail folders.

TheBat! has the appearance of Thunderbird on steroids - and there's nowt wrong with that, but their pricing record/policy is indefensible. As for Mailbird and the rest, they offer nothing in the way of functionality for the serious email user.

If the new T'bird team achieves what we hope and expect with Supernova, I (and no doubt many others), will be happy to commit to a modest annual licence fee. It should be part of the offer - a sensible fixed but optional fee for registered users.

And as you say, David, it even (partly) supports emdash which Micro$oft tried to destroy all those years ago by eliminating trailing spaces. How reprehensible was that?!

On Monday, 27 March 2023 at 20:40:33 UTC+1 dsk...@gmail.com wrote:

I would have stayed with Postbox, but when I reported (and they acknowledged) a serious problem for office365/exchange email back in 2021 that is not yet fixed, I sensed it was time to leave. What is a super feature of TheBat is that they have a ticket system wherein users can file support tickets that are answered by salaried members of development staff. Nobody else, to my knowledge, offers such service. If you file a problem ticket, you get it resolved, not by well-meaning volunteers, but by the very people who write the code. Of course, there is a cost for that. You must renew every 2 or 3 years. For now, I’m very pleased with Thunderbird and looking forward to the ‘Supernova’ release in summer. :) It does all I want, even supporting emdash. It’s all about personal preferences. Regards to you.

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david kirk   dsk...@gmail.com

[Dean Calvert]

I guess I am in the minority, but I struggled with Thunderbird for about 3 months.  I found it very cumbersome and clunky.  Granted, I was trying to use it in a POP, not IMAP, mode.  In that situation, I was always waiting for the system to download messages.  

I finally gave up and moved on to Mailbird. While there are definitely weaknesses with Mailbird, I found it superior to Thunderbird, although still not as good as Eudora.

As you stated - it's all about personal preferences!

I'm excited to hear T-bird is doing a major rewrite.  perhaps that will fix my issues with it.

In the meantime, I've already looked into TheBAT!!!  Going to give it some very careful consideration.

Thank you all for your VERY constructive comments!!!

[S Tyler]

As David said, The Bat!'s support staff are great.  Since switching back to it again, after trying T'bird, Betterbird and PostBox, I'm getting a little more comfortable with it's structure.  But, I've had a few instances where I didn't understand something.  Tech support has gotten back to me within a day, pretty much always solving my issue on their first reply.  You get what you pay for.

On Monday, March 27, 2023 at 12:40:33 PM UTC-7 dsk...@gmail.com wrote:

I would have stayed with Postbox, but when I reported (and they acknowledged) a serious problem for office365/exchange email back in 2021 that is not yet fixed, I sensed it was time to leave. What is a super feature of TheBat is that they have a ticket system wherein users can file support tickets that are answered by salaried members of development staff. Nobody else, to my knowledge, offers such service. If you file a problem ticket, you get it resolved, not by well-meaning volunteers, but by the very people who write the code. Of course, there is a cost for that. You must renew every 2 or 3 years. For now, I’m very pleased with Thunderbird and looking forward to the ‘Supernova’ release in summer. :) It does all I want, even supporting emdash. It’s all about personal preferences. Regards to you.

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david kirk   dsk...@gmail.com

On 3/27/2023 12:01 PM, TonyV wrote:

[Bryan Smith]

Yes, dmca, I struggled a bit for the first year or so with Thunderbird - a full-featured mail client is bound to take some learning - but that was about thirty years ago!

[david kirk]

Yes, that’s a major feature of TheBat. Tech support is staffed by salaried employees who know the code. I am not aware of any other email client that provides support of this quality. License upgrades are roughly every 2-3 years, at roughly $25 range. Out-of-date verstions still work, but are not eligible for tech support. For my use, TheBat was overkill. I’m staying with Thunderbird. Discovering Postbox’s inability to properly handle Office365/Rxchange was when I left it.

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david kirk   dsk...@gmail.com

[S Tyler]

I know this topic has slowed down lately, but I thought I'd pop back in and give my 2¢ now that I've used The Bat! more.

The more and more I use it, the more and more I like it.  I can't remember what the original price was I paid for my license, but that and the $17 to upgrade to the latest version is well worth it.

Yeah, I've had to set up all my mail filters again because they didn't import over, but that's not a very big inconvenience.  But my address books did import easily.

It does taking some getting used to because it's not as user-friendly for customizing the "ribbon" and such at the top.  The way they go about it is VERY confusing.  Instead of dragging and dropping from a screen of icons like Thunderbird and Postbox, The Bat! makes you go through their menu setup, kind of like you would in Excel if your were customizing things there.  And getting used to the different terminology they're using for something similar in Firefox takes a bit of learning.

But, I haven't had it fail to download messages on schedule like TB tends to do quite regularly.  In Firefox, when it did that, I had to shut it down and restart...and that didn't always cure it.

I do have some issues getting The Bat!'s spam filtering to work, but that's just going to take a little time to figure out...when I feel like it.

And, as has been mentioned, their customer service is top-notch!  Typically, I get answers within a day.

All-in-all, The Bat! seems to be a much more stable client.  The only time it has crashed on me is when I'm customizing, for some reason.  I'll have to let them know that's happening.

If you want quality, buy a license for The Bat!  If you want mediocrity and instability, stay with Thunderbird and the knock-offs.

Just my 2¢.

[S Tyler]

Now for the latest...

I'm still loving The Bat!.

The only thing I'm stuck on now is the antispam setup.  You have to install an app from other developers in order to get spam filtering.  The only one I've found that has been kept up on with updates is AntispamSniper.  And it's a b!tch to get working.  I'm going to give up on that part of it and start a spam filter of my own.  Not as effective, I know, but at least it'll get rid of all of the repeat offender emails...especially all of those supposedly from politicians running for re-election.

But, other than that, in my opionion, The Bat! is the best one.

[david kirk]

I’m pleased you’re happy. It took me over a year to figure out how to create a menu option to allow highlighting part of a message and doing ‘reply all.’ For me, it was the little things that Thunderbird does that are so hard in TheBat! that keeps me away. Anyway, happy sailing to you. :)

---------------------
david kirk

[S Tyler]

Yeah, I just with the The Bat! developers would have taken the time to work up a decent spam/junk handler.  That AntispamSniper is a royal pain in the...

When the revamped T-bird comes out, I'll give it a try again.  Hope;fully, they've put some effort into their spam processing.

[Dean Calvert]

@ S Tyler - I'm still stuck on the setup of the system itself.  The BAT's support has been very nice, but has been unable to help me get the thing working.

Has anyone else had this problem with THEBAT?  It downloads just fine....moves along thru the installation.  Comes to one final popup message (something about THE BAT has detected protocals....) and then stops...dead in the water.

[S Tyler]

Sorry, I don't recall that message coming up when I installed it.  If I'd had issues setting it up from the beginning, I definitely wouldn't have purchased the license.  Mine's running fine.  The most confusing part is the antispam addon.

[S Tyler]

Back to reviewing The Bat!.  I'm thinking I'm going to be going back to Tbird.

I know I complained about Tbird's anti-spam issues, but The Bat!'s antispam addon is a pain in the butt to figure out.  On the plus side, it seems that the license I bought for the addon many years ago is still valid.

Aside from the addon being too confusing, another issue I'm having with The Bat! is setting up my own spam filters.  It's easy enough to do, but, once my list of spam to filter for got too long, as I'm adding to the list it scrolls through my whole list.  This wasn't so bad when it was just a few more than what was visible in the filter settings window.  Once I got well past that, I have to sit and wait EVERY TIME I add a new entry.  It's taking about 10-15 seconds each time.  I know that's not very long, but it is when you take into consideration how much spam comes into our inboxes every day.  Setting up the filters to catch them all now becomes a tedious task.  And I seriously doubt that's something their tech team can fix in one or two emails.

A secondary issue that has come up by doing it this way is that it wanted to keep putting the same four, safe emails from the same sender into the junk folder.  The reason I noticed it was because I always look through my junk folder to make sure nothing slipped in that shouldn't have.  This time, I saw that four emails from 23andme kept filtering in and out of the junk folder.  I cleared the folder's cache and even exited and restarted The Bat!, but that only made it stop the "in and out" filtering.  Now it's just a problem, as I mentioned, of those emails being put back into the junk folder every time I move them back to their own folder.

So, I'd have to say that The Bat! and Tbird would be my favorite choices, but Tbird is taking the lead now.

[david kirk]

Sounds like you have had an interesting experience with The Bat. Like you, I was seduced by it, but the many features began to drag me down, just too much to figure out and manage. Thunderbird is in the ascent, as indicated by this page: https://blog.thunderbird.net/category/news/ The code is being rewritten and, although I’ve seen what should be released by mid-supper, there are many more changes planned. There will be some bumps as the new code rolls out, but there is an intense beta program going on now. Thunderbird does have its challenges, primarily a few antivirus programs that corrupt the application during updates if not properly configured. (I use the Windows Defender antivirus and have never experienced a problem.) Good luck to you. (I do still keep a copy of Postbox, which I had hoped to be my default, but flaws in some accounts makes me uncomfortable. )

[Dean Calvert]

Hello lime...

I was intrigued by your impressions of TB.  I think I have some early "foundational" issues with my connections there, which have ruined my experience.  Part of the problem is that there is really no one to ask questions.

I don't doubt it's a powerful system - but I can't get it working consistently enough to be able to depend on it.

I run two businesses.  I need 100% uptime with my email.

I had decided earlier in the week to give TB another try.  So yesterday, in the middle of a legal discussion, my TB went down...stopped downloading new emails.   I was NOT able to download emails from noon yesterday (TUESDAY) until about 11 AM today (WEDNESDAY).  So it was BACK TO MAILBIRD once again!  Uggh.

Any suggestions?  

[David Kirk]

On your comment about email going down...   I am on the Thunderbird online support forum daily, and a common problem is that users sometimes find that their settings that worked yesterday don't work today. That is, the email host (such as spectrum, comcast, outlook and others) change their setup requirements without notifying customers. And it is not uncommon for the vendor's 800 number support staff to not know what works. So, sometimes my time there is in advising on what to change to get email working again. Usually, it's a case where the user is using no authentication or connection security. My own problem with TheBat is that, with its strong security requirements, it sometimes would fail to download messages whereas other clients worked successfully. The recent update of TheBat set conversational mode as the default, and that had many users in an uproar.until a workaround was found (which was also true for Thunderbird in a mid-2022 update).

To me, email clients should be treated as production components. That is, no updates without a week of offline testing. Updates often have new features, but those can be disruptive in a work environment