Since Mozilla has stop development for Thunderbird, I've been poking around for a replacement to no avail. Has to be cross-platform, Windows/Debian linux I looked at eM client, but since it's not cross-platform and it's freemium application I've lost all interest in it. People seem to b*tch all they like about not having enough web browsers, and yet email clients have suffered. I use to use outlook, and it's very very good, but lacks linux support, and I personally hate using different app's to do the same job across different platforms. I also hate web app's. They're an aweful hack workaround that are useless when offline.
I gave up looking... most of the cross-platform ones tend to be crap... or cross platform in name only... with the windows version [it's typically that way round] being a half-arsed crash-happy port that barely works... so for me: Linux - Evolution [not perfect but it's the best of a bad bunch] Windows - W8 Mail App/Outlook link, Essentialy Mozilla thought/think Thundrebird is 'good enough' and have put it on the back burner to concentrate on Firefox... it's essentially security updates only from now on... ['new feature' development had pretty much stopped before the made the announcement]
Fairly depressing outcome. Doesn't anybody else find this amazing that desktop email is still so bad...
I prefer outlook myself, but that's just my personal preference, I realise it isn't on other os's but then I tend not to use other os's.
Do you have any specific features/bugs that you need fixed with Thunderbird? I'm pretty happy with it, but then again I don't mind using different apps on different platforms - I use Thunderbird+Lightning for personal mail at work, Outlook 2013 via RDP for work mail at work (my work PC is Linux), Outlook 2008 for work mail at home and finaly Mail.app for personal mail at home. Personally, I'd only consider switching if it actually broke.
I use thunderbird to manage, yahoo, gmail and a private email server plugged on the backend of a site I have. Recently thunderbird has become very flaky when sending or deleting content from both my yahoo and Gmail accounts, so I use Thunderbird to monitor incoming mail, but in order to maintain the accounts I have to log in via a browser which is just stupid. I honestly think Mozilla gave up trying to deal with Gmail, and yahoo has been buggering around with there service I'm not surprised something is buggy. At least Geary hasn't totally disappeared, but no windows port..
I do occasionally have problems with Thunderbird dealing with Gmail's IMAP, but it only seems to happen after suspending to RAM, and hasn't happened recently. And considering that it's still being maintained I'm planning on sticking with it for the forseeable future. KMail seems decent -- I haven't done any detailed testing for it though (I'm planning too during the summer). It's available for windows too through the "KDE for Windows" initiative, might be worth looking at, but I have no idea how well it works there (I think it's part of the "kdepim" package)?
I'm using Opera's built in mail client on Windows. I just saw that Opera plan on making it separate from the browser, with a Linux version also in the works. http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/05/opera-splits-mail-app-bringing-it-to-linux
I used to use Thunderbird, and over the years I grew tired of backing up and re-importing my e-mail whenever I did a reformat/reinstall. Before I installed Windows 8, I made the decision to just throw everything over to Gmail. I found a few guides that detail the process to essentially back up your local Thunderbird mail files to Gmail (not just forwarding all your e-mail, but truly backing up all the e-mails, including any established directories). You mention that you use Thunderbird to manage multiple e-mail accounts. I went the other direction - I now use Gmail to manage my e-mail accounts. It was one less thing to deal with when I installed Windows 8. no more backing up e-mails, reinstalling Thunderbird, and reimporting settings. I see that you're not fond of web apps because they're not available offline. Chrome has an extension to enable offline Gmail support (Gmail Offline, available in the Chrom Web Store). It might be worth considering if you can't find a better solution.
Just out of curiosity (I'm gmailing myself and abandoned clients quite a while ago) I tried claws yesterday (debian and win7) and altough it looks somewhat last-yearish it works as advertised. PGP is onboard by default which I'd consider a big plus. Maybe you (Burnout21) should give it a try.
Because my work use Novell groupwise email server I cant use Thunderbird. Otherwise I would, I have been on the bugzilla for it and without SOAP Web service support I won't be able to sync my calendar and contacts in Thunderbird. Thunderbird removed support for SOAP a couple of versions ago. Which is a real shame as the Linux client for groupwise is naff. KMail is horrific if you ask me, and evolution plug in for groupwise has stopped being developed. Plus I use KDE and evolution is GTk+ developed, looks out of place. I'm currently up sh*t creek without a paddle in the world of email clients haha. For my personal email I use combination of Thunderbird and Gmail. The thunderbird community still appears to be active and fixing lots of stuff. So I'm happy with it just now. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
I classify my Gmail and yahoo as disposable accounts, as I've never truly trusted *free email services. I've got nothing to hide, but when something changes you suddenly find yourself in a bind, when that email address is link to you just like an established phone number, it's very difficult to update everybody. (plus the bucket load of business cards I have..lol!) I shall give Claws another look, just noticed it's got themes, so it might brighten up a little..
I actually think that Thunderbird cannot be improved very much more. Yes, it could use some better integration with Gmail, but other than provider-specific features it works pretty well as an email client.
I used to use desktop clients, but I've switched to web now as its just a lot better for cross-platform support as I tend to do mail on a tablet more now anyway. Gmail is my web client of choice, but I use outlook.com purely because I'm used to it. As other people have already said, it makes stuff much easier when migrating pc's or using a new device, and you don't have to worry about losing emails.
