[Discuss] FOSS email that doesn't suck -- does such a thing exist?

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 09:02:05PM -0400, Rich Pieri wrote:
> I ask all of you: is there a FOSS mail program that's genuinely
> cross-platform, handles multiple mail accounts elegantly including
> cross-account message filtering, and doesn't suck mud through a straw?

No.  I've been looking for over a decade.  But...  Define "elegant" --
that can mean a lot of things.  Depending on what you mean, and what
you're willing to live with, Mutt may be the answer.

Mutt can do pretty much everything you want, but its interface is not
what most people think of as elegant.  It's console-based and does
have some major limitations (e.g. hand-editing complicated config files,
does not produce HTML mail, requires additional software and config to
READ HTML mail, has no concept of virtual folders, etc.) which will
require a steep learning curve, and reliance on a number of additional
pieces of software for things like searching for mail in multiple
folders and handling HTML mail, off-line IMAP, etc..  If you can cope
with those limitations, and you're willing to spend about a month (I'm
not kidding) getting it configured the way you want, its power and
speed for handling a large number of e-mail messages efficiently, and
built-in support for encryption and dealing with mailing lists, is
hard to beat.  It's small and lightweight, and can be run virtually on
any platform, can use whatever editor you prefer for composing e-mail,
and can be run remotely over ssh without painful performance problems
(barring high packet loss).

I keep trying new things that have some great new features, and I
always end up coming back to Mutt.  There definitely are a few
features I miss from more modern GUI mailers, but overall Mutt still
beats them, IMO.  It's immensely powerful, but it's a serious time
investment, and you will give up a few modern bells & whistles as
payment for that power.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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