Tech

Four email clients to manage your correspondence

The use of email clients on personal computers has fallen sharply over the course of the past decade, which contrasts with the widespread use of official mobile applications for services such as Gmail and Outlook, which are ultimately the same, but with a different support. restricted.

The fall of email clients has had its most bizarre page with Thunderbird, the well-known Mozilla application. The foundation behind Firefox has been trying to get rid of Thunderbird for years and then have to keep it, albeit putting it under the Mozilla Corporation. Despite the taste of resignation that this decision may have given at first, the reality is that now there are ambitious plans to renew the application and there is an Android version on the way after the conversion of K-9 Mail. Yes, the Mail clients are not living their golden years, but at least Thunderbird is once again a development worth following closely.

Email clients are a type of application that interfaces with an email service. It can be public (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo…) or be installed in a closed infrastructure (for example, a company). Its basic functions include accessing emails to read them and download attached files, as well as being able to send messages by creating new threads or responding to one that the user has previously received.

Obviously, in between it is possible to find a large number of possibilities, such as sending messages only in plain text or HTML format and dealing with electronic signatures. Although it may seem strange, it is still possible to find people who are very suspicious of emails in HTML format due to the possible embedding of malware, although in any case it is advisable not to view any messages from suspicious origins and never load images by default. You know, with security, always on lead feet.

email clients

Source: Pixabay

Regarding the display of emails, users usually use two ways. The first is Post Office Protocol, better known as POP3 in reference to its third version. It is a protocol that is responsible for downloading email so that it can be viewed locally and without an Internet connection, which can be very useful in contexts or situations in which the Internet connection is not of high quality, but in return much more space is lost for data storage. Due to the fact that email clients are used less and less and the quality of Internet connections has improved, their use has been declining to the point that many clients no longer offer POP3 support, so they are forcibly supported. in IMAP.

And on the other side is Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), a standard Internet protocol used by email clients to retrieve messages from a server over a TCP/IP connection. It has been designed with the goal of allowing full management of an email mailbox by multiple email clients, so clients generally leave messages on the server until the user explicitly decides to delete them.

With IMAP, mail clients are connected to the server all the time and its interface remains active to download messages on demand. That way they can offer faster response times for users, especially in situations where there are a large number of messages.

More recently, in 2019, it was introduced JSON Meta Application Protocol (JMAP), a set of related open Internet standard protocols for handling email. JMAP is implemented using the JSON API over HTTP and has been developed as an alternative to IMAP/SMTP and proprietary email APIs like Gmail and Outlook. Additional protocols and data models on top of JMAP core for contact handling and calendar synchronization are currently being worked on to offer potential replacements for CardDAV and CalDAV. Of course, at the level of use, IMAP is still the favorite.

Mobile email clients

Source: Pixabay

And finally we can not forget about Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), a standard Internet communication protocol for the transmission of email. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only to send messages to a server for relay, typically over port 587 or 465.

Have you lost yourself with so much protocol and technical data? The reality is that, for a long time, modern email clients tend to automatically configure when you try to use an account from a popular service like Gmail and Outlook, which obviously reduces the knowledge required by the user. In general, and after entering the password, it is normal for the application to ask if you want to use POP3 or IMAP to receive email, and as we have already said, many applications use the latter as the only option.

After briefly explaining what email clients are and the main protocols they use, we are going to mention three such applications available at least for Windows and one exclusively for Linux.

mozilla thunderbird

We start with one of the options that offer powerful cross-platform support, Thunderbird, which officially covers Windows, Linux and macOS and is preparing its landing on Android through the aforementioned conversion of K-9 Mail. In addition, it is free software as the source code of its desktop application is published under the MPL 2 license.

During its first years, it stood out for being a simple and easy-to-configure email client that made it easy, especially for those users who used IMAP, a feature that has not been exclusive for a long time and that possibly, in the opinion of some , is currently better implemented in other applications.

thunderbird

In the second decade of the 21st century it ended up in a state of semi-abandonment and Mozilla publicly stated its intentions to get rid of Thunderbird, but after finding no new home for it, it had to stay with the client, albeit under a different organization.

It is a quite complete application and with support for calendars, address books and the Matrix communications protocol. On the other hand, its interface is being redesigned to keep up with current times, although it still has the drawback of not having support for Microsoft Exchange by default.

Mailspring

Another option that stands out for being free and cross-platform software, with support for Windows, Linux and macOS. Mailspring supports multiple accounts via IMAP and Office 365, a unified inbox, touch gestures, themes and layouts, spell checking, contact management, the ability to undo send, and advanced keyboard shortcuts. However, possibly what many value is that its design is more in line with the lines that are usually used in recent years instead of looking like an application from the beginning of the century.

Mailspring It was born as a fork of another mail client called Nylas N1 at first and then Nylas Mail. However, the main developer decided to discontinue the project in September 2017 and made the gesture of releasing its source code under the MIT license. From there, one of the main developers decided to continue with its development by creating the aforementioned Mailsrping, but relicensing the source code to GPLv3 in order to prevent derivative projects from shutting it down.

Mailspring makes a Pro version available for $8 a month that offers “powerful template support,” rich contact profiles, company summaries, and the ability to snooze messages. Despite everything, the normal version should be enough for a common user.

Mailspring

Microsoft Outlook

We could not forget about the email client that has traditionally been part of Microsoft Office, so hundreds of millions of users have had it or have it on their computers, even if they later did not use it because, to manage a single account or two, the use of an application of these characteristics would only be justified in case of needing to automate and/or quick access to the correspondence.

Seeing its origin, it is obvious that it is a proprietary application and that Its main platform is Windows, although it also supports macOS and makes applications available for Android and iOS which can be obtained from the Play Store and the App Store respectively.

Microsoft Outlook

If we focus on the email client present in the Microsoft Office suite, we are talking about an application widely used in business environments (or at least before it was)so one can already imagine that its worth is more than proven, although 20 years ago it had to introduce some barriers such as not loading images by default in messages in HTML format in order to avoid possible malware attacks.

Like other options mentioned in this article, it also has compatibility with calendars, including CalDAV, iCalendar, SyncML and vCard 3.0, and it is possible to configure a Gmail account if the user wishes.

evolution

And we close the list with the exclusive Linux application: Evolution. Many criticize its outdated interface and the fact that it is somewhat harsh, but it is an email client that has more than proven its worth and also has support for Microsoft Exchange.

Evolution was created by Ximian, a company focused on the development of products around GNOME and which was created by Miguel de Icaza, one of the fathers of the aforementioned desktop environment. After changing hands several times due to the purchase of Ximian by Novell and the various reorganizations that SUSE has undergone, in 2013 its development was transferred mainly to Red Hat after SUSE decided to divest Evolution in 2012. Currently it is part of GNOME and the Windows and Mac versions were discontinued about a decade ago.

It is free software, it supports IMAP and POP3 and over the years it has been incorporating mechanisms to automate the configuration of Gmail and Outlook accounts., although it is also capable of integrating with accounts configured at the GNOME desktop level. Despite its advances, it can be a little rough to set up, but it’s an application that has proven its worth and is one of the most solid alternatives to Outlook in Microsoft Office for business.

evolution

conclusion

Despite being far from living its golden days, mainly for common PC users, email clients are still very useful, especially if you manage a large number of email accounts from different services.

Even if you don’t use a large number of user accounts, they can be a good way to improve and automate your own personal organization.

Cover image: Pixabay

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