Author Topic: thunderbird alternative (Read 34,272 times)

kalos · « **on:** April 01, 2013, 01:22 PM »

hello

it's time for me to goodbye Thunderbird, since it gives me all the time "operation not succeeded" errors (due to the large amount of email accounts and emails? due to something else? not sure)

can you suggest me a robust 100% yahoo/gmail web-mail-compatible alternative, feature rich as Thunderbird?

it must be able to easily and quickly handle laaaarge amount of data

thanks!

Tuxman · « **Reply #1 on:** April 01, 2013, 02:02 PM »

cyberdiva · « **Reply #2 on:** April 01, 2013, 06:40 PM »

Quote from: kalos on April 01, 2013, 01:22 PM

can you suggest me a robust 100% yahoo/gmail web-mail-compatible alternative, feature rich as Thunderbird?

You might take a look at PostBox at http://postbox-inc.com/index.php. There's a lot that will look familiar to Thunderbird users, and it claims to be what you're looking for. For $9.95, you can hardly go wrong (and of course you can try it for free for 30 days).

Shades · « **Reply #3 on:** April 02, 2013, 01:54 PM »

Foxmail, originates from China, but don't hold that against it. It is definitely a decent piece of software. I myself used version 5 of it for quite some time with 7 mail accounts that each received a relative big amount of messages (50+) daily and that version at least didn't choke on that.

I don't know if that is sufficient for your needs. Ah well, it's free and there is even a portable version you can download. I see also that it even can hook up with an Exchange server as well. Might be interesting to try it again, as I am not satisfied with the search capabilities from Thunderbird lately.

Ampa · « **Reply #4 on:** April 02, 2013, 02:56 PM »

I've been a (relatively) happy user of the inbuilt mail client in Opera for many years, but with the recent announcement that Opera is re-engineering its browser to be a WebKit clone, it is uncertain which features will survive the migration…

As such I've been looking at other email clients. I never got on well with Outlook, The Bat or Thunderbird but I have warmed to eM Client.

techidave · « **Reply #5 on:** April 02, 2013, 04:46 PM »

eM Client has a very simple interface which I like. We shall see how well it works as I use it more. I have been a long time user of Thunderbird but its search has frustrated me in finding things.

Edvard · « **Reply #6 on:** April 04, 2013, 02:29 AM »

Learned about Mulberry from the other thread... /me sees it's open source, downloads and runs... AWAY IN HORROR!!

What is this, 1993? Nope, it's 2007, according to the website.
And it won't even compile...

Jibz · « **Reply #7 on:** April 04, 2013, 10:36 AM »

I tried installing PostBox and eM Client and import my Thunderbird mail to check them out.

PostBox imported fine, looks a lot like Thunderbird (for obvious reasons), but the search didn't work until I manually chose to index the mail, and after that I had to manually index the folders I had created myself for backup.

eM Client stopped halfway through the import with an error ("value out of range", no indication of where and what), so I was only able to import two accounts into it. It looked very sleek and the extra functionality it has like calendar seemed nice. But if it can't even import from Thunderbird ...

Tuxman · « **Reply #8 on:** April 04, 2013, 10:40 AM »

Tried The Bat!?

f0dder · « **Reply #9 on:** April 04, 2013, 10:57 AM »

Quote from: Tuxman on April 04, 2013, 10:40 AM

Tried The Bat!?

Been there, done that, migrated to Thunderbird.

Jibz · « **Reply #10 on:** April 04, 2013, 11:00 AM »

I switched to Thunderbird from The Bat!, after having paid for upgrades through four versions -- it is a nice program (albeit a bit alternative in some ways), but the past two versions nothing has really happened and you still keep paying.

Basically I found that Thunderbird did what I needed with way better search and without costing anything.

Mozilla stopping development on new features for Thunderbird made me look for alternatives, and I would have no problem paying for a good solution, but I am not going back to paying yearly for nothing but UI tweaks.

Tuxman · « **Reply #11 on:** April 04, 2013, 11:01 AM »

Why yearly? My current license is valid until version 6.0.99, might be a while until it is done.

Jibz · « **Reply #12 on:** April 04, 2013, 11:11 AM »

You are right, looking back it was more like every 2-3 years, I guess it just felt like more because we had multiple licenses. Still, I maintain that for my use, nothing useful changed over the past couple of versions.

Tuxman · « **Reply #13 on:** April 04, 2013, 11:13 AM »

IMAP support is amazing. Even compared to Thunderbird.

johnk · « **Reply #14 on:** April 05, 2013, 09:04 PM »

Quote from: Tuxman on April 04, 2013, 11:13 AM

IMAP support is amazing. Even compared to Thunderbird.

Agreed - The Bat remains the best IMAP client, despite the slow development (I've been waiting a long time for something as basic as the option of a two-line message list, but still use it for its unparalleled IMAP support).

oblivion · « **Reply #15 on:** April 08, 2013, 03:41 PM »

Quote from: johnk on April 05, 2013, 09:04 PM

Quote from: Tuxman on April 04, 2013, 11:13 AM
IMAP support is amazing. Even compared to Thunderbird.
Agreed - The Bat remains the best IMAP client, despite the slow development (I've been waiting a long time for something as basic as the option of a two-line message list, but still use it for its unparalleled IMAP support).

There's a lot about The Bat! that I miss, but I am still looking for something reliable and am sticking with Thunderbird until I find it. (I bought The Bat Pro so I could use Voyager. Voyager, three times yet, stomped on my messagebases and because the internal repair routines just aren't very good and the encryption is excellent, I lost a lot of important email.)

Thunderbird did something like that to me too, not all that long ago. (A bug that corrupted email being moved from an IMAP to a local folder.) But Mozilla noticed the problem and fixed it -- something Ritlabs never did, despite my repeated bug reports.

But I miss: proper quoting; the marvellous rules; not having to put up with Thunderbird's idiosyncratic HTML support; the scheduler; so many things... it's just a shame that Ritlabs give every impression of not giving a flying damn about their customers.

Tuxman · « **Reply #16 on:** April 08, 2013, 03:46 PM »

Ritlabs fixes reported bugs - they just don't brag about that. (Even their changelogs are never complete.)

I have been using the latest BETA versions for a while now - occurring bugs are mostly fixed within one or two builds.

oblivion · « **Reply #17 on:** April 09, 2013, 01:56 PM »

Well, I still own a license for the current version of The Bat!, perhaps I should try again.

Coincidentally, though, I just saw a thing on TechRepublic that mentioned a client I haven't previously heard of: i.Scribe. Anyone tried it?

[edit to add]

The free version is limited, the commercial version is $10, adds support for multiple identities/accounts... but the author's spelling is worrying

40hz · « **Reply #18 on:** April 09, 2013, 02:27 PM »

What is it about The Bat that so many people are willing to make excuses for it and its dev team, while at the same time leveling criticisms for the exact same things on its competitors?

I just don't get that part. $:-\$

Tuxman · « **Reply #19 on:** April 09, 2013, 02:31 PM »

It rocks.

johnk · « **Reply #20 on:** April 09, 2013, 03:39 PM »

Quote from: Tuxman on April 09, 2013, 02:31 PM

It rocks.

I'll try to be a bit more specific! I use The Bat because:

I have tried every IMAP client I can find, and I cannot find another client that will reliably update the folder count for virtual folders.

I do most of my communicating by email (I'm old-fashioned that way) and I live in a virtual folder ("saved search" in Thunderbird-speak) which I call "ToDo". That folder contains all of my unread mail and all of my starred (flagged) mail.

I can create a similar virtual folder in Thunderbird, but the folder count does not update reliably. I often have to refresh the virtual folder manually. Outlook won't even update the folder count reliably on standard IMAP folders.

This alone is enough to tie me to The Bat. UI-wise, I'd far prefer to be using Outlook, or even Windows Mail.

EDIT: I must admit that the last time I tried Outlook was the 2007 version. I got bored paying for upgrades, and I figured if they hadn't solved something as simple as updating IMAP folder counts by then, they were never going to do so. I am happy to be told I am wrong.

kalos · « **Reply #21 on:** April 11, 2013, 02:37 AM »

Quote from: Shades on April 02, 2013, 01:54 PM

Foxmail, originates from China, but don't hold that against it. It is definitely a decent piece of software. I myself used version 5 of it for quite some time with 7 mail accounts that each received a relative big amount of messages (50+) daily and that version at least didn't choke on that.

I don't know if that is sufficient for your needs. Ah well, it's free and there is even a portable version you can download. I see also that it even can hook up with an Exchange server as well. Might be interesting to try it again, as I am not satisfied with the search capabilities from Thunderbird lately.

there is also a similar chinese/japanese DreamMail

both, it's been a long time since I tested them

40hz · « **Reply #22 on:** April 11, 2013, 04:48 AM »

Quote from: johnk on April 09, 2013, 03:39 PM

I'll try to be a bit more specific! I use The Bat because:...

.

Appreciated.

kalos · « **Reply #23 on:** April 11, 2013, 08:49 AM »

Isnt 50usd too much for a email client? I am refering to the bat.

Jibz · « **Reply #24 on:** April 11, 2013, 09:18 AM »

Quote from: kalos on April 11, 2013, 08:49 AM

Isnt 50usd too much for a email client? I am refering to the bat.

The pro version is €32, which is roughly $40, but I still think that's too much, unless you have very specific needs that the free alternatives do not meet.

DonationCoder has had a 50% discount running for years, I think it might still work.