Thunderbird for iOS
blog.thunderbird.net
blog.thunderbird.net
On Linux desktop, Thunderbird is still the best all around email/CardDAV/CalDAV client it seems, despite being unreasonably heavy.
I'm also close to a much more releasable version of the proxy which was first written back in 2014: https://github.com/jmapio/jmap-perl/ -- which can wrap existing IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV/Submission infrastructure so you can access it via JMAP.
If you’re already using one of the major providers (GMail, Outlook365, etc.), there isn’t much to configure; you go to Mail Accounts, click your provider like Google or Microsoft, and login on their website to authenticate.
Unfortunately it doesn’t sync properly with Gmail. I am in the process of de-googling my life so that’s okay with me. I use mail.app with my fastmail account and it’s perfect.
People here are discussing email apps, not Gmail apps.
Gmail apps only work with 1 provider (gmail), while email apps works with all email providers.
If you don’t do anything special, that will be enough but for everyone else that won’t do it.
If I type ‘repor’ in Apple mail, It will show me all report before I even type enter. And if there is too much, I will then add ‘2026’ for instance.
On k9, first you got to type the entire word because it won’t progressively search as you type, but then you press enter and see hundreds of mail so you want to add 2026 ? Too bad. Got to type report once again followed by 2026. Made a typo mistake ? Got to rewrite it all over again.
This is just bad.
And I’m not trying to diminish the work done by Thunderbirds/k9 developer, it’s just that it’s done by unpaid developers and it shows. Things move slowly and just suck at using.
JMAP support turns out to be a strong signal for the business model of an e-mail provider. IMAP they have to have, JMAP is for those who actually care about supporting local client software.
Is there anything better though?
You buy the ticket some time in advance but then need to show it to enter the event.
Awful, awful app. Fairemail was much better for a power user.
Tried a couple of other clients from time to time (mostly when OAUTH logins for GMail and Outlook365 weren't implemented yet), but haven't been convinced to switch.
Ah, just saw the coolest thing - an epic subheading:
> Designed for growth
Love it. There's no stopping this app now. Godspeed, Mozila/Thunderbird! Grow is the new word.
If your e-mail provider supports it, Customize From Address allows you to make a one-off minor alteration to your From address without having to create a new identity in Account Settings. For example, if your From address is John Doe <john@example.com> you may want to change it to John Doe <john+doe@example.com> or John <john@example.com>.I added it to iOS mail with the main alias. I registered to my bank using a secondary address, a more "neutral toned", also one I'd expect to be sold to data brokers, and would be willing to abandon easily if started to get too much spam...
Now the banking app is pretty... ripe for improvement.
I report a bug in the app, and the way it happens: it throws up an email editor, with debug info attached to a partially pre-filled form mail. However if its sender is not the alias I set up at the bank, it will get rejected, and will have to do lots if identification turns etc...
Apple mail does not let you set up aliases for an account, I'd need to log in twice to the same account to be able to do this. Also apple mail is a piece of ... modern outlook, to be really rude, so I'm interested in alternatives.
If you ever start sending me spam I can just block that address. Especially helpful with companies.
You can also use it for sorting emails.
It's honestly a basic feature of an email client. Even if you don't have your own domain stuff like the plus sign for aliases exists with many providers (or at least with gmail).
https://support.tb.pro/hc/en-us/articles/51338950680467-How-...
any-user@any-domain.any-tld
Can be an alias, can be a catch-all email on your domain. Select the right email account (here, email account ≠ email address) with the right pre-configured credentials and that email will be sent, if not it will fail as it should.
It’s that simple and basic feature. But apparently email clients decided that’s not the right way and they make you pre-add every single bloody email address you ever want to use — this is specially painful for personal domains and catch-all addresses, especially the one-off ones.
Now I'm on fastmail, the from address is an input box that I can put anything into.
Are the core foundations not right in the rejected shared code? Why not fix that instead to get the core right everywhere?
Especially if the goal is "ultimate goal is seamless cross-device experience.", which involves those other apps
Otherwise not much to look at, the screenshots are bog (sub)standard designs a lot of email apps have, no polish despite the claims
> We’re polishing the essentials: a clutter-free, easy-to-read inbox layout paired with a clean,
"from" and "to" and big gaps is clutter, wasting precious space on small even screens (The logos on the sign in screen are also misaligned, but maybe that's not a polished "essential")
> modern editor that lets you format messages smoothly without getting in your way.
The toolbar design is getting in the way
For a company focused on privacy, I'd love GnuPG integrated into the mail app.
And once in a while using it for email. :)
You'd be surprised how much GnuPG is used out in the wild.
I also don't like that it renders PDF attachments. Just seems to be enabling scammers
I also notice it doesn't handle relayed emails well. I have a bunch of dummy emails and Mail doesn't show me the relayed name, which really hinders my ability to track and combat spam
All I want is all the mail and attachments downloaded locally the way normal desktop mail clients work. Not the last 90 days of it (Gmail ios max) - all of it, I don’t care if it’s many gigabytes or more, i just want the full mail, so that something as full text local search of the email would actually work…
Maybe there's a demand for a more feature-rich mail client on iOS, perhaps syncing accounts and filters from the desktop app. But this doesn't seem to be that, at least not at this point.
Search is completely useless, it never-ever finds anything. Threads are supported, but their functionality is not configurable so whenever I lazily click on the complete thread (instead of opening it, scrolling down to the last item and clicking on it directly) it opens every message of the thread. Really nice functionality for large threads with 60+ emails!
So I am a bit skeptical why on earth they would increase their coverage when the already supported platforms lack decent UX.
Yeah, just a small hiccup. I can buy a whole phone with a hundred dollars.
I picked K9 among the other clients because of that interface so I was in that 50% of users that were pissed off by the new UI. Luckily email protocols did not change and I can still sideload the APK on all my devices.
- Search - Threads - Windows integrated notifications/unread badge - Syncing unread counts in folders - Text/Email Editor
It would be a great thing for IMAP servers to do, but none of the major open source ones really take on that feature, and Google wants you in their web-client, so searches via IMAP are low-quality at best.
Doesn't this feel like a perfect example of work done at 3AM when plugged in and (importantly) after the battery is fully charged? It won't be perfect, searching for an email in the afternoon that you received in the morning won't be in the index, but I generally don't need search for emails I received so recently anyways
How long do you imagine it takes to fully index 100 emails? 1000? It's likely under a minute even for 10,000. And it's work that's only done once, they don't need to rebuild the entire index every time a new email is added. They absolutely could (and should if they don't already) index all locally downloaded e-mails. It's bonkers not to do it.
See Betterbird for reference and their blog posts, it sheds some more light on aforementioned weirdness.
Also see other comment in this thread mentioning how you can't search for "wedding". A bug that is 14 years now.
At this point I'm really considering trialing one of those two vibe coded clients recently shown here on HN.
On the go I use a web browser on my phone for gmail or outlook. No apps. I try to minimize doing email on my phone because it's so awkward to type.
Proof: Copy 10k files from one hard drive to another with the Finder (not the same drive; you have to prevent COW). Now do the same thing with e.g. cp or rsync on the command line.
I built this for myself out of frustration with Apple Mail and cover all operational costs. Privacy and speed are two of our most important pillars.
Hosting is expensive too, free forever is another question in my mind.
Don't people remember what email IS anymore? Make me understand.
I don't know nor use the app promoted by GP, but in general the problem with apple is that they don't support the standard email/IMAP push, and only some 3rd parties have approval to use the non-standard apple email push (Fastmail I think). So people have come up with ways to get around apple's arbitrary restrictions.
My dad has been using his own domain for email for about 25 years and has bounced around to various hosts... random hosting providers. He uses Apple Mail and hasn't ever mentioned having an issue. Though I'm unsure if he uses push of fetch. I guess I always assumed he was using push, but maybe not.
Of course we're all hoping that clients move to JMAP at some point, where push is first-class citizen and we don't need the very custom hack that Apple uses to receive pushes right now.
I've been using the Fastmail app to get started, which has been working great and the migration tools worked really well. Once I'm fully migrated I may want to set up the native apps for some added OS integration.
Haven’t dug into this yet, but are you saying it isn’t a pure eMail client? That it’s a service to which you bodily hand off all your eMail passwords, and therefore the keys to your digital kingdom? That it’s someone else’s computer that’s retrieving your eMails for you?
Holy shite, how _stupid_ are people?
Like, holy MiTM exploiting, Batman. I would NEVER hand off eMail access to a third party. That’s begging to have your entire online existence destroyed.
There’s so little chrome I can’t find any fault in it. It’s just grey, out of the way, as it should be.
Edit: https://imgur.com/a/1I4gG22 tell me where the bad/ugly UI is.
But horizontal tabs are still better. Not technically better or ascetically better. Some other immeasurable, indescribable better.
edit: just checked, and the most disgusting thing the extra internal horizontal top border of the text contents of the tab titles got removed. Still ugly, but nor instant Alt+F4... now I can bear it until I find about:config.
It's such a petty argument when everything is so hackable and Google is eating the internet. I wish people would put half the energy they use to complain to solve the things they are upset about.
It’s ugly.
Also, the UX of most browsers is basically the same. Browser UI has converged on one layout that works, and Firefox has it. It’s really indistinguishable from chrome.
The fact that I've historically needed to monkey patch the Firefox chrome CSS (and will have to again to remove the unnecessary bar left of tree-style-tabs) would to me imply poor design.
With all due respect, what a low bar for beauty!
A quick glance at their product and its literally just a clone/fork of chrome/chromium with AI-pilled features.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" holds true.
What I like about Mozilla is they made a hackable browser so we can have things like Zen, WaterFox, or whatever floats your boat.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/arrival/
[2] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-of-tech/There is some praise but it's mostly the same complaints that come up whenever Mozilla gets mentioned on HN, it's awful, I can't believe they've done this, millions wasted etc.
Then I realized it was Mozilla’s app. And just like that, the excitement was gone.
I try not to bad-mouth products, but Thunderbird and I did NOT get along. Clunky integrations, a painful Gmail connection, and basic functionality issues made it one of the worst email clients I’ve ever used.
Of course, I’m also annoyingly picky about my tools, so maybe it’s a me problem.
Title: Thunderbird for iOS: A First Look
(Not the headline. The announcement. Haha)
What alternative do you suggest?
If I only had one email account I probably wouldn't care as much but that's not as common these days
On any desktop system I am able to have it connect flawlessly to any of my IMAP accounts.
On iOS, the exact same settings produces an auth failure, and I cannot move past account set-up.
Magic login links tho…
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=752844
(The bug is they do 'clever matching', so wedding matches weds, and too many emails you weds for wednesday, you can't say 'just show the word I ask you for')
Meanwhile, Netflix search (on Apple TV at least), is not only practically unusable, but literally so. Doesn't matter what you input, it just returns a random selection of films. I saw Kill Bill the other day, and wondered if there were any other Tarantino films on there. "Tarantino" returned things like Indiana Jones and other completely nonsensical results.
Am I the only one around here who knows SQL?
I'm confused at everyone's excitement because it's become a lot cheaper to write software like this. Maybe for all the folks world-wide that aren't up to speed with modern practices, it's helpful to have an iOS app.
Am I talking like the guy that dissed Drew Houston, saying oh I can put together sshfs and a couple other things and build out Dropbox. Drew rightly corrected the engineer on ycombinator many years ago to say that end users want a finished product not a bunch of tools.
But this is a new era where you can vibe-code this very quickly for iOS.
In my experience I spent a lot of time on design nowadays. It turns out I did that in the past too I just had quite a lot of time to think that through slowly while hands were doing vim stuff. And good design is hard. And somewhat subjective. But mostly just hard, pretty sure in some time agents will get better at it, but for now it's still something they can't do well at all.
And by design I mean all of it: UX, look and architecture.