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Todoist+Thunderbird
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
May 8, 2013 at 04:36 PM
Ken, you are most welcome. By the way, this thread made me think back to the various clients I had tested some time ago. One of these was Zimbra http://www.zimbra.com which I considered as a multi-platform solution. I believe that when I tested it it was in version 6 and I found it rather weak. It is now in version 8, under VMware’s wing—which makes me feel rather safer—and seems to have been revamped significantly. I have just installed it and will be testing it on my Linux notebook. I will report back my findings. I expect that if it works well in Linux, its Windows version should do too.
To be clear: the fact that I’m at present satisfied with EM Client in Windows, on no accounts means that I will stop trying out other programs—nor even that my present choice is well founded. And, an important advantage of a big IMAP mailbox is that I can change clients and the mailbox itself will take care of the migration. It’s not as if I need to restore backups from one mail client to another—though I’ve read that EM Client is actually good at this.
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 9, 2013 at 11:07 AM
We’re in a similar position. We’ve used Outlook before, but the entire company loathed it, so we moved to other systems for a while (first FirstClass, which was quite cool until OpenText managed to destroy it), then DeskNow (which was also quite cool - entirely web-based, but very fast - until the Australian company who produced it went under). So when I found eM Client as part of the SoftMaker Office Pro bundle, I tried it out. And now we all use it, because actually it’s fast, friendly and much simpler to use than Outlook, despite having most of the same features (which you can switch off if you don’t use).
We’ve not had any probs with instability. It takes a little while to wind up its rubberbands when you first launch it, but that’s because it’s an IMAP-focused client. Once it’s going, it’s very quick and reliable. It also has that most pleasant of things, the ability to control exactly which folders you see/don’t see, plus a collective inbox (“Smart Folder” - you can have various different kinds) which shows you incoming e-mail from all accounts. The search function is pretty good, too. Plus it registered all incoming e-mail addresses, which saves a considerable amount of time.
The latest version is somewhat reminiscent of iOS’s e-mail client. We really like it, and a couple of computer-phobic colleagues are very enthusiastic users. To replace all the groupware stuff we used FirstClass (and DeskNow) for, we now use Kerio Workspace (which has unfortunately been discontinued and replaced by Kerio’s online offering SamePage, but hey). Another option for those interested in powerful collaborative environments is Atlassian’s Confluence, which can be obtained for just $10 if your org has 10 users or less. The latest version has some sensational features.
Posted by Ken
May 10, 2013 at 03:13 PM
Thankfully, my needs are more simple than yours. I have a number of older web-based accounts that I would like to close, but need to pull down all of the old messages, hopefully in the same folder structure that they are currently residing in (and which is quite simple). I might use Outlook because I have a license, but what I am still trying to lear is how the different clients store their messages. I know that Outlook uses a .PST file, but am not sure what other formats are common (in case a company goes under in the future).
Thanks,
—Ken
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 10, 2013 at 03:42 PM
Outlook differs from most other mail clients there. The most convenient/universal format is .eml, supported by most mail clients and readable by a wide range of document viewers, which treats each e-mail as a separate file. This means you can download your mail files directly into a folder, then ask Windows Search (or any other search engine) to index them, whereupon they become available to you like any other file.
A client that does this very well, because it actually allows you to use your folder system as the mail repository, is the unusual EverDesk (http://www.everdesk.com). Unfortunately they seem to have done away with the freebie version, which is a shame, because it sounds as if it would do perfectly for you.
The other option is to do what we’ve done, which is use a third-party mail archiving tool to store and archive your e-mails. The advantage is, this works completely independently of your ISP: the tool downloads e-mails, indexes and stores them on your local drive, where they are then searchable. By far the best tool I’ve found is MailStore, a German product, which is available both as a server version (which we use) and a free home version (MailStore Home), which I use on my home machines. It’s very efficient, indexes very thoroughly, and searches very fast. And best of all, allows you to export mails (or back ‘em up elsewhere) as you like - so no nasty proprietary lock-in. You can also restore IMAP accounts in their entirety, if you should wish to do so.
Posted by Ken
May 12, 2013 at 09:49 PM
Bill,
Thanks for the additional recommendations. Now, I just need to figure out which program I need for pulling down all the mail from the web host, and which one will allow me to read and search these messages. For some reason, mail clients, like database software, seems like they are a world unto themselves. I deal with many other types of software without much problem, but working with mail client software always requires a longer learning curve. I guess that is why I have not undertaken this project in years past, and just renewed my annual subscription on these accounts. Hopefully this year will be different. I am trying to reduce/consolidate my “footprint” on the web. Too much maintenance, and too many people I know seems to be getting hacked in accounts they no longer use. Why expose myself if the accounts are no longer needed?
—Ken