There's no such thing as privacy.

[Tolkem]

I don't use any email client and never have and I never have understood why anyone needs to use an email client.

If I want to sent an mail I log into my email and compose a message and send it.

I get an alert when people send me an email.

I do use 2 desktop email clients; claws-mail and electron-mail, an unofficial ProtonMail client https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail. I hate the in-browser web clients, they're so freaking slow and cluttered, thought proton mail's is quite usable. People use desktop email clients because they make it easier to manage their email accounts. Imagine having 10 mail accounts(I don't, but I know people who do)for different purposes, and having to launch a browser, visit the mail sites, log in, wait for the whole thing to load ... with a desktop email client they just have them at the reach of a click.

Thunderbird is open 24/7

I'd use thunderbird, if Mozilla ever bothered to provide a systray functionality. I tried Mailspring, and I kind of liked it; tons of useful features. Unfortunately, it can be quite a resource hog. https://getmailspring.com/

 

[KGIII]

ever bothered to provide a systray functionality.

I deal with a ton of email, so that's not important to me. It can occupy a space in my task bar. It's polling for email pretty much constantly (IMAP) and I consider it a 'necessary' application. It sits in the same space, between my two most commonly used browsers.

On every device, it's the same (out of habit) and looks like:

I do it the same way on all my desktops. It is a habit and I'm used to the applications being where they are. If they're not, I get all sorts of discombobulated.

Out of curiosity, what would you ask for in a 'systray' function?

 

[Tolkem]

Out of curiosity, what would you ask for in a 'systray' function?

This is something some thunderbird users have been requesting for a long time now. There used to be birdtray https://github.com/gyunaev/birdtray which no longer works in Linux, and systray-x https://github.com/Ximi1970/systray-x which is hit-and-miss. Basically, with a systray functionality, you can have TB minimized to it, and get new mails notifications, which you can get with claws-mail. Mozilla doesn't seem to care about it, so this is most likely not happening, ever.

 

[KGIII]

Basically, with a systray functionality, you can have TB minimized to it, and get new mails notifications, which you can get with claws-mail.

I could see why folks might like that. There have been some minimize to tray add-ons, but I don't think any of them work anymore. There's still this one - but I think it fails on modern Thunderbird (from when they changed it just recently - I want to say version 71 or 72.

MinimizeToTray Reanimated

MinimizeToTray Reanimated is an application mainly dedicated to Thunderbird to allow its minimization in the systray in one click. It is the update of MinimizeToTray Revived, which is not maintained anymore since the recent versions of Thunderbird.

addons.thunderbird.net

Maybe - just maybe - someone'll write one for the newest Thunderbird.

 

[Tolkem]

There's still this one - but I think it fails on modern Thunderbird

It doesn't; It just minimized TB to panel. I've tried it. A TB's systray icon will also allow access to context menu actions like compose new message and stuff like that. I actually have TB beta around, so I can use the calendar feature.

 

[KGIII]

I can use the calendar feature.

That's one of my favorite TB features and I'm glad they rolled it into TB instead of keeping it as an extension. I also use the task feature quite a bit. Some of my email communications are traditionally signed, so having encryption built in is also a "good thing" (I think).

I hate to admit it, but Microsoft's Outlook Express (not Outlook) was a pretty solid email client.

 

[Fanboi]

I don't use any email client and never have and I never have understood why anyone needs to use an email client.

If I want to sent an mail I log into my email and compose a message and send it.

I get an alert when people send me an email.

To be fair, some companies do not provide web interfaces for their internal mail server(s). So then you have very little choice. That's one use case. I suppose that's a good use case. I use the web UI for Gmail, Yahoo, GMX, Proton, and co. But I often have to setup Thunderbird for people in offices, especially those working remotely ATM. As much as I dislike them, they still have a role, albeit small, lol, and Thunderbird is definitely top class in that department (I still remember the legal debarkle when it was called Icedove for unofficial, modified builds, lol).

 

[MatsuShimizu]

From Switched To Linux Youtube Channel