Oooh, time for a Holy War.

[venta]

Well, it looks like the computer glitch I've been complaining about really is caused by running Outlook.


I'd like to find a new mail client. So, I'd require it to do the following:
Allow me to read emails quickly (ie, minimal number of keystrokes/mouseclics to go from one to the next, delete mails, etc)
Allow easy filtering of messages (I don't speak procmail, though might be prepared to learn)
Handle attachments in a nice way (otherwise I'd just bite the bullet and use pine)
Preferably one which can be easily operated by keyboard alone.
Preferably one which will cope with the 'add comment' emails replying to LJ updates. Eudora doesn't (though that might be because it doesn't talk to IE)
Probably some other things I haven't thought of.

Any advice ?

At home I use the free version of Eudora, but am not entirely happy with it. I love the fact that you can rearrange its components to suit yourself (the list of mail folders belongs on the right hand side of the screen, dammit), and it does have many good things going for it. On the other hand, its error reporting is crap, and the handling of messages if you read them in the preview window is very poor indeed.

(For bonus points: explain why Outlook causes this problem :)

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Handle attachments in a nice way (otherwise I'd just bite the bullet and use pine)

Isn't there a Windows version of pine? Doesn't that do anything sensible with attachments?

[lathany.livejournal.com]

When you're here this weekend, you can have a look at Pegasus (which we use). It's not brilliant, but its better than Outlook.

[triskellian]

Well, I was halfway through a comment extolling the virtues of Mozilla, when the damn thing crashed. Make of that what you will ;-)

Anyway. I use it because I like the way it handles multiple email accounts. For your purposes, reading/deleting/navigating messages is easy with the keyboard, replying/forwarding/composing all work with control-letterkey and filters are easy. For me, the links in LJ comment emails work fine, but that's cos I use it as my browser too (for two main reasons: tabbed browsing, so I don't have to have a different window for each open page, and the ability to turn off pop-ups, which is the best thing ever*). I don't know how it would work with IE.

* There was a conversation among the web people here a while back about which browsers they like best. I mentioned lack of pop-ups as a reason to use Mozilla, and someone else said 'I like Mozilla too, but I don't know why you have a problem with pop-ups, they work fine for me' ;-)

[uitlander]

Well, I use Netscape, and I think it can do all the things you list. If you want to wander over the other side of the car park and take a look - feel free. I gather Mozilla is pretty much the same... although no doubt this statement will start a holy war in its own right.

Well, I like Outlook

[condign.livejournal.com]

However, I've recently betrayed my personal finance software, so I can't give you a gripe for changing.

What keystroke is it that causes things to lose focus in Emacs? And what does the focus come up to? Because I can't think of anything that would cause this--Outlook is usually pretty strict.

However, I would ask if either a) you still had the Outlook Assistant turned on, or if you had ICQ running. ICQ will often steal the focus away from you when you use quite common keyboard shortcuts. I always have to turn it off. Note that this also applies if you have the ICQ toolbar installed in Outlook. (I mention this because at one point you had an ICQ address, methinks?)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Allow me to read emails quickly (ie, minimal number of keystrokes/mouseclics to go from one to the next, delete mails, etc)
Preferably one which can be easily operated by keyboard alone.

Well, mutt can do both of those, as it's a console based client. There is a windows port, but I've never used it.

It doesn't allow you to rearrange the components (at least the unix version doesn't), because it only puts one type of thing on the screen at once:
either the message headers, folder names or a message body (it possible the windows version actually uses separate windows for these, in which case you can organise them to your hearts content). It doesn't have the annoying problem of marking a message read because you've spent 5 seconds previewing it (whilst waiting to it to do something else).

It is aware of mailing lists, so that if a message is sent via a list, it displays the list name (and/or the sender's name), and you can send the reply to the list or the sender easily.

It doesn't do filtering: that's the job of a filter program ;-)

To some extent, it depends on whether you're bound to a windows platform. I'll second the vote for Pegasus if you are, although I haven't used it for a few years. It created all it's interface windows as panes within a main window, so again, you could reorganise them to your hearts content, rather than being stuck with the 3 different layouts that lookout offers.

[sciolist.livejournal.com]

I use Eudora at home, and that seems fine. I've heard that Pegasus can be a bit unsecure since a mate who works in IT has had trouble with scummy users using it as a custom mail-client at work.

Then again, if patched up, it might be fine. I recommend Qualcomm's Eudora though.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Mail for OS X. It's really nice. :-)

And that focus problem sounds like a Windows thing. Dr. Tom recommends migrating to OS X. :-)

(Can you detect a theme here...)

From what I remember, the mail client embedded into Opera is pretty lightweight and functional and used to work for me. Later versions of Outlook were verging on OK, although their IMAP support sucked.

But I still miss pine.. :-)

Sylpheed

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

Looks a bit untidy, but there is a Windows port. Lots of nice features, fast and uses mbox format. I use Mozilla for preference though so I can switch between windows and linux.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Our initial assessment is that it will delete all your mail !

There are no infidels in your inbox !

(Sorry, inspired by your subject line.)