Locally Secure Email Clients?

Mattcelt asks: "I share my PC with my roommates, two of whom don't have their own PCs. In order to keep things simple, I have Windows98 running on it - they are used to the interface; it runs the programs they need to run from the University; and I refuse to pay the money to Microsoft to upgrade to a newer Windows OS. Unfortunately, there are some issues with privacy, and though I trust my roommates, there are work-related things I wouldn't want them to stumble into. Has anyone seen an email client other than Outlook that has -local- file security? Outlook has a feature to allow the password protecting of .pst files on the local drive, but it seems that every other email client figures that once the mail is on your machine, you don't need it protected any longer. Is there another email client with integrated password protection?"

Comments

Tried a combination of...

[Vaevictis666]

Thunderbird (or any quick simple mail client) plus a software library to encrypt/decrypt a directory? Two batch files, one password, and that should set you up.

Just set thunderbird up to store your mail in a subdirectory of the root thunderbird dir, and encrypt it from there recursively.

IMAP? Web Mail? SSH?

[JabberWokky]

Leave the mail on the server, and don't store your mail password. Using IMAP means you can use just about any mail client, but are limited to certain mail servers. Webmail is available all over the place, but I don't like it. There are loads of decent text mode mail programs, and I'm sure there's a system somewhere on campus that allows you to connect and pull your mail.

--
Evan "IMAP/Kontact user myself"