KMail vs. Evolution vs. Thunderbird?

Deemo asks: "I use Mozilla Thunderbird on the Windows machine. Recently I installed kUbuntu, on a separate computer. Since I'm using KDE, the obvious choice is to use KMail as my default mail application. However, I tend to like Evolution's interface better, and I like Thunderbird in general from extensive use of the Windows version. I was wondering what the advantages/disadvantages are of each, and which one Slashdot users recommend for everyday use."

Comments

In all honesty

[Universal Nerd]

It doesn't matter, as long as you like it.

I'm a thunderbird user. Not because it's better or cooler, it's the one I'm used to using and I like it.

If you like Evolution, good for you. If you like Kmail, good for you. If you like Outlook, gasp, good for you!

reasons I like kmail

[jdclucidly]

• when clicking on a link in an email, the MIME type is checked BEFORE deciding which application to launch
• identities (Work, Home, etc.) are kept separate from incoming and outgoing server profiles; this means that one can send mail as any identity regardless of the physical location of your laptop
• very complete GPG/MIME support and integration with KGPG
• when writing an email, if the word attach appears in the email, it will warn you if you didn't attach anything before you send it
• the email viewer has an *AWESOME* email structure viewer... you can see all the different pieces of how the email was assembled right next to your attachments
• a robust filtering system that, as of KDE 3.5, supports filtering in to IMAP folders
• complete integration with KAddressbook, KCalendar, todo lists, etc. (All can be embedded in Kontact)
• and last but not least it's STABLE... I've had so much trouble with the other two clients mentioned crashing and destroying data... in KMail all the data is stored in Maildir's plain text format and is accelerated by index files which allow for fast lookups and operations; even KAddressbook uses VCards to store the data... this makes me feel much safer about my data

It's very simple

[dpilot]

KMail requires that you install a mess of stuff for KDE.

Evolution requires that you install a mess of stuff for GNOME.

Thunderbird requires that you install libc, gtk, and X11. If you prefer a stripped-down desktop, KMail and Evolution are non-starters.

Some points of comparison

[aminorex]

KMail is lean and clean, and it's integrated support for encryption is superior to the plugins and extensions for Thunderbird. I used and loved KMail, but I had to give it up because I use too many computers:

Thunderbird works essentially everywhere. You can share your mailbox over the LAN filesystem or globally via WebDAV, regardless of whether you are using Windows, OSX, Linux, Solaris, *BSD.

As far as I know Evolution is best for 1) People who need to interoperate with Exchange servers under Linux, 2) the mentally impaired, and 3) Gnome partisans.
But then, I never saw a good reason to try it.

The all new Ask Slashdot Jeopardy game!

[HRbnjR]

I will take "Topics designed to start a geek flamewar" for $500 Alex! ;P

Use IMAP, try them all.

[Bitsy Boffin]

Each of these clients has good points, and bad points, it's really a matter of trying them each for a while and seeing what happens. Use IMAP and you can do just that, all at the same time if you want.

I personally, currently, use Evolution - I like it's vFolders, I have a vFolder set to show me all unread mail from the last 2 days, across all my IMAP and local email accounts, one for the last week's mail and one to show me all flagged email and emails related to them (my "to do" threads).

I have the last 2 days vFolder open most of the time, as email comes in I can quickly read it, if it's junk then delete it right there, if it needs some attention (work needs doing) I flag it so it goes into my to do list unless it's a reply to something that's already in there.

Then when I want to work on a job, I open the "To Do" vFolder, and I can see all the jobs I have on the go, including all emails related to them (unfortunatly I can't get it to include emails I've sent in reply in the threads..yet), I also use the flag to keep a record of how long I've spent on the job, and use the "Completed" switch in the flag to indicate when I'm done and it's ready to be billed out (when it's billed I clear the flag and the thread drops out of the "To Do" vFolder).

It makes it very easy to manage the large amounts of incoming mail I tend to get, provides a pretty good timesheet system (for me, when I'm working on a job, it's always related to an email, so that's the perfect place to record time spent) and saves me from being frustrated at an INBOX containing several thousand messages!

None Of The Above. Webmail only.

[computersareevil]

I only use webmail because I can access all of my email from everywhere, and I never have to worry about duplicates updating many local clients, or which machine an email is on. But of course, now we have to argue over webmail clients. I use Horde IMP.

Use IMAP? Use KMail.

[gottabeme]

I used Tb for a long time, and I like it. But its IMAP support is not good at all. When I changed to another e-mail provider, still with IMAP, Tb would no longer download IMAP messages for offline use. I'd activate the function to download and sync e-mail folders, and it would always say that there were no new messages on the server, even though there were. When I went into offline mode, the messages weren't available. I tried making a new, clean profile, but it didn't fix it. (Tb 1.0.7/Debian, BTW.) It also would go into some sort of mode after leaving it running for a long time where trying to move or delete messages, or change folders, would do nothing. I'd have to restart Tb to fix it. Even when Tb was working properly, doing things like moving or deleting a message would block other mail operations until it sync'ed with the server.

Finally I had enough. I tried KMail. It has superb offline IMAP support: operations happen quickly and in the background, and are queued as well, letting me continue to do things while KMail syncs it. It has nice little features like automatically changing addresses from "someone at somewhere dot org" to "someone@somewhere.org". It also seems faster than Tb.

I still like Tb; it has a good interface, and is pleasant to use. I will try 1.5 when it comes out. But I am also disappointed in the Tb's team not fixing old, simple, outstanding bugs that have been in the bug db for years. There are some important ones that are breaking Tb for people, but they don't seem to care. Those people would be glad to help test and debug...but the Tb team has more important things on their list, it seems.

So, I highly recommend KMail.

Another one to be considered

[Lee_in_KC]

I'm in the "if you like it, use it" boat. An email client is just a means to an end, it's not a destination in and of itself.

Personally, I use and recommend "The Bat!" on my Windows boxes. I have what could be called "advanced" needs and this is one awesome program. It allows (automatically) different sigs per account, different sigs per folder, shared folders between multiple users on the same desktop, cookies, etc. It's not free but a short time using it hooked me. If you have some time and perceive some limitations in your existing client(s), give it a shot.

Standard disclaimer, not affiliated, yadda, yadda.

Evolution has Calendaring

[jimpop]

It's almost 2006, where is Calendaring w/ Thunderbird? 90% of the world distributes scheduling updates via email (iCal). Outlook and Evolution support iCal, but the Mozilla team keeps leaving it out of Thunderbird. There is some sort of extension for Thunderbird, but I gave up waiting for it to catch up with the Tbird releases. There is some better calendaring app coming from Mozilla, sometime in the future, but I needed integrated calendaring last year, this year, and next year. To me, email and calendaring belong together.