Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

I am looking for an email client on Windows to replace Thunderbird. My
main issue with thunderbird is that I get certain annoying errors while
using the client. Then I have to close and restart the client to reset
it. I have even attempted to uninstall and reinstall from scratch to no
avail. I posted on mozilla.support.thunderbird. Some remedies were
proposed but none worked.

Anyway, my minimum criteria for a mail client is that it must keep files
in standard mail format (no binary file formats). That's a necessary
requirement in order to not become slave of a single application with a
proprietary mail file format.

Some nice to have features:

- reads news
- does POP & IMAP
- powerful newsgroup message filtering
- it would be really nice if the same client is also available for *nix
- does contacts
- has some way to organize mail, folders and what not
- speller
- does unicode
- is not ancient - is actively supported

Price is not an issue although if two clients offer the same
functionality and one is free. I'll take the free.

Here is why I don't like some of the following clients:

Thunderbird: unexplained errors, simplistic filtering - only three
header fields can be filtered on

Eudora: separates attachments from mail and concentrates all attachments
in one huge directory

Opera, Outlook, Netscape: binary mail file format

Response is appreciated.

If you wish to respond by email please strip the "-" from the email address.

Thank you.

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

Alpine does all of these, although its address book may be a bit shy of a
full contact manager.

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, BM wrote:
> - reads news
> - does POP & IMAP
> - powerful newsgroup message filtering
> - it would be really nice if the same client is also available for *nix
> - does contacts
> - has some way to organize mail, folders and what not
> - speller
> - does unicode
> - is not ancient - is actively supported

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:50:33 -0700, Mark Crispin wrote:
> Alpine does all of these, although its address book may be a bit shy of a
> full contact manager.
>
Has Alpine been released, or is it still in beta?

Cheers, Liam

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

On Wed, 21 Jun 2007, Liam Greenwood wrote:
> Has Alpine been released, or is it still in beta?

Alpine is still in beta, and there is going to be at least one more test
release before the formal release of 1.0.

There is, however, no reason why you would want to wait for the release
version before trying it. IMHO, Alpine is in every way superior to Pine.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:38:02 -0700, Mark Crispin wrote:
> Alpine is still in beta, and there is going to be at least one more test
> release before the formal release of 1.0.
>
> There is, however, no reason why you would want to wait for the release
> version before trying it. IMHO, Alpine is in every way superior to Pine.

Other than finding it? I looked here: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
and there is just news, no pointer to software at all.

Cheers, Liam
>
> -- Mark --
>
> http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
> Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
> Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

On Wed, 21 Jun 2007, Liam Greenwood wrote:
>> There is, however, no reason why you would want to wait for the release
>> version before trying it. IMHO, Alpine is in every way superior to Pine.
> Other than finding it? I looked here: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
> and there is just news, no pointer to software at all.

You get instructions on how to get a copy by signing up to the mailing
list, which is explained on the web page.

If you know where Pine is distributed by UW, it is easy to guess where
Alpine is distributed.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

Mark Crispin wrote:
> Alpine does all of these, although its address book may be a bit shy of
> a full contact manager.

Mark, thank you for the pointer. I use pine on nix daily. I knew about
pcpine but not alpine. I tried alpine after your note. Interesting.
A feature that I missed is to not delete the incoming mail on the mail
server. Another necessary feature that I missed is multiple mail/nntp
accounts. It's nice to see unicode work on pine.

Regards,

bassem

Re: Looking for a new mail client to replace thunderbird

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, BM wrote:
> A feature that I missed is to not delete the incoming mail on the mail
> server.

There is no such feature to set. Unless you use an obscure feature known
as "maildrops" (which you have to go to some effort to set up), neither
Pine nor Alpine will ever delete incoming mail on the mail server unless
you explicitly delete the messages.

Put another way, the default mode of operation in both Pine and Alpine is
"keep on server".

> Another necessary feature that I missed is multiple mail/nntp
> accounts.

Pine has had that for years, as does Alpine. Look at "folder-collections"
and "news-collections".

It is true that only one SMTP or NNTP server is defined for *posting*
messages; however, you ought to be able to work around that by use of the
"roles" feature.

> It's nice to see unicode work on pine.

Thank you. That was a lot of work to get unicode into Alpine.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.