Re: package for Email

[Milan Glacier]

On 01/18/23 13:56, Gottfried wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am using thunderbird for emails.
> My question:
>
> 1. Which Email package do you use?
> Can you tell your experience with your email package?

I have experience with 3 email clients, mu4e, notmuch, and neomutt.

My personal experience suggests that overall I like neomutt best, but
the others have their own merits. And all of them they are very good.
YMMV.

> 2. Does it make sense for me as an emacs-newbie to change from using 
> thunderbird to an emacs email package?

It depends on your usage. If you use emails primarily just for reading
HTML emails from advertisement. Then no. But other than that, yes.

> 3. There are
> Rmail, GNU, Wanderlust, Mu4e etc...
>
> 4. I prefer to habe folders because I like to have an overview.
> Mu4e doesn't have folders.

What do you mean by "mu4e doesn't have folders"? Mu4e can read emails
from folders ad move emails between folders. What else do you need?

> 5. I want IMAP.
> Do all of them provide IMAP? (does Rmail now provide IMAP)?

You probably need offlienimap or isync(mbsync) as a mail synchronization
(fetch emails from server and push local changes to the server) backend.

All of notmuch, mu4e, and neomutt are just just frontends that
read/change your local maildir.

> 6. Wanderlust seems to be more difficult to set up, and I still have 
> trouble because I am an Emacs-newbie.

I don't use wanderlust but I have read some other's feedback. They
suggests that wanderlust is implemented in pure elisp and has very fast
IMAP sync speed (in comparison with Gnus). If you are using Windows
where mbsync is not possible to use. Then wanderlust may be a good
choice.

As for configuration, yes, the configuration syntax for wanderlust is a
bit complex, it uses DSL rather than elisp to configure.

> 7. Which one is easier to use?

Notmuch, neomutt, and mu4e are all easy to use. LMO. But again YMMV. My
personal configuration steps include:

- configure mbsync to fetch/push emails changes.
- configure msmtp to send emails.
- configure mu4e/neomutt/notmuch to read the local maildirs.

> 8. Should I start with Rmail? and later switch to GNU?
>
> At the moment I don't need GNU for reading news etc...
>
> 9. Or is it useful to start with GNU because it has more options and I 
> have to learn it anyhow? and I can use it with org-mode?
>
> 10. Do all of them have the same or similar keybindings or do I have 
> to learn for each one separate keybindings?

I don't use gnus.

> 11. What are the benefits compared to thunderbird?
> A. Only the keybindings of Emacs I can use and in knowing them it will 
> 	     be easier in future to handle it?
> B. It is within emacs and uses less CPU
> C......

I don't use thunderbird. But emacs/cli based emails clients generally
have common merits over GUI client:

- They are keyboard centric.
- You can manipulate emails buffers just like normal text buffers.
- Integration with other emacs facilities like orgmode, pdftools,
  xwidget stuff.
- They offer you more flexible and powerful way to manipulate, search
  and index your emails.

Let me show my feedback on all of three emails client I used:

* Neomutt

- It is a standalone cli app. You can use emacs to compose your emails
  and use emacs to read/edit your inbox emails with some very simple
  configuration.
- It is folder-based.
- It has pretty decent integration with notmuch (that is: you can index
  your emails efficiently).
- It can fold threads, which is very useful for reading mailing list.
- When reading HTML emails (especailly advertisement emails), typically
  you do two steps:
  + using w3m/lynx like terminal based termianl to dump the renderd HTML
    emails into text. And neomutt shows you the text in the reading
    page. And for advertisement emails, w3m/lynx generally gives you
    rendered output that is not ideal.
  + If you are not satisfied with the rendered plain text by w3m/lynx,
    you can directly open the HTML using your GUI browser in neomutt
    (two keystrokes "v RET").

* mu4e

- It has decent integration with orgmode. (store links to email in
  orgmode, open email links in orgmode, and compose html emails by
  orgmode).
- It **can't** fold threads. If you are reading mailing list, you
  probably will get overwhelmed by the incoming flood of emails. This is
  the only cons I have with mu4e.
- It renders html emails pretty decent (Say thanks to shr.el). In case
  you are not satisfied, you can also open the HTML emails by GUI
  browser or even emacs' xwidget.

* notmuch

- It has a conversation view (show all emails within a thread in one
  text buffer).
- HTML emails rendering is decent (also say thanks to shr.el).
- It cannot **manipulate** emails. That is: notmuch doesn't provide you
  an official way to delete emails and move emails between folders.
  However you can do that with some "hack" scripts.

> Kind regards
>
> Gottfried