Ergonomics and security of graphical email clients

Inbox

Missing

Trojitá's feature set covers only the basic scope of message management. Because of the lack of a modular structure, the application cannot be extended with plugins. You cannot use OpenPGP and S/MIME with Trojitá, nor can you integrate common spam filters into the application. You can only manually tag spam as such, which prompts the program to move the messages to the Spam folder. A print function is completely missing.

Conclusions

The email clients I looked at in this article cover the full range of functions for every individual need (Table 1). Users who only need a plain mail client for a single account, with which they only read, write, and manage mail, are well served by Trojitá. The program is particularly suitable for mobile use.

Table 1

Email Clients

Feature	Claws Mail	Evolution	Geary	KMail	Mailspring	Thunderbird	Trojitá
License	GPL	LGPLv2	LGPLv2.1	GPLv2	GPLv3	MPL, GPL, LGPL	GPL
Setup wizard	Yes	Yes	Yes(1)	Yes	Yes(1)	Yes	Yes
Provider database	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Manual configuration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
IMAP accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
POP3 accounts	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Mail encryption	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Digital signatures	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Spam filter integration	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Antivirus software integration	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Plugins	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes(2)	Yes	No
Integrated PIM	Yes(1)	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No
(1) With restrictions(2) Commercial option in part

The solid all-rounders Claws Mail, Evolution, and Geary facilitate the daily handling of email. However, Geary neither supports POP3 accounts nor has strong encryption mechanisms. KMail is not only best suited for daily use, but also stands out with a very well thought out, catchy operating concept.

Mailspring is well suited for users who want to use a state-of-the-art interface, whereas Thunderbird unites a wide variety of programs – from mail clients to feed readers – under a single interface. Therefore, it is particularly well suited for users who are looking for an integrated environment for their complete work organization in the office.

Because an almost uniform interface has become established for graphical email clients, you will not need any training for any of the programs, so you can immediately concentrate on the essential functions.

Infos