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.

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