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Email clients carry out one of the most important jobs on your PC. Marco Fioretti appraises eight of the best and asks, just how good is Mozilla’s Thunderbird?

For many of us, email is the most critical computer service, even more than internet browsing, and instant messaging isn’t going to change that any time soon. Webmail, including state-of-the-art accounts like those at Google, can be enough for basic use, but when things get serious you need a real email client on your own computer.
Note that by serious here we don’t mean James Bond-grade security. But even if you are a normal desktop user you need good encryption, total separation between work and private messages, and above all your data under your exclusive control.
In this Roundup we’re presenting eight email clients for Linux. To be eligible they had to support the IMAP protocol to handle remote mailboxes and be actively developed, or at least still installable without problems and fiddling on a modern Linux distribution. All clients were installed (when not already included) and tested on Fedora Core 3.
Several of the candidates we selected also serve as newsgroup clients and/or contact and calendar managers. We’ve mentioned these features when present, but the analysis, and the final verdict, focused on actual email management capabilities. Email, especially when used for private messaging, is still ubiquitous and critical enough to warrant a separate treatment.

The joy of text
The list includes two text-based clients, Mutt and Pine. Don’t overlook them. They’re fast, full of features, and might be the only solution if you ever need to access a remote mailbox through a Telnet or SSH connection. Not to mention posting help on a mailing list to fix your video card driver…
Speaking of mailboxes, remember that there is more than one format to choose from. At the low level, some of them are single files, with all the messages linked in one sequence. The mBox standard falls in this category. Others, like Maildir or MH, are actual folders with each message stored in a separate file. The mBox kind compresses better and is more widely recognised. The Maildir kind is more resistant to filesystem crashes and concurrent accesses, and better suited for indexing and searching your correspondence. Keep this in mind when deciding which client, or mailbox format, is the one for you.

Balsa
The first Gnome client.

■ VERSION 2.2.4 ■ WEB http://balsa.gnome.org ■ PRICE Free under GPL

Balsa has a clean look and feel, plus a toolbar customisation interface for all its main windows. Navigation is made quicker thanks to a handy feature: you can move around the last opened folders thanks to the tabbed layout shown below. To give more structure to your archives, mailboxes can be nested. Basic message threading is present, but not active by default. Unfortunately, there is no spamfiltering support.
Simple searches are run from a dedicated pop-up window: just enter a word and it’ll search inside the body of all messages or just the headers. Alternatively, you could resort to a full regular-expression search. Besides looking for normal strings, it is possible to look for the messages with the same ‘flag’, such as Read, Replied-To and so on. Messages can then be filtered according to several conditions, and each filter comes with some preassociated actions: all messages matching a filter can, for example, be immediately copied or moved to another folder or to the Trash bin.
Balsa can directly download messages from a POP3 server. However, filtering and delivery of incoming email into different local mailboxes is delegated to procmail. When it comes to email transmission, Balsa can talk directly to the SMTP server of your provider, as well as use LDAP to access a remote email directory. Latest versions also support many IMAP extensions to work more efficiently on slow connections. IMAP support is not complete, however: it is still not possible to list all IMAP folders on the server, or subscribe to new ones. Operations are also accelerated by the (optional) multi-threaded email retrieval capability.
You may display and compose your messages in many languages, including non-alphabetical ones. Basically, if a language is supported by Gnome and GTK it will also be available in Balsa. When writing a new message you can choose from the different identities that you define during configuration then select the recipient with the integrated Address Book. This function can use any Gnomecard-compatible address book available on the system. A spellchecker is also included. Digital signatures and message encryption are performed through GPG and OpenPGP. Finally, MIME support makes it possible to view graphic attachments inline.

Balsa provides a very readable interface in a small package.

RATING 4/10
A simple and fast email solution for Gnome desktops.

■ VERSION 2.0.2 ■ WEB www.novell.com/products/evolution ■ PRICE Free under GPL

If you’re a Microsoft Outlook refugee, this will be the most familiar to you of all the clients in the Roundup. It is the first email client for Linux to have the Ximian Connector plugin – with it, Evolution can communicate directly with Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003 servers, and is also compatible with Novell GroupWise. MS Outlook calendars and shared folders are accessible (with the proper permission, of course), as are Exchange-based address books and task lists. The same applies to custom vacation or notification messages.
Evolution is a good option for businesses. Even if you couldn’t care less about Exchange-based team working, you can publish calendars and meeting schedules with iCalendar, arrange for Evolution to open a window or play a sound when some appointment is approaching, and synchronise with handheld devices.
As far as actual email management goes, Evolution has most of the features offered by GUI mail clients today. The look and feel is nice and polished, though a little boring, and almost everything you can do in KMail or Thunderbird is possible in this program. One problem is that there seems to be no way to load mailboxes from the local filesystem, unless they are copied by hand in the $HOME/.evolution/mail/local folder.
The message composer autocompletes the email addresses stored in your Contacts list. Userdefined filters automatically move or process incoming and outgoing mail into specific, customisable folders, also dealing with multiple email accounts. Spam filtering is delegated, transparently for the user, to SpamAssassin and all the main email security standards are supported, from PGP/GPG to Authenticated SMTP.
The mail search bar is quite flexible, allowing you to specify which parts of the message should be scanned. Virtual folders (vFolders) display all the messages matching your search criteria. Messages can also be given a score or sent to external apps for processing.

“THE FIRST LINUX CLIENT WITH XIMIAN CONNECTOR.”

Merging email, contact management and tasks, as shown in the left-hand
pane, Evolution might be the best solution for offices.

RATING 7/10
Very good for corporate environments, but not so essential for single users.

KMail
Default client of the popular Linux desktop environment.

■ VERSION 1.7.2 ■ WEB http://kmail.kde.org ■ PRICE Free under GPL
Email clientsLINUX FORMAT VERDICT
KMail is not available as an independent program, but it’s included in the KDE PIM (Personal Information Management) bundle. On almost all desktop-oriented distributions this won’t be a problem, as the whole KDE package is installed by default. You therefore have full KDE integration plus support for all languages and charsets supported by Qt. Recent KMail versions can even be embedded in the Kontact container application.
Of all the programs tested here, this is the one with the slowest startup when KDE isn’t already running, but it goes smoothly afterwards. All the important interface characteristics are easily customisable. The same applies to email management: even the format of the Message-ID header can be set from the GUI.
KMail will automatically identify the security protocol supported by a mail server and answer accordingly. Messages can be encrypted automatically with PGP or GPG, while the GPG Log Viewer shows you what’s happening behind the scenes when a message is signed, checked or decrypted automatically.
Incoming and outgoing messages can be automatically routed to different folders, according to the relevant Identity settings, which also include signatures and Reply-To addresses. The identity to use for each message is chosen from a drop-down menu in the Compose window.
There are plenty of options for managing message folders. Assign each a custom icon, or opt for them to be nested, and for duplicate messages in the same folder to be removed automatically. Threading is better than in previous versions, but not (yet?) enabled by default. Single messages and whole threads can be marked in several ways to scan mailboxes faster, while an antispam wizard helps to keep unwanted traffic out of sight.
KMail can do Quick searches and generate Search Folders like Evolution, but you can’t define time windows as search criteria (such as asking KMail to find only messages that arrived between Monday and Wednesday). When composing, KMail understands if you want to attach something and reminds you to do so if you forget. As-you-type spell-checking is supported, as well as colouring text in different ways to keep quotes visually separated from new text. Last but not least, there are several preconfigured operation modes, ranging from Most Secure to Purist.

“IF YOU FORGET TO ATTACH KMAIL WILL REMIND YOU.”

KMail works with the Bayesian spam filter bogofilter to manage your mail. A KDE HOWTO page explains how to install it.

■ VERSION 0.66 ■ WEB http://mahogany.sourceforge.net ■ PRICE Free under GPL

Mahogany is a simple email application running on Linux and Windows systems. Some years ago it aroused a lot of interest and enthusiasm: we gave its 0.50 version 8/10 in our June 2000 email roundup. Unfortunately, development seems to have progressed much more slowly than on other projects. The version reviewed here lags behind the other clients presented in this Roundup, both in features and in looks. In spite of this, Mahogany is worth a mention because it installs flawlessly on modern distributions and includes some features that its competitors should seriously look at.
Let’s start with the bad news. Window sizing, at least on Fedora Core 3, didn’t appear to work correctly: the first column of text of several configuration panels was not visible. GPG support in this version worked only to decrypt incoming messages, not to sign and encrypt your own, so its usefulness is limited. The online manual, reachable from the home page, says that Mahogany supports pluggable spam-filter modules, but we couldn’t find how to configure or launch them from the GUI. On the other hand, there is basic filtering and multiple identity support, while simple searches can be performed on multiple folders.
The good news is that Mahogany supports external text editors, saving you from learning another whole set of shortcuts just for email. This client can also collect addresses from incoming messages by itself, or connect to The Insidious Big Brother DataBase, a contact management application. There are also some hooks to send and receive faxes.
The nicest feature of this application, however, is without doubt the embedded Python interpreter. Other clients give you configuration panels or some kind of embedded macro support, but a real scripting language is obviously much more powerful. The File menu of Mahogany has a Run Python Script entry that makes it possible to process your messages in any conceivable way with just a few clicks. It would be really nice to see such a feature added to other clients.

The friendliest client around: Mahogany’s welcome email points you to its support forum.

RATING 5/10
A clean interface and several good ideas, but unfortunately development has fallen behind.

■ VERSION 1.4.1i ■ WEB www.mutt.org ■ PRICE Free under GPL

Don’t be fooled by Mutt’s Spartan interface: it’s super-fast and can do everything you’re reading about in this Roundup and then some. There are only three reasons why it isn’t the most common Linux client around. The first is that many users only have basic needs: Mutt is just too sophisticated. The second is the fact that you have to install some extra utilities and delve into text configuration files to use all its potential. The last is that Mutt doesn’t talk to remote servers. This follows the traditional Unix philosophy of building many small and fast tools, each specialised in one task, and chaining them together.
The net result is that to use Mutt you need a local SMTP server and some other utilities such as fetchmail and procmail running on the same machine. This is not a big deal, as all these applications are bundled in all distros today, but it’s an extra step.
Mutt starts with an index viewer. From there, hit Enter to read messages or the V key to list their attachments: Mutt opens them with the right external viewer by looking at the file type. Operations are made even faster by tab autocompletion, like the one you have in the shell. You can use any text editor to compose messages, then fine-tune the headers and add attachments.
Colours and key mappings can be customised at will. Proper threading is a long-standing feature. User-defined ‘hooks’ will change any setting automatically, depending on the current folder, message recipient and so on. Email forwarded from other accounts is recognised, and the From header will be set accordingly when you reply. Best of all, Mutt has macros! You can also load extra configuration files on the fly, so there’s no limit to how much Mutt can adapt to your needs, even within one session.
Calendaring and scheduling, though, are just not part of Mutt’s mission statement. You can use it to assign permanent aliases to email addresses, but it won’t be able to store phone numbers or normal addresses. You can, however, query external contact databases with query.
Mutt mail searches are performed through regular expressions – but only within the current mailbox. Searches across multiple folders are possible if you call third-party tools such as grepmail, mboxgrep or mairix, all linked by the web page. An exhaustive manual can be read online at www.mutt.org/doc/manual.

Some of Mutt’s winning features: message threading, quoted text highlighted and flexible message headings.

RATING 8/10
With the right configuration and third-party extensions this is the most powerful client around – but do you want (or need) it enough?

■ VERSION 1.0.0 ■ WEB http://sylpheed.good-day.netg ■ PRICE Free under GPL

Sylpheed is an email client and news reader based on the GTK toolkit. Its main goal is to keep CPU and memory use to a minimum without sacrificing a well-designed interface.
Among the features of that interface is that it allows you to rearrange the order of fields in the message window at will. You can add new items to the top menu, too: when you start to do this, a very useful window pops up. This is an online syntax help showing what you can type in every field.
Like other programs, Sylpheed lets you choose an external text editor. Emails with boilerplate text for all kinds of situations, from party invitations to payment requests, can be created with templates very easily; any unfinished messages can be saved as drafts.
Almost all commands are accessible with the keyboard. Addresses can be managed in vCard format, connecting to an LDAP server or with an internal, XML-based address book. There is support for many foreign languages and character encodings, including UTF-8 (Unicode).
Besides POP3, Sylpheed supports authenticated SMTP and SSL. You can download and filter email directly with this program or let traditional tools like fetchmail and procmail do the same job. A Protocol Log pop-up window lets you know what’s happening to each received or transmitted message.
Threading is supported, as are multiple accounts. When browsing mailboxes, you can filter out, or have coloured as you like, only the most important messages. Full-text search using the Namazu search engine (www.namazu.org) is on the developers’ to-do list. Until then, to search inside one single folder, just right-click on its name in the left pane. Graphic attachments can be displayed right inside the Sylpheed windows. To configure and use digital signatures and message encryption you must have the GPGME library installed.

Sylpheed’s Template utility at work, saving you from typing the same email message over and over.

■ VERSION 1.0 ■ WEB www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird ■ PRICE Free under Mozilla Public License

Thunderbird is the stand-alone email client from the Mozilla project. Its roots are in the email component of the Mozilla suite just as Firefox was derived from the Mozilla browser. Performance is smooth, even on notso-powerful computers. The layout is good-looking and highly configurable: to gain screen space, you can even give up the standard three-pane view common to almost email client GUIs. The toolbar, too, can be customised, and there are plenty of themes to choose from. Multiple email and newsgroup accounts can be managed from this program.
The email and spam filtering tools with Thunderbird are good. It comes with adaptive filters that recognise the messages most likely to be spam, and JavaScript code in news and HTML email messages is blocked. Messages identified as spam are then deleted automatically or sent to a separate folder (always choose the latter option, whatever anti-spam system you use!). Genuine, solicited messages can be labelled in several ways. Digital signatures, encryption and certificates are also there.
Search tools are comprehensive, too. Thunderbird lets you define message search rules and store them in special Saved Search folders. Whenever you open them, the application automatically populates them with all the messages that match the predefined criteria. Thunderbird even maintains Saved Search folders across sessions, until you explicitly delete them. Thunderbird can also do what it calls Group By Sort. Group messages by date, and you’ll see pseudo-folders labelled Today, Yesterday and so on.
You can add plenty to Thunderbird with extensions. The most popular of these plugins are Enigmail, which gives you access to GPG authentication and encryption features; Mouse Gestures; and a Contacts Sidebar displaying address books. Thunderbird also includes an RSS reader, a feature that’s likely to grow in popularity among email users.

“SAVE MAIL SEARCH TERMS IN SPECIAL FOLDERS.”

Email a la Thunderbird: powerful, good-looking and reasonably fast.