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User:Helpfoss/Comparison of e-mail clients

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The following tables compare general and technical features of a number of e-mail client programs. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.

General

Basic general information about the clients: creator/company, licence/price etc. Clients listed on a light purple background are no longer in active development.

Client Creator Operating system Cost Software license User Interface
Alpine University of Washington Cross-platform Free Apache License TUI
Balsa gnome.org Linux Free GNU GPL GUI
BlitzMail Dartmouth College Free BSD GUI
Citadel citadel.org Unix-like Free GNU GPL Web
Claws Mail the Claws Mail team Cross-platform Free GNU GPL GUI
Cone Courier Mail Server developers Unix-like Free GNU GPL TUI
Elm Dave D. Taylor, Sydney Weinstein, Bill Pemberton, Michael Elkins, Kari Hurtta Unix-like Free Elm Mail System GPL TUI
Eudora Qualcomm Windows, Mac OS X Free Future release, Penelope, will be Free/Open Source based on Mozilla Thunderbird GUI
GNUMail Ludovic Marcotte and others Free GNU GPL GUI
Gnus Gnus team Cross-platform Free GNU GPL TUI
KMail The KMail Team Cross-platform Free, part of KDE GNU GPL GUI
Mozilla Thunderbird Mozilla Foundation Cross-platform Free MPL, MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL tri-license GUI
Mutt Michael Elkins Cross-platform Free GNU GPL TUI
nmh / MH RAND Corporation Unix-like Free BSD CLI
Novell Evolution Ximian Cross-platform Free GNU GPL GUI
RoundCube The RoundCube Team Cross-platform Free GNU GPL Web
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups SeaMonkey Council Cross-platform Free, part of SeaMonkey MPL, MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL tri-license GUI
Sylpheed Hiroyuki Yamamoto Cross-platform Free GNU GPL/GNU LGPL GUI
Spicebird Synovel Windows, Linux, BSD Free MPL, MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL tri-license GUI
SquirrelMail The SquirrelMail Project Team Cross-platform Free GNU GPL v2 Web
YAM YAM Open Source Team and contributing authors AmigaOS Free GNU GPL GUI
Zimbra Zimbra Cross-platform Free MPL on server and ZPL (attribution clause) on client GUI
Client Creator Operating System Cost Software license User Interface

Release history

A brief overview of the release history.

Client First public release First stable release Latest stable release
Date Version Date Version
Alpine November 2006 0.8 December 2007 1.00 2.26[1] Edit this on Wikidata (2 June 2022; 3 years ago (2 June 2022)) [±]
Becky! Internet Mail ? ? ? ? Template:Latest stable software release/Becky!
Citadel 1987 ? 1988 1.00 906 (January 15, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-01-15)) [±]
Claws Mail May 2001 0.4.67 January 2005 1.0.0 3.18.0 / 4.0.0 (July 10, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-07-10)[2]) [±]
Cone May 2003 0.50 May 2003 0.50 Template:Latest stable software release/Cone
Courier ? ? ? ? 3.5 (June 2004) [±]
Elm ? ? ? ? 2.5.8 (August 18, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-08-18)) [±]
EM Client ? ? ? ? 2.7 (Sept 14, 2010)
Eudora 1988[3] ? 1988[3] ? 7.1 (Windows), 6.2.4 (Mac OS) (October 11, 2006; 18 years ago (2006-10-11)) [±]
Eureka Email November 2002 1.0 November 2002 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/Eureka Email
Gnus 1987[4] ? February 1, 1988[4] 2.0
GroupWise ? ? 1986 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/GroupWise
i.Scribe / InScribe 1999 1.00 ? ? 2.3.18 (March 30, 2021; 4 years ago (2021-03-30)) [±]
IBM Lotus Notes 1989 1.0 1989 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/Lotus Notes
KMail October 1998 Alpha February 1999 1.0.17 4.14.3 (November 11, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-11-11)) [±][5]
Mail September 13, 2000 Public Beta March 24, 2001 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/Mail
Mailsmith May 8, 1998 1.0 May 8, 1998 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/Mailsmith
Microsoft Entourage ? ? ? ? 2008 (12.3.6) (March 12, 2013; 12 years ago (2013-03-12)) [±]
Microsoft Office Outlook 1997 97 1997 97 Template:Latest stable software release/Microsoft Office Outlook
Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups December 7, 1998 "Preview" March 19, 1999 M3 discontinued
Mozilla Thunderbird July 28, 2003 0.1 December 7, 2004 1.0

128.0.1esr[6] (July 18, 2024; 10 months ago (2024-07-18)) [±]

Mulberry September 20, 1996 1.0 September 20, 1996 1.0 4.0.8 (February 21, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-02-21)) [±]
Mutt 1995 ? ? ? 2.2.8[7] (November 5, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-11-05)) [±]
Netscape Messenger ? ? ? ? discontinued
Netscape Messenger 9 November 15, 2007 9.0a1 discontinued discontinued discontinued
nmh / MH 1979 ? ? ? 1.5 (June 11, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-06-11)) [±]
Novell Evolution 11 May 2000 0.0 3 December 2001 1.0 Template:Latest stable software release/Novell Evolution
Opera Mail September 1996 2.1b1 December 1996 2.1 100.0.4815.21 (June 20, 2023; 23 months ago (2023-06-20)[8][9][10])


Outlook Express 1996 3.0 ? ? Template:Latest stable software release/Outlook Express
Pegasus Mail 1990 ? 1990 ? Template:Latest stable software release/Pegasus Mail
Pine January 15, 1992 2.00 January 15, 1992 2.00 Template:Latest stable software release/Pine
Pocomail 1999 ? ? ? 4.8 build 4400 (April 6, 2009; 16 years ago (2009-04-06)) [±]
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups September 15, 2005 1.0a January 30, 2006 1.0 2.53.10.2 (December 28, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-12-28)[11]) [±]
SquirrelMail December 1999 0.1 January 2001 1.0 1.4.22 (12 July 2011; 13 years ago (2011-07-12)) [±]
Sylpheed January 2000 0.1.0 December 2004 1.0.0 3.7.0 (January 31, 2018; 7 years ago (2018-01-31)) [±]
The Bat! March 1997 1.0 Beta March 1998 1.00 Build 1310 Template:Latest stable software release/The Bat!
Turnpike circa 1996 1.0 circa 1996 1.0 6.06 (May 23, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-05-23)) [±]
Windows Live Mail ? ? ? ? 2012 (v16.4.3528.0331) (November 4, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-11-04)) [±]
Windows Mail ? ? ? ? ?
YAM 1995 1.0 1995 1.0 2.9p1 (April 18, 2014; 11 years ago (2014-04-18)) [±]
Zimbra November, 2005 Beta March, 2006 3.5 8.6.0[12] (December 15, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-12-15)) [±]
Client Date Version Date Version Latest stable release
First public release First stable release


Operating system support

The operating systems on which the clients can run natively (without emulation).

Client Microsoft Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix FreeDOS, DOS Other
Alpine Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Balsa No No Yes Yes No No No
Citadel No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Claws Mail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Cone No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Elm No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Eudora Yes Yes No No No No No
Gnus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Emacs
KMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Mutt Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [13] No
nmh / MH No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Novell Evolution Beta No Yes Yes Yes No No
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Sylpheed Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Spicebird Yes planned Yes Yes No No No
SquirrelMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
YAM No No No No No No AmigaOS
Zimbra Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Client Microsoft Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix FreeDOS, DOS Other


Protocol support

Communication and access protocol support

What e-mail and related protocols and standards are supported by each client.

Client POP3
fetch all messages 		POP3
selected by filter 		POP3
selected by user 		IMAP4
 SMTP
 NNTP
 LDAP v2
 LDAP v3
 EWS IPv6 MAPI
Alpine Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
Cone Yes No No [Note 1] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes ? ? ?
Gnus Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
KMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No [Note 2] Yes ? ? ? ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Partial Partial[14] extensible[15] Yes ?
Mutt Yes No (possible with POP3 browser) No (possible with POP3 browser) Yes Yes No (slrn looks alike) Partial (resolve real names through NSS) ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Partial ? ? ? ?
SquirrelMail Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes ? ? ?
Sylpheed Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No ? ? ?
Spicebird Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Partial ? ? ? ?
Turnpike Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ?
YAM Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No ? ? ?
Zimbra Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
Client POP3
fetch all messages 		POP3
selected by filter 		POP3
selected by user 		IMAP4 SMTP NNTP LDAP v2 LDAP v3 EWS IPv6 MAPI
Client IMSP
 ACAP
 RSS 0.91 Feeds RSS 1.0 Feeds RSS 2.0 Feeds ATOM Feeds iCalendar MAPI/RPC
Alpine ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail ? ? No Yes [Note 3] Yes [Note 3] Yes [Note 3] Yes [Note 4] ?
Cone No No No No No No No ?
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora No Yes No No No No No ?
Gnus ? ? Yes Yes Yes No ? ?
KMail ? ? Yes [Note 5] Yes [Note 5] Yes [Note 5] Yes [Note 5] Yes [Note 6] ?
Mozilla Thunderbird No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [Note 7] Yes [Note 8]
Mutt ? ? No No No No No ?
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution No No No [Note 9] No [Note 9] No [Note 9] No Yes Yes
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [Note 7] ?
SquirrelMail ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Sylpheed No No No No No No No No
Spicebird No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [Note 7] No
Turnpike ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
YAM No No No No No No No ?
Zimbra ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ?
Client IMSP ACAP RSS 0.91 Feeds RSS 1.0 Feeds RSS 2.0 Feeds ATOM Feeds iCalendar MAPI/RPC
  1. ^ Cone has an option to either keep all POP3 mail on the server, or download all messages from the POP3 mailbox.
  2. ^ KDE supports Newsgroups (NNTP) by the use of KNode
  3. ^ a b c RSSyl plugin is required to read RSS and ATOM in Claws Mail.
  4. ^ vCalendar plugin is required to handle iCalendar in Claws Mail.
  5. ^ a b c d KDE supports feeds by the use of Akregator
  6. ^ KDE supports iCal by the use of KOrganizer
  7. ^ a b c iCalendar is supported with an extension.
  8. ^ Mozilla Thunderbird only supports SimpleMAPI.[citation needed]
  9. ^ a b c The evolution-rss plugin (provided as a separate package by many distributions provides the RSS functionality in Evolution.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BECKY_rss" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BECKY_frnews" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "NotesRSS" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "OutlookFeeds" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "OutlookiCal" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "SelectiveDownload" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MessageDispatcher" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BAT_mygate" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BAT_rss2pop3" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "plugin" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "pegasusaddins" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MailiCal" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Authentication support

Client Regular MSN (NTLM)

browser login

Compuserve

(RPA)

MD5 APOP [Note 1] CRAM-HMAC [Note 2] DIGEST-MD5 with hardware token

PKCS#11

Biometric SMTP Auth [Note 3] SSL/TLS Client Certificate
LOGIN PLAIN MD5 SHA1 RIPEMD
Alpine Yes Yes No No No Yes No No No No No Yes No
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes [Note 4] ? Yes Yes
Cone Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No ?
Gnus Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes ? ? Yes ?
KMail Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes
Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups Yes ? ? Yes ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No [1] Yes No Yes Yes
Mutt Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes No No Yes No No 1.5.15 Yes
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No [2] Yes No Yes Yes
SquirrelMail Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? Yes ?
Sylpheed Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No No No No Yes No
Turnpike ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
YAM Yes Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? AmiSSL
Zimbra Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes ? ? ? Yes ? ? ?
Client Regular MSN (NTLM)

browser login

Compuserve

(RPA)

MD5 APOP [Note 1] CRAM-HMAC [Note 2] DIGEST-MD5 with hardware token

PKCS#11

Biometric SMTP Auth [Note 3] SSL/TLS Client Certificate
LOGIN PLAIN MD5 SHA1 RIPEMD
  1. ^ a b Description: RFC 1734
  2. ^ a b Description: RFC 2195
  3. ^ a b Description: RFC 2554
  4. ^ Claws Mail requires S/MIME plugin installed.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MailCRAM" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MailNTML" is not used in the content (see the help page).


SSL and TLS Support

Client Secure POP3 Secure IMAP4 Secure SMTP Secure NNTP Secure LDAP OCSP [Note 1] CRL [Note 2]
SSL TLS [Note 3] SSL TLS [Note 3] SSL TLS [Note 4] SSL TLS SSL TLS
Alpine Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes ? ?
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ?
Cone Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes ? ?
Gnus ? ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
KMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No ? ? ? ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Mutt Yes Yes Yes Yes 1.5.15 1.5.15 ? ? ? ? ? ?
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SquirrelMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes ? ?
Sylpheed Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ?
Spicebird Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Turnpike ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
YAM ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Zimbra Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ?
Client Secure POP3 Secure IMAP4 Secure SMTP Secure NNTP Secure LDAP OCSP [Note 1] CRL [Note 2]
SSL TLS [Note 3] SSL TLS [Note 3] SSL TLS [Note 4] SSL TLS SSL TLS
  1. ^ a b Online Certificate Status Protocol - Description: RFC 2560
  2. ^ a b Certificate Revocation List - Description: RFC 3280
  3. ^ a b c d Description: RFC 2595
  4. ^ a b Description: RFC 2487

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "M2STLS" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "TBCSP" is not used in the content (see the help page).


Features

Information on what features each of the clients support.

General features

For all of these clients, the concept of "HTML support" does not mean that they can process the full range of HTML that a web browser can handle. Almost all email readers limit HTML features, either for security reasons, or because of the nature of the interface. CSS and JavaScript can be especially problematic. A number of articles describe these limitations per-email-client; see 1, 2, 3, and 4

Client HTML e-mail UTF-8 support Image blocking Junk filtering Phishing filtering Thread view Conversation view PGP support S/MIME support
local server- side inline PGP/MIME or OpenPGP protocol OCSP CRL certificates on tokens, smartcards support
Alpine Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? Yes ? Yes ? Yes ? ? ?
Citadel Yes Yes No Yes [Note 1] ? ? No ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Read-only Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Cone Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes ? No Yes No No No No
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes No Yes Pro only Pro only ? Yes No Yes [Note 2] Yes [Note 2] Yes ? ? ?
Gnus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes ? Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes
KMail Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes
(with GPG) 		Yes
(1.5+, with GPGME) 		Yes Yes Yes ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [Note 3] Yes Yes Yes [Note 4] Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Mutt Read-only Yes Yes
(no support for images) 		Yes ? ? Yes ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes (with GPGME) ?
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes Yes Yes Yes ? No Yes No Yes Yes Yes ? ? ?
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? Yes [Note 4] Yes [Note 4] Yes Yes ? Yes
Spicebird Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
SquirrelMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (depends on antivirus) Yes ? ? Yes Yes ? ? ?
Sylpheed No [Note 5] Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ?
Turnpike Read-only ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
YAM ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Zimbra Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (depends on antivirus) Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ?
Client HTML e-mail UTF-8 support Image blocking Junk filtering Phishing filtering Thread view Conver- sation view PGP support S/MIME support
local server- side inline PGP/MIME or OpenPGP protocol OCSP CRL certificates on tokens, smartcards support
  1. ^ Citadel plugs Mail into SpamAssassin
  2. ^ a b Eudora requires a plugin to handle PGP.
  3. ^ Mozilla Thunderbird adds this feature in Thunderbird 1.5.0.4
  4. ^ a b c Using PGP in Thunderbird requires Enigmail.
  5. ^ Sylpheed has some limited ability to show HTML email. It can show the plain text that's left after stripping away all the HTML tags. Sylpheed has no ability to compose HTML.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "TBCRL" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MAILPGP" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MulberryEncryption" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "NotesThread" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "OEPGP" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "OEPGPMIME" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "TBIMAGE" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Messages features

Client Label messages Reformat received messages Bi-?directional text support Composing messages Native images preview Postpone/?scheduled message sending Native documents preview
with colors with flag antidelete add note edit headers (e.g., Subject) forced recode [Note 1] Spell checking Signatures Bottom-posts replies jpeg gif bmp png others txt pdf doc xls odt ods others
Alpine Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Yes Yes Yes No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes with a plugin ? ? ? ? ?
Cone Yes Yes Yes No ? ? ? Yes No ? No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes Yes No No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes QuickTime Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Gnus Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes XPM Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
KMail Yes[18] Yes No No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes ? ? with a plugin[3], not via IMAP [4] ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ICO Yes [Note 2] Yes No No No No No No
Mutt Yes Yes No No Yes ? ? Yes Yes ? No No No No No postpone ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes Yes ? ? No ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups Yes Yes No No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SquirrelMail Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ?
Sylpheed Yes Yes No No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Turnpike Yes ? ? No ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
YAM ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Zimbra Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Client Label messages Reformat received messages Bi-?directional text support Composing messages Native images preview Postpone/?scheduled message sending Native documents preview
with colors with flag antidelete add note edit headers (e.g., Subject) forced recode [Note 1] Spell checking Signatures Bottom-posts replies jpeg gif bmp png others txt pdf doc xls odt ods others
  1. ^ a b It's a frequent problem for people dealing with Cyrillic/Russian in email messages that the message is not encoded in the encoding declared in its headers and thus can't be read. With such a message (with a wrong declaration of the encoding), it well might be the case that it passed through several incorrect recoding stages while it was being sent and delivered; thus it's not possible to correctly render it and read it if one uses the common type of the interface for choosing the encoding (such as the menu in Mozilla Firefox). An example of such a complex case of a wrongly declared encoding: a message was entered through a webform in the windows-1251 encoding, but the web interface incorrectly assumed that it was in latin-1; based on this assumption, it performed the recoding from latin-1 to utf-8. The result of this operation cannot be correctly decoded through the common encoding-selection interface; it can only be decoded through a two-stage recoding: first from utf-8 to latin-1, then from windows-1251 to utf-8 (assuming that one works in a Unicode environment). After it is decoded, it is desirable to store it in the recoded form instead of the original, in order to be able to read it easily afterwards, and to quote it for replies.
  2. ^ Thunderbird requires SL8TR extension.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "M2SpellCheck" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "PINE_spell" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "PINE_recode" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "SCRIBE_spell" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "SCRIBE_jpeg" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "SCRIBE_png" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "eragenotes" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Database, folders and customization

Client Message file format Encrypted database Virtual folders Scheduled backup New mail notification Customizable interface Customizable keybindings Fragmented messages [Note 1] Database search with regular expressions support Indexed search Search folders [Note 2] IMAP search
ticker tray icon tooltip sound
Alpine mbox, mbx, MIX, maildir (with patches), MMDF, tenex, mtx, MH, mx, news, phile ? Yes Partial ? ? ? Yes Yes No ? No Yes Yes Yes
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail MH, mbox No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? No Yes
Cone mbox, maildir No No No No ? ? ? Yes (colors) No No No No Yes Yes
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora mbox No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes [specify] Yes Yes Yes
Gnus babyl, maildir, mbox, MMDF, news, rnews, SOUP, outlook, oe-dbx No Yes No No ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
KMail mbox, maildir No Yes No ? ? ? ? Yes Yes No Yes ? Yes Yes
Mozilla Thunderbird mbox No Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes [Note 3] ? No ? Yes (as of 3.0) Yes Yes
Mutt mbox, MMDF, MH, maildir Yes (with compressed folders patch [5]) ? (has limit command) No ? ? ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes no integrated solutions available[19] No (easily integrated with mairix) Yes
nmh / MH MH No Yes No No ? ? ? Yes No ? Yes Yes Yes No
Novell Evolution maildir, mbox, MH No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Partial Yes [Note 4] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups mbox ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes
SquirrelMail [IMAP Server] ? ? ? Yes No No Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Sylpheed MH No No No ? ? ? ? Yes Yes No No [Note 5] No [Note 5] Yes ?
Turnpike Proprietary Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes ? ? Yes ?
YAM ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Zimbra File system Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Client Message file format Encrypted database Virtual folders Scheduled backup New mail notification Customizable interface Customizable keybindings Fragmented messages [Note 1] Database search with regular expressions support Indexed search Search folders [Note 2] IMAP search
ticker tray icon tooltip sound
  1. ^ a b Fragmented messages makes possible, for example, to send a large audio message as several partial messages, and still have it appear to the recipient as a simple audio message rather than as an encapsulated message containing an audio message. RFC 2046
  2. ^ a b Search Folders are virtual folders that contain views of all e-mail items matching specific search criteria. Search Folders display the results of previously defined search queries.
  3. ^ Thunderbird's interface can be user customized via the use of themes (which can reposition and skin controls)
  4. ^ Editable keybindings is part of GNOME, provided "Editable menu accelerators" is enabled in GNOME's "Menus & Toolbars" control applet.
  5. ^ a b Because MH stores each letter in a separate file, it is trivially easy to (externally) search them with grep. This ease is shattered when non-raw encodings are used, such as base64.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Lotus_frag" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Mail_search" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Mail_search2" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MulberryDB" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MulberryMBox" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "TBEncryptedDB" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "MSO" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "eragebackups" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "eragedbgrepsearch" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Templates, scripts and programming languages

Client Message templates Message templates individual for Support in message templates scripts, programming languages
new reply forward read confirmation save print JavaScript VBScript PHP Scripts Python Regular expressions Java Other (specify)
Alpine Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? any No No No No ? No ?
Citadel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Claws Mail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes account
folder
 No No No Yes ? ? Perl
Cone Yes No No No No No ? No No No No No No No
Elm ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Eudora Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes any No No No No Yes No No
Gnus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? No No No No Yes No elisp
KMail Yes Yes Yes No No No none ? No No No ? ? ?
Mozilla Thunderbird Yes Yes[Note 1] Yes[Note 1] Yes Yes Yes profile Yes ? ? ? ? ? ?
Mutt Yes Yes Yes No ? ? any No No No No Yes ? Internal macros
nmh / MH ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Novell Evolution Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SeaMonkey Mail & Newsgroups ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SquirrelMail Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No ?
Sylpheed Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? No No No No No ? ?
YAM Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? No No No No ? ? ARexx
Zimbra Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes any No No No No No ? ?
Client Message templates Message templates individual for Support in message templates scripts, programming languages
new reply forward read confirmation save print JavaScript VBScript PHP Scripts Python Regular expressions Java Other (specify)
  1. ^ a b Thunderbird supports HTML templates with "Stationery" add-on.

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Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BAT_XMP" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BAT_XMP2" is not used in the content (see the help page).
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BAT_TBPyxie" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "STATIONERY" is not used in the content (see the help page).

See also

References

  1. ^ Eduardo Chappa (2 June 2022). "New version 2.26".
  2. ^ "Latest News". Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  3. ^ a b "The Birth of Eudora". Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  4. ^ a b "GNUS: a NNTP based news reader for GNU Emacs (1 of 2)". Retrieved 2008-08-04.
  5. ^ "KDE Ships KDE Applications and Platform 4.14.3". KDE. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
  6. ^ "Thunderbird — Release Notes (128.0.1esr)". Mozilla Foundation. 2024-07-18. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  7. ^ "The Mutt E-Mail Client". Stable. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  8. ^ "Thanks for downloading Opera". Opera Norway. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  9. ^ "Thanks for downloading Opera". Opera Norway. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  10. ^ "Index of /ftp/pub/opera/desktop/100.0.4815.21/". Opera Norway. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  11. ^ "SeaMonkey 2.53.10.2 released". 2021-12-28. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  12. ^ https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Zimbra_Releases
  13. ^ "Other Programming Projects and Downloads". Retrieved 2007-04-06.
  14. ^ Write to LDAP still missing after 10 years, Mozilla bug 86405
  15. ^ Add-ons include MesQuilla ExQuilla Exchange Web Services (alpha) and Provider for Microsoft Exchange
  16. ^ "List of features of The Bat! e-mail client".
  17. ^ "The Bat! with Hardware Tokens".
  18. ^ http://www.google.com/search?q=kmail+colors&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a
  19. ^ MuttWiki: UserStory/SearchingMail
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