[HN Gopher] A Minimal Email Client
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       A Minimal Email Client
        
       Author : reimertz
       Score  : 64 points
       Date   : 2021-02-24 10:52 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (manuelmoreale.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (manuelmoreale.com)
        
       | ourcat wrote:
       | I once built an email client in (JSP-generated) WML for the first
       | WAP phones.
       | 
       | It doesn't get less minimal than that ;)
        
       | butz wrote:
       | Got to love modern software that still allows so much
       | customization.
        
       | muhammadusman wrote:
       | Off topic: what are you using to build your blog? It's very
       | minimal and clean.
        
         | manuelmoreale wrote:
         | It's a custom design built using Kirby 3 (https://getkirby.com)
         | and runs on a DO server. If you need more info let me know ;)
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | This is in the source:                 <!-- Micro Blog Ver -->
         | <link href="https://micro.blog/manuelmoreale" rel="me">
         | 
         | Though they seem to be Linode hosted, and this blog is on
         | DigitalOcean, so maybe a leftover bit of html from some
         | previous version of the blog.
        
           | manuelmoreale wrote:
           | It's a leftover from when I was playing with Micro Blog (big
           | fan of that project/platform). You can also probably find
           | some leftover code from when I was trying to implement direct
           | publishing via Micropub and iA Writer (and I failed
           | miserably)
        
         | thegeekbin wrote:
         | It looks like it's probably generated with Hugo
        
       | dumb1224 wrote:
       | I'm surprised no one mentioned Mutt + Maildir? I'm by no means a
       | power-user but I really love it and find it very responsive for
       | downloaded emails.
        
         | pge wrote:
         | or mutt + offlineimap
        
         | alfiedotwtf wrote:
         | I'm a mutt + local postfix person. I love it's simplicity and
         | not needing to leave the terminal. Also, having it in a tmux is
         | only a few keystrokes away
        
       | AdieuToLogic wrote:
       | My favourite minimal email client was nmh[0]. Essentially, all
       | mail client commands are their own programs. This made extending
       | it as easy as writing whatever scripts you want.
       | 
       | 0 - http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/
        
         | emmelaich wrote:
         | Does it support maildir? Also, last time I used nmh it all
         | sorts of issues with weird mail.
         | 
         | I'm not sure I trust it security wise.
        
       | nunodonato wrote:
       | For some reason reminded me of the BeOS/Haiku email interface
        
       | gspr wrote:
       | Tangentially related: I really like the approach of mu [1]. Let
       | other software (like mbsync) handle IMAP synchronization of a
       | local maildir, let other software (like msmtp) handle sending,
       | and focus on doing really good, flexible and efficient queries of
       | the local maildir. Then you can build whatever thin, simple GUI
       | on top of that.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/
        
         | kgwxd wrote:
         | I like the idea of that approach too but I tried to set it up a
         | few years ago and it was pretty painful. So I never got to
         | fully functional. Are you actually using that set up and if so,
         | do you think it's worth the effort?
        
           | gspr wrote:
           | Been using it for 3 years. Loving it. Let me know if you
           | wanna see the configuration files.
        
           | ashton314 wrote:
           | I use mbsync, mu, and the Emacs client mu4e, and I've never
           | been happier with my mail. Pretty straight-forward setup.
        
           | shakow wrote:
           | A surprisingly pleasant, albeit convoluted, way to install it
           | is, if you're already using Nix and/or NixOS, to use home-
           | manager (https://rycee.gitlab.io/home-manager/) for that. You
           | just have to set the settings of your account, and it will
           | automagically link together msmtp, mu, offlineimap and
           | emacs/astroid.
        
       | njhaveri wrote:
       | Haha, having worked on email clients, this gave me a good laugh.
       | People use them in all sorts of different ways - part of what
       | makes them tricky to build. Very clever customization though!
        
       | alberth wrote:
       | A minimal client that I've enjoyed is https://www.yourtempo.co
       | 
       | Lots of screenshots at link above.
        
         | james_pm wrote:
         | Sadly that's not an email client, but rather a Gmail client.
        
       | DarwinMailApp wrote:
       | The simplicity of this client is quite beautiful.
       | 
       | I wonder though, how do you keep the client minimal, while also
       | maintaining a useful level of functionality?
       | 
       | It's something I've tackled with over the years while developing
       | DarwinMail[1]. I've always tried to keep the UI clean and clutter
       | free, while still providing all the functionality the user would
       | like (that I learn about from feedback and also from other tools
       | research).
       | 
       | I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you decide what features
       | make the cut, and how they are designed?
       | 
       | [1] https://www.darwinmail.app
        
       | chadstur wrote:
       | I'm a mail.app user and enjoy minimal email client interfaces.
       | Problem is, for large inboxes, I find mail.app's search very
       | inadequate. More often than not I'm opening gmail's web app to
       | find what I'm looking for.
        
         | ubermonkey wrote:
         | When you say "mail.app" do you mean on a Mac?
         | 
         | Because I have some pretty large mailboxes on my Mac, and
         | Mail.app searches/indexes them like a champ. The search, in
         | fact, is what KEEPS me on Mail.app -- it would be way more
         | convenient for me professionally to surrender to Outlook, and
         | Mac Outlook is really not bad, but holy hell is Outlook's
         | search GARBAGE compared to the Mac client.
        
         | njovin wrote:
         | Same here which is why I switched to using a desktop mail
         | client that just wraps the Gmail web interface (there are a few
         | out there). Gmail itself is pretty minimal (when you turn off a
         | lot of the junk in settings) and this way I get the power of
         | Gmail's native search along with nice desktop notifications.
        
           | blissofbeing wrote:
           | You then might enjoy mimestream[1], I think of it as a native
           | mac gmail client, no wrapper around gmail.com just using
           | gmail APIs.
           | 
           | 1: https://mimestream.com/
        
       | nimvlaj30 wrote:
       | Is this even possible in Big Sur?
        
         | fredsted wrote:
         | Seems so. You can hide both sidebars in the main window by
         | resizing them smaller, hiding icons in the toolbar is also
         | possible.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-25 23:01 UTC)