Top 4 Open Source Linux Email Clients

All of us have been very addictive to check our email accounts. Wherever we are or whoever is talking to us does not matter, we want to be notified whenever an email arrives in our accounts. It is not possible though with a web app for which you need to open your browser and log in to check new emails. So here come email clients very handy. I am reviewing Top 4 email clients that are free, open source and easy to use.

Email clients are very useful because you get new emails direct at your desktop and without struggling through your browser, you know who emailed you and you can read newsletters faster. Here I am going through a series of 4 Top email clients that I think are very useful because they are fast, easy and open source. So without wasting any time, let’s get started!

Thunderbird

Thunderbird well known and flexible email clients.  It is developed by the Mozilla Foundation, the foundation that developed Mozilla Firefox and Firefox OS. Thunderbird is a cross-platform email client i.e. It is available not only for Linux but Windows and Mac too. Thunderbird is very flexible because it has thousands of add-ons that make a lot of things possible and easier in Thunderbird.  The client is able to import an address book, Outlook PST, mail filters and many more. Though Thunderbird is an email client calendar support can be added with a Lightning add-on.

The lightning add-on supports POP, IMAP and ability to get configurations automatically from the internet. You don’t have to struggle through configuration for setting up your gmail and ymail accounts. Mozilla Foundation froze the development of new features in 2012 and since then It has been concentrating on bug fixes and improvements. All updates that we get does not include new features but fixes and improvements.

Evolution

Evolution history is really “Evolutionary”. Evolution development was acquired by many big companies across the life of Evolution. Evolution was developed by Xiamin specifically for corporate Linux users but Xiamin was acquired by Novell so Evolution got an owner. And after Novell Evolution development was acquired by many popular companies including SUSE and Red Hat.

Evolution is a lightweight email client that makes navigation easier and faster.

Evolution history is really “Evolutionary”. Its development was acquired by many big companies across its lifespan. It was developed by Xiamin specifically for corporate Linux users but Xiamin was acquired by Novell so Evolution got an owner. And after Novell Evolution development was acquired by many popular companies including SUSE and Red Hat.

Think if it was a closed source development, Evolution would have died. Evolution has all the basic features including, contact management, email filters, and encryption. Unlike Thunderbird Evolution has inbuilt Calendar and Contact support. Because of simplicity and features, Evolution comes installed on several GNOME-based Linux distributions.

Geary

Geary another simple and sleek email client for Linux. One of the main reasons I put Geary on top of Kmail is the ease of setting it up. Configuring account in Geary is simple and automatic which is somewhat important because not any newbie or even advanced user would like wasting time in setting up accounts.

Although Geary does not have any inbuilt Calendar you can use program name California which is developed by the same team that develops Geary. Geary does have all the basic features and Geary supports Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com, and popular IMAP servers (Dovecot, Cyrus, Zimbra, etc.).  I love the way Geary organizes emails that makes reading emails easier. Geary sorts emails like a conversation so you don’t need to open up emails one by one. If you need a simple and supports basic features email client then Geary is right for you. It has a full-featured HTML email composer.

KMail

KMail is a default email client of the KDE desktop environment. What I like about KMail is that it is a fully featured email client. KMail is included in the collection of software that is called PIM suit (Personal Information Management). KMail is a rich featured email client so you don’t need other third party applications or add-ons.

KMail has many features including basic features like email filtering, contacts management and it also has a Calendar app called Korganizer. Events mentioned in an email can easily be added to Korganizer.

KMail allows users to compose an email and send it with multiple accounts with the help of feature named Identities. Users can use this feature for both personal and professional as well. KMail allows to configure pretty much everything on the app whether it is an interface, composer settings, and security features and the list goes on. KMail supports multiple email account setup although setting up multiple accounts is complex for a newbie but you like the features then you must try this out.

Conclusion

These email clients are handy and featured, I recommend to select any one of them depending upon your needs. If you use just email clients for getting new mails notifications then anyone of above which is light-weight will fit into your need but if you use so much more then you can look deeply before making choice. There are other goods, featured email clients available that you might have used or still using. Tell us which one you use and which might anyone of above.