I used to use Claws and really liked it.

Currently my primary email client is Sylpheed (on one desktop and my laptop), because after a reinstall I was too lazy to compile the Claws Slackbuild's (one) dependency. I like having to deal with HTML overhead as little as possible. Sylpheed is very Claws-like. So far, at least, Sylpheed has worked very nicely with my Gmail account (which I use occasionally, but I pull news alerts into it.)

I am using Thunderbird on one machine, because it was there. I found configuring it (font sizes, signature, etc.) could have been more transparent, but it seems to work okay now that I've whipped it into shape.

Just my two cents.

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Claws-mail user for over 13 years. Prefer the MH mail storage for easier archiving. Use the vcalendar plugin for google calendar common access with wife. Dislike HTML and all the frilly garbage fonts and malware that comes with it, I now consider Facebook and twitter tags malware. Have five of my own accounts, two business accounts and my wife's accounts all on Claws-mail. The only dislike is that I have set the mail refresh rate to be off, because if you are composing a message and it is time to refresh IMAP messages, you loose the compose window until all accounts marked are refreshed, which can take some seconds, this too will be fixed soon. My only concern is the GTK2 base and the developer is moving it slowly to GTK3, which is only now in development. Gladly GTK3 is now more stable, so hopefully the development will quicken on claws-mail. I recommend Claws to many. PS. my backup is MUTT and SeaMonkey mail component, since both can access IMAP, while MUTT can access the MH.

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This sucks. Just in command line
- this is very good client. I found it works even if mutt fails.

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Way cool! I had no idea s-nail could access an IMAP server directly as a mailx client.

I've been using Sylpheed (not Claws, though I have tried it in the past and personally didn't see any reason to change) for longer than I can remember, since back when it was a GTK+1 program. My oldest kept emails (directories copied for years) are from 2003 but I may have had it longer than that.

I very much dislike html email, but there are choices on how to display messages. Plain text, or sanitized html that's as plain text as it can be, with links and stuff still showing correctly.

I prefer the plain text format of MH, too.

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I use Claws Mail. I have been using for years. Love it. I consider it a feature that it doesn't view HTML without a plugin. I have the Fancy HTML Viewer plugin installed for those times I want to view HTML formatted emails. The plugin blocks all remote content by default. There is a lot of options, filtering is awesome.

I have 13 email accounts that I check with Claws Mail. One is local, root emails forwarded to my user account. One is an IMAP account. The rest are POP3 accounts.

Change the setting 'next_on_delete=1' to next_on_delete=0 in ~/.claws-mail/clawsrc

No, I wasn't clear enough, but that's not the issue I was referring to. Ignore message deletion for the moment, which is only one aspect of it: set your reader to sort in reverse date order with threading view enabled, and look at the message navigation behaviour. When a message list is set to sort in reverse date order, the 'P', 'N' and spacebar keys navigate the wrong way. This is particularly noticeable when the list shows a threaded view: pressing the spacebar key fails to work at all because the "next" (in fact preceding) messages have already been read.

claws-mail is broken from version 3.16 on (possibly from 3.15 on - I know 3.14 was OK, but I stopped using it around then) for those who like to have their message lists sorted in reverse date order.

I am trying to understand this.
If sorted with newest date at the top (descending order), 'N' goes up to the next message, 'P' goes down to the previous message. If sorted with newest at the bottom (ascending order), 'N' goes down to the next message, 'P' goes up to the previous message. This does not look broken to me.

When I enter a folder the oldest new, oldest unread, oldest marked or newest email is selected (this behavior can be modified). I have one folder with 10,255 threaded messages. I set the sort order to descending, checked for new messages. I received 8 new messages, the oldest new message is selected on entering the folder. This message is below the other 7 new messages that are newer. I read the message using the spacebar, when it gets to the end I am navigated up to the next unread message. Seems correct to me with one caveat. On a new thread with all new messages, the oldest new message is not actually selected on entering the folder. The next oldest new message is. Example:

Seems to me this is correct, given this is a threaded view.


FYI I am running version 3.17.4.

I have just installed claws-mail-3.17.4. The problem is partly solved from when I last tested it. If you are not in a threaded view, 'N', 'P' and the spacebar do indeed do as you say. If you are in a threaded view they do not - they work backwards within the thread - if you press 'N' or the spacebar you go to the chronologically earlier message in the thread, not the later one, and oppositely in the case of 'P'.

In other words, given this thread:
Then if you press the spacebar or the 'N' key you move from the message at 04:25 to the message at 04:20, not the one at 04:35.

Note that even where a message list is sorted with newest date at the top (descending order), in thread view consecutive messages in the same linear thread (where each message is a reply to the immediately preceding one) necessarily always have the newest (most indented) at the bottom. claws-mail fails to deal with this situation with its navigation keys.

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I just built and installed Sylpheed 3.7.0 to try and understand this better. What I see is regardless of sort order 'N' always goes down, 'P' always goes up. It doesn't matter if it's in thread view or not, 'N' is down, 'P' is up. Spacebar simply goes down to next unread message. Perhaps there is a setting I've missed.

In Claws Mail the direction of 'N' and 'P'changes depending on the sort order.

I compared the operation of both. I used a thread that has a some branches. With Thread view, Sort by Thread date, Descending. Both Claws Mail and Sylpheed sort is identical.

In Claws Mail 'N' moves me to 2019-10-30 1604, 'P' moves me to 2019-10-30 0108
In Sylpheed 'N' moves me to 2019-10-30 0108, 'P' moves me to 2019-10-30 1604

As for spacebar operation.
Yes indeed Claws does not move anywhere because Claws Mail is expecting the next unread message to be up based on the descending sort order. Slypheed moves down to 2019-11-02 2146, then the next two unread messages because it moves down regardless of sort order. One thing I do like is Sylpheed has a "No unread message found. Go to next unread folder?" prompt, with Search, No, Yes options. In Claws Mail you use <shift-G> to goto next unread folder.

The big difference is what message is selected when entering the folder with new messages.
In Claws Mail the spacebar moves up to 2019-11-03 0118, then 2019-11-02 2146
In Sylpheed the spacebar moves down to 2019-11-03 0118, then 2019-10-31 0126

In both cases message selection is not in date order.
Claws Mail: 2019-10-31 0126 > 2019-11-03 0118 > 2019-11-02 2146
Sylpheed: 2019-11-02 2146 > 2019-11-03 0118 > 2019-10-31 0126

Guess it's a matter of preferences. I think I have a better understanding now.

With threads I think Ascending sort is best, it keeps the order inline. Thread view, by Thread date, Ascending. Both Claws Mail and Sylpheed sort this the same. Both programs don't select next unread in thread by date or thread they simple move to the next one in the order presented.

Claws Mail has a sort option that I see greyed out in Sylpheed, Attract by subject. Instead of using Thread view, I can sort by date, use descending and the result is:
Only draw back is this sort order does not stick; however, I can assign a hot-key to that.

I plan to play around with Sylpheed for a few days since I have it installed. Getting my one folder I normally view as threaded in to Sylpheed was easy, just copied them to the Sylpheed InBox. This folder is the Claws Mail mailing list, it has 10,262 messages in it. So far I still prefer Claws Mail.

Thanks

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An interesting analysis.

I personally find the approach of claws-mail to combining descending order sorting and thread view makes it pretty much unusable for me, because I like to read news groups with descending order sorting using the space bar to navigate.

I suspect there are only two things you can do for this situation. First, do what sylpheed does, which is to cause 'N' always to move downwards, and 'P' go the other way. I have just checked slackware's pan newsreader and it does what sylpheed does, and I think most other readers which offer descending order sorting do the same (including claws-mail-3.14 and earlier). Alternatively, when in a linear thread or sub-thread to cause 'N' to go downwards until it reaches the end of that linear thread or sub-thread as above, at which point cause 'N' to go upwards to the next sub-thread having the same depth, and so on, rather in the fashion of iterating a sorted binary tree. It's a bit difficult to describe but I think you understand the point. I don't know of any readers which do that. As I say, if they offer descending order sorting and thread view, they seem to do what sylpheed does.

Yeah, there are some interesting threads in the Claws Mail user list discussing this issue. I understand totally that N & P should always go the same way. This change on the direction is relatively new. It changed with 3.15, took me for a loop at first until I got used to the behavior. I like it now.

I have folders sorted ascending, others descending. In non-threaded folders I really like this behavior. I don't normally sort threaded folder in descending order, though I have my Claws Mail user list sort descending right now. Seem to work okay except the oldest messages in a thread is at the top, with the sub-messages sorted properly in descending order. It would be cool if the thread tree was reversed with using a descending sort. Top of the thread at the bottom. That said, I've never seen threads sort like that.