![]() As I’ve said before, in my view email should be just text. The Iron Triangle - And what are Mailsmith’s special strengths? Naturally, I’ve been giving that question a lot of thought, and I’ve concluded that there are three main ones, that together give Mailsmith its special excellence and character. Add to that its special strengths, and I was soon an addict. In short, Mailsmith’s mail handling was just great. I could look right into my POP server and delete or download individual messages. ![]() After composing a message I could save it as a draft, queue it, or send it immediately. I could encode attachments in five different ways. I could forward, redirect, or send again. I could have multiple servers with different settings. I could easily reply to the sender, or to the sender plus all other recipients. I could view the three essential bits of information – all mailboxes, all messages of one mailbox, the text of one message – in a single tripartite window, in two windows with the mailbox list separate, or in three separate windows. This version understood exactly how I use mail. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember concluding almost immediately that the program didn’t seem to understand anything about how I used email, or even how I used windows.īut when I tried Mailsmith 1.5 last October, I found it greatly changed. I peeped at Mailsmith 1.0 when it first came out, in the spring of 1998, and, like the groundhog, dove right back into my hole. I actually agree with that position since email is just text, why over-engineer with a database and all its attendant problems, such as huge file sizes and data you can’t retrieve if things go wrong? This is a prejudice I’ve managed to repress in order to accept Mailsmith perhaps, after some soul-searching, you could do likewise.įinally, you shouldn’t read on if you’re trapped in the past. You also shouldn’t read on if you are religiously opposed to an email client that keeps its messages in a database. But if you really need to see email messages with pictures, tiny print, underlines, or funny "quote bars" down the side, don’t consider Mailsmith. That suits me perfectly, since pure text (plus attachments) is just what I think email should consist of. Mailsmith doesn’t do IMAP at all, and it displays just text: you can easily open attached HTML or images in another program, but you won’t see them within Mailsmith itself. You shouldn’t proceed if you absolutely must have IMAP support, or if you like your email as more than text – HTML, format=flowed, or pictures, rendered right in your client program. Reasons to Stop Reading - Since the notion that your current email client might need replacing is probably threatening to you, let me help by giving you, up front, some reasons to stop reading this article altogether. Perhaps it might lead you to look into Mailsmith as well. Perhaps trying to explain it to you will help me explain it to myself. Even after all this time, I’m still somewhat stunned by my behavior. But I can tell you this: One fine day about nine months ago, I, a longtime user and advocate of Eudora, became tired of its shortcomings, switched to Bare Bones Software’s Mailsmith, and have never looked back. Besides, what suits me might not suit you. You’re doubtless convinced there’s nothing wrong with the program you’re using now and the trouble and trepidation of switching, especially when email is your life and the risks are so great, probably seem overwhelming. In the same way, I can’t tell you what email client to use. And no one can predict what dog an owner will choose and love. (Yes, I’ve actually seen this happen.) Plus, over time a dog and its owner grow increasingly alike, and mutually dependent. The unfortunate passerby may have the dog’s teeth embedded in her shin, with blood running down her leg – the owner will still look her right in the eye and deny that the dog is biting her. Why? Well, for one thing, their owners are in constant denial. #1650: Cloud storage changes for Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive quirky printing problemĮmail clients are a lot like dogs.#1651: Dealing with leading zeroes in spreadsheet data, removing ad tracking from ckbk.#1652: OS updates, DPReview shuttered, LucidLink cloud storage.#1653: Apple Music Classical review, Authory service for writers, WWDC 2023 dates announced.1654: Urgent OS security updates, upgrading to macOS 13 Ventura, using smart speakers while temporarily blind.
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