[Users] Gmail still driving me crazy

Aleks al-clawsmail at none.at
Sat May 20 16:27:23 CEST 2017


Hi lists at lazygranch.com.

lists at lazygranch.com have written on Sat, 20 May 2017 00:33:14 -0700:

> I run my own mail server, so I am not a user of gmail. I do have a
> few accounts because Google forces you to get an account with Android
> and if you run a webserver. 
> 
> That said, I like Gmail based on what I read in the headers. They use
> DKIM, so you can be assured the email hasn't been altered in transit. 
> 
> While I prefer an email client for security reasons, that is I don't
> trust browsers, I will say that gmail webmail is very good. They
> check both DKIM‎ and SPF, so it is unlikely you will be fooled by a
> forged email header.  Since I rarely use Gmail, I just use the
> browser. 

But when you use claws all the day with several imap accounts you miss
a lot on gmail.

My main point against gmail an the newer mailclient like email,
trojita, outlook and the other is that they have not implemented the
Threaded view.

I really like to see who have answered whom and not that flat view crap.

> I gather that the Gmail apps you mention relative to less security
> probably means no security. I would not use any email that doesn't
> use TLS. Your password will be sent in the clear and easily
> intercepted on public wifi or even a LAN at work by that dude who
> always wears a hoodie. 
> 
> Lastly in 2017, you ought to be imap, preferably starttls. These days
> everyone has a phone and a laptop/desktop. Imap is a cloud service of
> sorts. Your draft messages will by synced on all your devices, as
> well as your sent messages. This comes in handy when say you sent
> something from your desktop and then you need it later when all you
> have is your phone. 

I fully agree with you. Even IMAP ist not the youngest protocol it's by
default a 'cloud' protocol ;-)

1994 https://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc1730
1996 https://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc2060
2003 https://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc3501

But no one was thought to use 'labels' in imap!

> At one time I was using claws for imap and then using Thunderbird to
> download the mail later as pop3. That is, take it off the server. But
> I like how you can add a folder to claws to stuff saved email. Now I
> dumped Tbird and just save important messages with claws.  You can
> delete multiple messages at once in claws.
> 
> Gmail ports are here:
> https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/imap-smtp

The pain point there is that the
https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/imap-extensions does not work
as described with my company account.

For example

SEARCH X-GM-LABELS foo => not implemented

That's the outcome when a webcompany tries to run good old established
protocols.

> I would say send email using starttls on 587. All this stuff is kind
> of nuanced, but you really should not be using port 465. So that
> would be stmp.google.com on 587 with starttls.
> 
> Download your email on 993. That would be 
> imap.gmail.com port 993 ssl/tls. In reality, it will be TLS since SSL
> is deprecated due to the poodle exploit.
> 
> Set up the account and use the Claws "build tree" option if needed.
> 
> I've got this love/hate thing going with Google. I hate how they spy
> on me. However when Google really wants to do something, they do it
> right.

Well I would not say this in general.

Sometimes they create new stuff, which could be good as you can see
on H2 but sometimes they just throw the current established and well
know standards and ignore the rest of the world.

> Incidentally Google pays half the salary of the maintainer for
> the open source program Postfix, which is a critical piece of the
> email puzzle.

full ack.

>   Original Message  
> From: John Jason Jordan
> Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 11:42 PM
> To: users at lists.claws-mail.org
> Subject: Re: [Users] Gmail still driving me crazy
> 
> On Sat, 20 May 2017 12:44:10 +1000
> Peter Richards <peter777 at users.sourceforge.net> dijo:
> 
> >From
> >http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18492681/what-is-the-smtp-noop-command-used-for
> >
> >"The simplest of these commands is NOOP, useful mostly in testing to
> >avoid timeouts; it does nothing and can generate only a successful
> >response, with no change in state..."  
> 
> Sorry, I understood almost nothing of that web page. :(
> 
> >Have you tried setting up another account on Claws, to access the
> >GMail. My GMail wouldn't POP3 until I adjusted a setting within
> >GMail. Something like allowing 'less secure' apps or similar ??  
> 
> Interesting idea. I just did so using the standard settings.
> Attempting to get messages resulted in a quick flash of the screen,
> way to fast to read anything that Claws Mail might have tried to
> announce. No new messages were retrieved, there are still 4 in the
> Inbox (via Firefox), and the log shows the same results as what I
> posted with my original post above - lots of NOOP and Success
> announcements, amounting to nothing.
> 
> I really think it's time to abandon Gmail. Life is too short to put up
> with this hassle.

+1

regards
Aleks



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