[Users] Thunderbird vs Claws Mail

[Milan Obuch]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2023 10:16:53 -0700
Peter Ehlert <pb21a at sdi-baja.com> wrote:

> I am a long time user of Thunderbird. No real complaints, but the GUI 
> has slowly been changed.
> lately I have been struggling with that, trying to get it to be My
> Way. Minor success.

Every program evolves over time. What does influence its progress, or
its direction, is basically developers' taste. It matches yours or not.
You can present your oppinions or join developers' team to get some
influence... Anyway, the choice of program you select to use is solely
yours.

To the Claws Mail properties - basically everything in Claws Mail is
tunable. There are so much configurable options probably no one
actively uses them all.

> also the .msf files have gotten Huge and that hinders rapid and easy 
> backups.

This is most probably developers' choice - it is probably some kind of
database files, so you have small number of files, but more complicated
internal structure. Claws Mail, on the other side, stores basically one
message in one file. This way it is possible to fix something without
special tool, backups, I am afraid, could take some time. On the plus
side, you could do incremental backups easily (more easily, at least),
so maybe this is not critical. You have to archive one directory with
configuration and cache data. If you use local mailboxes, add one
directory per mailbox (I have everything on server with IMAP access, so
for me there is everything in one directory).

> In the process I would like to do some housekeeping, fix a few
> filters and rearrange my copious folders.

How much mailboxes/folders/messages do you have? You did not mention
it, it is just a guess, but it seems you are using POP3 accounts. You
need thoroughly think about the whole process. On the other side, there
are some conversion scripts available for Claws Mail, most probably for
transfer from Thunderbird to Claws Mail among them. I did not use any
when I started because of IMAP. Also, you did not mention what kind of
server is used to hold your mail. This should be taken into account as
well.

> Question: do you folks recommend migrating to Claws Mail?
> the initial look and feel seems to be familiar and comfortable, but I 
> know little of the history and stability.

As I wrote above, only you may decide it. If you really think about
migration, allow some time to test Claws Mail while not abandoning
Thunderbird, yet. Maybe using some test account with mailbox (and mail
address) designed just for this purpose.

> secondly, will I be missing the basic features such as Filters?

Again, as written above, Claws Mail allows for adjusting huge amount of
knobs to adjust its behaviour. There are many ways message could be
filtered, some plugins are available for more specialised tasks, you
can even script something. Claws Mail is unique among mail clients
having hackability level really high.

Hope this helps. One can write about many Claws Mail's aspects some
amount of text, but I hate too long mails :)

Regards,
Milan