Gmail, you are a temptress.
February 11, 2009 12:32 PM Subscribe
So, with Gmail getting Gears support, is it time to give up on a stand-alone email client?
I've been using Thunderbird for years to manage POP email from several domains and aliases. It's... okay. I've mostly stayed with it out of habit and for the huge pain it would be to move to something else. It's bloated, not terribly user friendly and pretty much locks me to a single computer for all my email. My nightly email backups are getting huge (gigs) and restoring it is a huge headache when things go badly. TBird's search feature is slow as anything.
I have a Gmail throw-away email account so I'm vaguely familiar with Gmail, but I'm wondering if its feature set has what I need to be happy for everyday work use. With Gmail (for my domain) can I:
- Manage attachments easily. My work is very attachment heavy. I need to easily and quickly get them into and out of emails (not view them in browser since most aren't images or docs.) I use Firefox so maybe there is an add-on to help?
- Work transparently offline. Gears support is supposed to add this, but does it work? I'm on and off line all the time and can't guarantee when I'm going to be connected so I can't have it bugging me about being unable to connect and it needs to be smart enough to send composed emails whenever a connection is restored. Also I'd be getting Google Apps for My Domain, and I know they get some features later than regular Gmail. Do they have Gears turned on?
- Manage multiple accounts from one master account. I have a few different domains that I send and receive from. In Thunderbird I can both send and receive emails from multiple domains and addresses under one account. Can I do that in Gmail, or would I need to set up some forwarding and reply-as aliases?
- Work with iPhone's Mail app. I'm guessing it probably does since they both support POP but just making being sure.
I think that's about it. Anyone have any related experience to share?
I've been using Thunderbird for years to manage POP email from several domains and aliases. It's... okay. I've mostly stayed with it out of habit and for the huge pain it would be to move to something else. It's bloated, not terribly user friendly and pretty much locks me to a single computer for all my email. My nightly email backups are getting huge (gigs) and restoring it is a huge headache when things go badly. TBird's search feature is slow as anything.
I have a Gmail throw-away email account so I'm vaguely familiar with Gmail, but I'm wondering if its feature set has what I need to be happy for everyday work use. With Gmail (for my domain) can I:
- Manage attachments easily. My work is very attachment heavy. I need to easily and quickly get them into and out of emails (not view them in browser since most aren't images or docs.) I use Firefox so maybe there is an add-on to help?
- Work transparently offline. Gears support is supposed to add this, but does it work? I'm on and off line all the time and can't guarantee when I'm going to be connected so I can't have it bugging me about being unable to connect and it needs to be smart enough to send composed emails whenever a connection is restored. Also I'd be getting Google Apps for My Domain, and I know they get some features later than regular Gmail. Do they have Gears turned on?
- Manage multiple accounts from one master account. I have a few different domains that I send and receive from. In Thunderbird I can both send and receive emails from multiple domains and addresses under one account. Can I do that in Gmail, or would I need to set up some forwarding and reply-as aliases?
- Work with iPhone's Mail app. I'm guessing it probably does since they both support POP but just making being sure.
I think that's about it. Anyone have any related experience to share?
Best answer: I use Gmail (as a Prism app) as my every day email client, and use Tbird to download a local copy of messages once a week, exactly as chrisamiller suggested above. Gmail will do everything you need.
I like the idea of using a NON-google, non-gears way of backing up. That way my messages stay completely accessible to me no matter what happens with Google (or if I decide to take my email somewhere else).
posted by quarterframer at 1:40 PM on February 11, 2009
I like the idea of using a NON-google, non-gears way of backing up. That way my messages stay completely accessible to me no matter what happens with Google (or if I decide to take my email somewhere else).
posted by quarterframer at 1:40 PM on February 11, 2009
I've used offline mode on my laptop. It's absolutely magic. What happens is this:
1) You install Gears and go to Gmail.
2) Gmail does a lot of machinations to figure out how much of your mail it should keep offline. In my case it's two months of inbox -- it varies by volume.
3) Gmail pulls down however much mail it deems necessary.
After all this, it's pretty much transparent. When you're online, Gears will occasionally sync your mail. When you're offline, just start up your browser and do what you might normally -- read mail, send mail, etc. There's no difference in the user experience whether you're online or off with the slight exception that you'll now have an outbox where your sent mail is kept until you sync up again.
GIve it a shot, see how you like it!
posted by the dief at 1:47 PM on February 11, 2009
1) You install Gears and go to Gmail.
2) Gmail does a lot of machinations to figure out how much of your mail it should keep offline. In my case it's two months of inbox -- it varies by volume.
3) Gmail pulls down however much mail it deems necessary.
After all this, it's pretty much transparent. When you're online, Gears will occasionally sync your mail. When you're offline, just start up your browser and do what you might normally -- read mail, send mail, etc. There's no difference in the user experience whether you're online or off with the slight exception that you'll now have an outbox where your sent mail is kept until you sync up again.
GIve it a shot, see how you like it!
posted by the dief at 1:47 PM on February 11, 2009
Best answer: I use Mail.app to access my GMail account via IMAP. It works great -- I haven't switched to the web client exclusively because a) dragging attachments to Mail's dock icon or to messages is super handy; b) LDAP contact lookup in Mail is awesome. For all I know there's Firefox extension to handle a); I don't know of any way GMail can do LDAP though.
posted by myeviltwin at 3:30 PM on February 11, 2009
posted by myeviltwin at 3:30 PM on February 11, 2009
If dropping the standalone client doesn't really work for you in the end, any reason you're sticking with POP3 rather than IMAP? I use Tbird to check my mail from several computers, with IMAP it doesn't matter and I'm not locked in anywhere. Tell it to keep local copies of everything, and you have the same thing you have now - when offline, it will use the local copies of your messages. With ThunderbirdPortable on a USB drive, I can check from anywhere (just be sure it's set to only download headers!)
I do use Gmail as a backup, to archive old mail from other accounts. Easy to drag messages onto the server using IMAP.
posted by caution live frogs at 3:34 PM on February 11, 2009
I do use Gmail as a backup, to archive old mail from other accounts. Easy to drag messages onto the server using IMAP.
posted by caution live frogs at 3:34 PM on February 11, 2009
I have two Google Apps domains, and I access them through the web interface. I used to use Thunderbird as a local backup, but found it hard to remember to fire it up once a week to download the latest messages. I am using Gears for my accounts now, however one of the accounts is having difficulty (the other one is fine). I haven't had a chance to work out where the problem is.
Out of an abundance of caution, I also have a Zoho account (free) which I use to collect mail from both my domains through POP. It does it automatically and, if ever Google did do something funky, my mail is all backed up - admittedly it's still in the cloud, but it's a different cloud.
posted by Tawita at 11:21 PM on February 11, 2009
Out of an abundance of caution, I also have a Zoho account (free) which I use to collect mail from both my domains through POP. It does it automatically and, if ever Google did do something funky, my mail is all backed up - admittedly it's still in the cloud, but it's a different cloud.
posted by Tawita at 11:21 PM on February 11, 2009
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That said, don't completely throw away your desktop client. If nothing else, fire it up a week and download your messages so that you have a local copy of your data.
Use the cloud, love the cloud, but don't trust the cloud 100%. Google could get bought out tomorrow and start charging for export access. Your account could get hacked, and everything deleted, etc. Be smart about your data.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:56 PM on February 11, 2009 [1 favorite]