Meli email client, pre-alpha release

the remote access is the key for me. my email is on a server accessible from any machine. sure, webmail could do that too, but webmail can't keep my state if i switch devices.

i now carry a tiny laptop (gpd pocket) where i have all my important stuff, including ssh keys to servers. i use any other available device as a workstation with a browser, and use ssh/mosh to access my tiny laptop to do the important work and access servers through that.

I couldn't agree more, and for the same reasons you've mentioned I end up coming back to Thunderbird, even though I'd like a TUI client.

I looked at this video about mutt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jMInHnpNfQ which made me think about making a switch.

However can we really do better than Mutt. Mutt typically had issues with multiple accounts and moving emails between the two. I have been migrating away from Google and this is a handy ability (which thunderbird has). I was quite excited by Drew Devault's aerc client https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/03/Announcing-aerc-0.1.0.htm... so maybe that or meli might be the solution for me.

Really there are only 3 requirements for me:

* Be able to use Vim for editing (one of my major gripes in Thunderbird

* Be able to use markdown, ideally something like pandoc, in thunderbird I use Markdown Here https://markdown-here.com but that requires you to edit in rich text mode and then convert to markdown. This is really annoying because you end up with
and

in the wrong places and have to always convert back to "Body Text".

* Be able to sync my contacts from CardDav. I could not go back to having a non-centralized address book. Ideally such a client would benefit from https://www.etesync.com/ as well

* Calendars I don't think need to strictly be in a mail client. What's the usecase for that? MacOSX has Mail.app and iCal.app separate. Is this a hangover from the Outlook/Google design. https://www.calcurse.org looks pretty healthy, though they say their CalDav support is experimental.

* PGP support, WKD, OPENPGPKEY, AutoCrypt etc. Enigmail does a lot of things right.

If you're looking to consolidate your email the best way is imapfilter https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter I use this LUA script (this is the Jinja2 template so obviously you'll need to substitute the portions in {{ }} with your real values. It runs on an hourly cronjob on my server and sucks down all the mail from Gmail and another account and then puts it in my main inbox via IMAP (not forwarding) so you don't have to worry about opportunistic transport encryption. It also does not mess with the headers which forwarding emails invariably does.

  -- crontab -e
  -- 0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/imapfilter

  function main ()

      -- See 'man imapfilter_config' for an explanation of
      -- imapfilter options and functions.

      -- Some config examples:
      -- https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter/blob/master/samples/config.lua
      -- https://gist.github.com/dylanwh/408810
      -- http://www.npcglib.org/~stathis/blog/2012/07/09/linux-task-sorting-mail-with-imapfilter/

      -- General Options
      options.timeout = 120
      options.subscribe = true

      -- Accounts
      {%- for v in ACCOUNTS | from_json %}
      local {{ v.serverName }} = IMAP {
          server = '{{ v.server }}',
          username = '{{ v.username }}',
          password = '{{ v.password }}',
          ssl = '{{ v.ssl }}'
      }

      {%- endfor %}

      -- GMAIL
      -- Gmail behaves differently to normal imap. With a normal imap acccount
      -- you can simply use move_messages(). Google stores both inbox
      -- and sent email in the "[Gmail]/All Mail" folder. An email sent to yourself
      -- from the same email address exists as a single email and is visible in
      -- the Inbox and Sent box. If you delete the inbox mail then the sent mail
      -- is also deleted. Thus it is only safe to delete mail once both the Inbox
      -- and Sent box is copied.

      -- Only go ahead and copy inbox/sent/spam from gmail if I have received
      -- some Inbox email.
      if (gmail['Inbox']:check_status() > 0) then
          inbox_mail = gmail["Inbox"]:select_all()
          inbox_copy_success = inbox_mail:copy_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['Gmail Inbox'])

          sent_mail = gmail['[Gmail]/Sent Mail']:select_all()
          sent_copy_success = sent_mail:copy_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['Gmail Sent'])

          spam_mail = gmail["[Gmail]/Spam"]:select_all()
          spam_mail:move_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['Gmail Spam'])

          -- Only clear the All Mail folder if we were successful in moving
          -- our Inbox and Sent mail. Note: move_messages is supposed to return
          -- booleans for copying the messages and then marking them as deleted.
          -- For some reason the mark for deletion return value is 'nil'.
          -- This may need to be [Gmail]/Bin or [Gmail]/Trash check your account!
          if (inbox_copy_success and sent_copy_success) then
              print('Safe to delete both inbox and sent')
              move_inbox = inbox_mail:move_messages(gmail['[Gmail]/Trash'])
              move_sent = sent_mail:move_messages(gmail['[Gmail]/Trash'])

              if (move_inbox and move_sent) then
                  print('Emptying bin');
                  bin_mail = gmail['[Gmail]/Trash']:select_all()
                  bin_mail:delete_messages()
              end
          end
      end

      {%- if SECONDARY != '' %}
      -- {{ SECONDARY }}
      -- Only go ahead and copy inbox/sent/spam from {{ SECONDARY }} if I have received
      -- some Inbox email.
      if ({{ SECONDARY }}['Inbox']:check_status() > 0) then
          inbox_results = {{ SECONDARY }}['Inbox']:select_all()
          inbox_results:move_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['{{ SECONDARY }} Inbox'])

          sent_results = {{ SECONDARY }}['Sent']:select_all()
          sent_results:move_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['{{ SECONDARY }} Sent'])

          spam_results = {{ SECONDARY }}['Junk']:select_all()
          spam_results:move_messages({{ PRIMARY }}['{{ SECONDARY }} Spam'])
      end
      {%- endif %}
  end

  main()

Your needs would line up pretty well with switching to emacs/evil, orgmode and then one of the 3 good email clients.

Just remember its there when you are ready for it ;)

I still find Opera Mail works best, even though it is unmaintained. It has superfast search and not as sluggish as Thunderbird.