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How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

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Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#11

Post by weinzierl »

thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

I'm afraid the genre is pretty much dead as everyone seems to do email in the browser nowadays. Apart from TUI MUAs like Pine and Mutt - that may not be everyone's cup of tea - I found Sylpheed quite useful for a while. It is not as bloated as Evolution or Thunderbird but still has all the useful features I need and like. Its development seems to have slowed down though, so I don't know if it has any future...

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#12

Post by cranekam »

> Evolution [..] has a bad data loss bug. It sometimes deletes the email body text in the compose window after changing the signature [..] it has bitten me about twice a month for the last two years.

and

> I might have been able to partially recover the message from the Draft folder if I’d retained my cool and acted immediately. It had been overwritten by an empty message instead. I must look into versioning my email draft folder at a later time.

This person has a much greater tolerance for shitty software than I do. I'm certainly not a perfectionist and appreciate that almost all software has bugs, but come on! Arbitrarily deleting draft emails twice a month for two years? Requiring convoluted versioned draft folders to work around this glaring issue? Why are they punishing themselves like this?! They must find something really awesome about Evolution to deal with this level of annoying.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#13

Post by fsckboy »

thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

seamonkey continues the Netscape Communicator legacy of having a browser and MUA together in one product. I use it for doing IMAP and POP actions to reorganize and back up my mail. I don't compose email in it much, but it does give you the choice of HTML or plaintext.

also, emacs can be used as an email client

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#14

Post by warent »

thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

Emulate macOS in a VM and download Spark ;) I recently discovered this email client and it completely revolutionized how I do email.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#15

Post by weinzierl »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #9
weinzierl wrote: post #5

> There are specialized tools you can use to analyze this data blob. These are called file carving tools and two better known ones are foremost and it's successor scalpel [1]. [1] https://github.com/sleuthkit/scalpel

Scalpel, as good as it was back in its time, sadly has been stalled. Carrier and/or the folks in charge of The Sleuth Kit have taken it into their github repo[0] but there haven't been commits for ~7 years now. I did a thesis on file carving some 10 years ago, and scalpels ideas where very good back then. Photorec[1], however, has been the gold standard for a long time on (open source) file carving. It can handle tex…

Good to know! I always had ignored Photorec because I thought it is only for image formats.

To add to your list of options there is also YARA when used with appropriate rules. I don't know how it stacks up against specialized tools though.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#16

Post by petepete »

thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

Have you tried Geary? I helped a colleague get set up with ElementaryOS a while back and it looked really nice and, compared to Evolution, was much lighter and faster.

I haven't used it in anger though, I tend to stick to email in the browser these days.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#17

Post by brnt »

thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

I live in the KDE ecosysteem so I gave Kmail a serious shot, but it is such a pain to setup with multiple accounts that I gave up. It is very easy to misconfigure sth that I can't think of being a use case anybody needs, but then things like reply to all by default were removed because it ahem a certain group of FLOSS Devs is against such shenanigans. Pity, because apart from these issues I really like this mua.

Thunderbird is and will be for some time the only realistic least bad option. Once they replaced xul, perhaps updating its visuals will get easier.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#18

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

xfitm3 wrote: post #6
lixtra wrote: post #3

Of course recoverin an email is an innocent disguise. The same approach works for recovering any secret information that people used on a computer that an attacker can access. Of course there are plenty of possibilities. But it’s eye opening to see them in action.

Yes, encryption keys can persist in memory, too. That's why many law enforcement agencies use something like a HotPlug[1] + mouse jiggler to keep machines powered on when executing a search warrant. [1] https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit...

If you don't want to pay for HotPlug, you can also grab a full memory dump using FTK Imager or Belkasoft...

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#19

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

weinzierl wrote: post #15
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpel, as good as it was back in its time, sadly has been stalled. Carrier and/or the folks in charge of The Sleuth Kit have taken it into their github repo[0] but there haven't been commits for ~7 years now. I did a thesis on file carving some 10 years ago, and scalpels ideas where very good back then. Photorec[1], however, has been the gold standard for a long time on (open source) file carving. It can handle tex…

Good to know! I always had ignored Photorec because I thought it is only for image formats. To add to your list of options there is also YARA when used with appropriate rules. I don't know how it stacks up against specialized tools though.

You can also manually carve Photorec using the qt ui.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#20

Post by brnt »

fsckboy wrote: post #13
thedanbob wrote: post #7

Does anyone know of a good Linux email client that isn’t crippled by show-stopping bugs of this sort? I used Mailspring for a while, which has a nice modern interface, but quit after discovering that my drafts were only saved locally, not on the server. This has been an open bug for at least two years. In the end I’ve always fallen back to Thunderbird as the least bad option.

seamonkey continues the Netscape Communicator legacy of having a browser and MUA together in one product. I use it for doing IMAP and POP actions to reorganize and back up my mail. I don't compose email in it much, but it does give you the choice of HTML or plaintext. also, emacs can be used as an email client

Doesnt seamonkey basically bundle an old version of Thunderbird? Which itself, while very functional, isn't exactly slick and modern ;)
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