KMail is one of those email clients that’s really easy to miss, mainly because it’s been around for so long. People hear KMail and think, "Oh, right – that’s the KDE mail client thing in Linux that’s been around forever."
Yes, it’s been around a long time, but it’s arguably in the top 3 graphical email clients for Linux because it’s just that good.
Imagine for a moment if you took the best parts of Microsoft Outlook Express 6 – the same one so many of you still say is the best email client ever – added in some really awesome features like message aggregation (note the "Today", "Yesterday" and other expandable message groups in the screenshot above), spam protection (which OE6 doesn’t have), and the best parts of Mozilla Thunderbird without the bloat. Summed up, what you’re left with is KMail.
Once you start using KMail, you will say to yourself, "Wow. This is what Microsoft should have done with the next generation of OE instead of releasing that awful Windows Live Mail." And you’d be right.
I don’t know of many mail clients that has as many view options as KMail does, and it would take way too long to list them all here. What I will say is that for just about any graphical mail in history that you can think of, KMail can be made to look and act exactly like it. From Outlook Express to Outlook to Groupwise to Gmail to Thunderbird and pretty much everything in between.
The best part about KMail is that it’s a mail app you simply don’t have to worry about. Solid, stable, and works fantastic with both POP and IMAP.
For those of you that say "I want my Outlook Express 6 back", no you don’t. You want KMail.
(The distro being used seen in the screenshot above is Linux Mint 12, although obviously KMail will work in almost any modern Linux distro.)
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It has great filters. You can filter mail directly at the server
to get rid of some unwanted mail immediately before downloading it.Unwanted mail can be bounced back to the sender, simulating a dead email address. KMail also lets
you set up “search folders”, virtual folders that automatically collect
all messages matching certain criteria.
It has great filters. You can filter mail directly at the server
to get rid of some unwanted mail immediately before downloading it.Unwanted mail can be bounced back to the sender, simulating a dead email address. KMail also lets
you set up “search folders”, virtual folders that automatically collect
all messages matching certain criteria.
Thank you (Rich AND jdeb) for the great information. I will be moving to Linux when XP SP2 fails to serve my needs and I’m gathering Linux information now. jdeb, after I read Rich’s article, I had questions about OE features I use all the time – and you answered them! Thanks. Ann