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I've been using Thunderbird for the last few years. Never really happy with it, always slow and sluggish but it gave me the unified mailbox.
I have several accounts and that is a must have for me. About 6 months ago or so, I finally got it to performing well. Just tweaking settings. All has been wonderful.
But it seems that most of the time the updates require a reboot. Really hate it when windows makes me. And not an email client can't just be updated.
Anyway, I was looking for recommendations on email clients. I can't seem to find one that has a unified mailbox. Most all of them will allow multiple accounts but not a unified mailbox.
I have Outlook and used it for years at work, but no unified mailbox. Same with windows mail or whatever it's called now a days.
So I thought I'd pick the collective brain, prefer free but it isn't a requirement, I'd pay for the right one.
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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I run Thunderbird on Windows. I don't think I've ever seen a Thunderbird update that needed a Windows reboot. All that's needed is a restart of Thunderbird.
There's Postbox, which is a commercial fork of Thunderbird (not related to the Thunderbird project). There's Claws Mail Claws Mail - The user-friendly, lightweight, and fast e-mail client[^].
But I suspect that none of them will overall be as satisfactory as Thunderbird.
I have to say that I really do not like the way that Thunderbird is developing. I think the project leadership are gradually forgetting or disregarding what its fundamental nature and purpose are. It is good that Thunderbird is being developed, at least to keep up with Google's, Yahoo's, etc. new authentication schemes. But the direction, style and nature of that development are diminishing Thunderbird's appeal for me and are exceedingly unlikely in my opinion to generate new appeal for new users who will now always gravitate towards web clients/services rather than local mail clients.
But, for the time being, Thunderbird is the closest there is to what I want in terms of offline/local mail client, storage, indexing, searching, etc.
I very much want to develop a new cross platform local mail client with as near as possible transparent switching between local desktop, mobile and web, with flexible addon capability that reflects where I think Thunderbird should have been heading. I should stop faffing and get my finger out and do it.
modified 7-May-21 8:46am.
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I'd second Mark's comments re Thunderbird. I've used it for years and don't recall ever having to do a reboot; just a quick restart of Thunderbird itself. I'm now up to 8 separate accounts all within TBird, mainly POP3 but a couple of IMAP. They all work well and seamlessly. There are a couple of pain points in the interface (e.g. I have a "local folders" structure where I sort/archive stuff, but cannot get rid of the extraneous Inbox/Drafts/Sent/Outbox folders). For me the worst part is the clunky integration of the Lightning (?) calendar add-in, which is a bit "iffy" when it comes to connecting to Google calendar, and really doesn't handle .ICS invites properly (at all?). But it does have add-in support for Outlook .dat attachments and most other stuff I need, and it's always performed really fast for me. (Maybe because I keep my inbox relatively empty.. that said, I have 462 emails in there now  ).
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DerekT-P wrote: I'm now up to 8 separate accounts all within TBird, mainly POP3 but a couple of IMAP. They all work well and seamlessly. There are a couple of pain points in the interface (e.g. I have a "local folders" structure where I sort/archive stuff, but cannot get rid of the extraneous Inbox/Drafts/Sent/Outbox folders).
This describes me too, although in my case 24(!) mail accounts.
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I haven't seen Postbox, I'll look at it. I have previewed Claws mail in the past and reinstalled it yesterday. I seem to recall that I couldn't get the unified folders working in it.
I am running Windows 10 home, fully patched. Updated Thunderbird last night, and it required a reboot. I wonder if I'm only patching every third or fourth patch and that is causing the reboot. I'm using IObit Software Updater to keep it current, maybe I should pay more attention to the versions. 
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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Ron Nicholson wrote: I haven't seen Postbox, I'll look at it.
Website here: The Power Email App - Postbox[^]. Forgot to link it before.
Ron Nicholson wrote: I am running Windows 10 home, fully patched. Updated Thunderbird last night, and it required a reboot. I wonder if I'm only patching every third or fourth patch and that is causing the reboot.
I've got clients running Thunderbird on W10 Home and they don't need reboots. I would not have thought that doing every third or fourth update would need a Windows reboot.
Ron Nicholson wrote: I'm using IObit Software Updater to keep it current
Ah... I don't know this software but perhaps this is what is requiring the Windows reboots. Thunderbird has a built in updater. You could just use the built in updater if you want.
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The software just downloads the installer and runs it. I have to next through all the boxes. So I doubt that's it but it is strange that I'm having to reboot and other's aren't. Obviously something is amiss on my system. May or may not be related to Thunderbird.
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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Yes, something odd happening in that case.
As an aside, the built in TB update doesn't require any manual steps. It can be configured to run updates transparently (although I realise this is something many of us don't want or like).
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I had completely forgotten that Thunderbird had that option. Mine was set to check but allow me to install.
In the last few months, I have gotten the Iobit updater. Primarily for drivers, but I allowed it to update software. Thunderbird is the primary one it has done, but I bet the way it gets the new version is what's requiring the reboot.
I'll turn it off and see what happens.
Thanks for the comments. I think this may have solved my issue with Thunderbird. 
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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I use Outlook, but not with a unified mailbox.
But apparently it can do it: How to Set Up an Outlook Unified Inbox: A Quick Guide - Mailbird[^] - so it could be worth a look?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I saw this link yesterday but kinda glossed right over it. Since I'm looking for something else, I think I'll try this and see. Not scared of the VBA, in fact I'll probably do that.
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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What is a unified account?
I have been using Outlook for many years to collect emails from multiple email accounts and various SMTP servers and then (using rules) sorts them into appropriate folders. It even out-of-the-box allows you to choose which a/c to send from. What is the extra USP that a unified account has that is missing from Outlook?
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Unified Mailbox just shows all emails in one folder. The way Thunderbird works is that I can see all the emails from any account and reply or forward and it comes from the account that received the original email.
I have looked at Outlook before and using rules to group and sort into folders, but I'm not keen on it. Outlook was never my favorite.
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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By default in Outlook, all emails come into the same InBox. Rules just make them manageable; rather than having hundreds of email intermixed, it is more convenient (IMHO) to allow the system to sort and organise them for you. When you reply / forward an email, the default sender is the recipient of email, but you can select a different sender. So, I am somewhat puzzled about what the problem with Outlook is. I've been using Outlook 97 virtually since it came out and am glad to say the (apart from the ribbon) Outlook 2016 / 2019 seems to work in the same way. I admit that I am not au fait with multi-accounts in Outlook 365. The big fly in the ointment was Outlook Express which was a bit clunky so if your bad experiences were with Outlook Express, then you will be pleased to know that Outlook is not as bad.
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I primarily manage my email via Unread. If I want something to hang around I'll flag it as unread after reading it.
In Thunderbird, I can default it to Unified Inbox and Unread. So I see all emails from every account I have that are unread. Just by opening Thunderbird and I can search every email account with only one search.
In Outlook, I have to select each account before I can see any unread emails. I have 8 currently, that is 8+ different actions that need to be done to accomplish the same thing I can do in Thunderbird with 0 clicks.
I'm allergic to clicks.  Really Just a pet peeve. KISS is the appropriate metaphor when designing a user interface.
So will outlook work, certainly, as will any email client that allows more than one account. I'm just being persnickety. (There's a word for the CCC) 
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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I used to use Eudora, great client, good spam filtering & quick. Then Qualcomm made it freeware & then I couldn't get it to install on Win10 so went to Thunderbird.
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I just developed a ridiculously well performing graphics driver for the ESP32 that just blows the doors off of Adafruit's but uses ESP32 specific hardware SPI acceleration features.
And I did it in a couple of days, going from knowing nothing about the display device and little about the raw API for doing SPI over the ESP32 to doing fully asynchronous I/O over the thing.
And for the most part, my code ran when compiled, even after all the bit twiddling and low level calls and pointer ops. I only segfaulted a couple of times and both were for reasons that effectively amounted to a typo.
I'm on fire. Gosh I love being back in the swing of things. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Keep on swingin'
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Quote: Boys keep swinging
Boys always work it out
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honey the codewitch wrote: Gosh I love being back in the swing of things.
Wholeheartedly agree. Just graduated this week (yea, I'm late to the party). Felt good to have the time to finish up an article after so long even if it's a pretty niche one 
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If you steal someone's coffee is that a mugging?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Not if it's a demitasse; then it would be a Midnight Espresso.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I've bean thinking about that and it nearly brew my mind. It mad a mocha-ry out of my reasoning so I'll just latte it go for now.
Is the mugger cupalbe for the crime?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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and would they be a caffeined?
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