I'm amazed that so many people just use gmail (or other webmail application) and don't use a local client app on their computer. I used the VM package in Emacs to read mail for years and it was fine for me. It's still more powerful than virtually any other mail program I've seen. I could tag messages (it was called labelling) 10 years ago. When I switched to the Mac I decided to try the full experience and used Mail.app for my mail. I lost some features, but the HTML rendering was a lot better.
But I forward mail from a few accounts to gmail and use the POP interface to download mail to Mail.app. I use Mail.app to read and send mail (and it interfaces well with Address Book and Quicksilver). Some (many) people just keep all their mail on googles gmail servers and use the web interface to read and send mail. Sure it's great that they can read their mail from any connected machine (I can do that too), but they have no access to their mail unless they are online and they have no backup. Today I read that Gmail users report vanishing e-mail. 60 people lost all their mail, gone. What is your service agreement with gmail's free service? Personally I think it's crazy to not have your mail on your computer.
3 comments:
Of course those same people would be complaining just as loudly if they had downloaded all their mail and their HD drive died. After all, NO ONE backs things up.
Personally I've noticed 1600 emails in my wife's inbox (mail.app). Some people don't even DELETE. And no, I'm not backing it up.
My dad used to do both. He'd check his email on Yahoo's web site and delete the 600 or so spams he got a week. Then, he'd download his real messages to OE Express. I used to wonder why it took him so long to respond to mail. Then I realized it's because of the volume of spam he has to sort through first.
I don't delete the mail from gmail when I download, so it is backed up there. I also do semi-regular (manual) backups to an external hard drive.
gmail's spam filter seems to work pretty well for me. It traps about 50 per day and only lets 1 per day or two through.
Reading your email with Emacs? My heavens, you are a geek.
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