Although the current generation of Internet users may not believe it, email has not always been web-based like it is today. Desktop email clients used to be the only method for accessing email. One of the more popular free email clients from back in the day was Mozilla’s Mail and News. After Firefox was spun off of Mozilla, the Mail and News app followed suit and Thunderbird was born. Given the widespread use of web-based email these days, are desktop email clients a dying breed?
Desktop email clients offer certain functionality not seen in similar web-based offerings even though the gap is rapidly closing. Thunderbird, like Firefox, has the ability to use plug-ins to extend the functionality of the application. Unfortunately, unlike Firefox, there are no must-have Thunderbird plug-ins. This is most likely attributed to multiple things but mainly the lack of desktop email users. Web-based clients are ubiquitous!
One of the most prized features of desktop email clients is the ability to read email while offline – something not currently possible in most web-based emails services not bearing Gmail in their name. The only other potentially killer desktop email client feature to consider is the ability to tie multiple email accounts in to a single, unified inbox or potential client integration with specific desktop applications in order to extend client functionality. Outside of those features there just is nothing else sexy about desktop email clients.
Thunderbird is an excellent email client straight out the box. But while it does email well, it is not charismatic – there is nothing about Thunderbird to get excited about. Why would anyone evangelize a product they are not passionate about?
Postbox, a newcomer to the email scene, is based on Thunderbird and makes extensive use of tabs in the UI – far greater than Thunderbird has ever opted to go. While it is on the right track in terms of desktop email, offering some innovative and unique features, it too does not do enough to make a substantial amount of people switch in order to have a lasting affect on the industry. Although Postbox development has scratched a few itches here and there, it will not be replacing web-based email any time soon.
Is desktop email a dying breed or can it be saved if the ship changes course? Glyn Moody from CompterworldUK seems to think Thunderbird in particular may be salvageable so long as the development mindset changes from positioning the product as an email client to turning it in to a messaging program.
The more Facebook and Twitter spread, the more people will be turning to these opt-in networks for their communications; email, as a result, will dwindle in importance, turning into a kind of digital wasteland inhabited mostly by those too poor, uninformed or lazy to move on, and by spamming parasites who prey on them. I don’t imagine that Thunderbird wishes to become the software of choice for either.
This implies that Thunderbird needs to change from an email program to a messaging program that embraces these new forms of opt-in communications. A way must be found to integrate tweets, Facebook messages, RSS feeds and whatever else comes along in the next few years, into a coherent and navigable stream of messages.
While I am doubtful that turning Thunderbird in to a messaging platform capable of understanding various social networks is the answer, I do like the premise of modifying Thunderbird’s paradigm as a potential saving grace. The developers need to do something to make desktop email exciting again and this idea might be one way to do just that.
Unfortunately, for the average user, especially the mobile user, web-based email is a much better solution than being tied to a desktop email client. In a corporate environment, with the requirement to do calendaring, appointments, tasks and whatnot, desktop email will always win.
But even though applications like Thunderbird are capable of accessing server-side email through IMAP, people are so entrenched in web-based email these days it will be nearly impossible to pry it from their hands unless a truly revolutionary desktop email product hits the scene.
As far as I am concerned I find web-based email, Gmail in particular, far more worthwhile than their desktop-based cousins. If you are looking to access web-based email from a desktop client then maybe something like Mailplane is right up your alley. Otherwise, desktop email clients are a dying breed and will be soon following the same path those crusty old dinosaurs took – extinction.
I don't think desktop email clients are dying, and I don't think they will die very soon. I use Thunderbird to acces both my Hotmail Email address and the Email address that belongs to my website, why ? Because I find it way much easier to work with than using a web service.
April 9, 2009 @ 00:47
While I do agree that desktop clients allow you to work with multiple e-mail accounts, Im finding less and less people want to juggle with that. I use to have two e-mail accounts, until I finally shut the old account down. I am now just very selective about the information I give away.
GMail is a web service, and I have struggled with the idea of switching to web based only for a few reasons. One is the awesome features you get from the Labs section (like having gmail scan your e-mail for the words attachment, and warn you that you forgot to attach said attachment, or un-send an e-mail) Another is the ability to pretty much access that service from any computer. You don't need to install anything.
The only thing thats stopping me is the fact that I use my Macs for everything and having my address book always synced is important. When I find a solution to keep my GMail contacts and my Address Book synced, than I won't ever use a desktop client again.
April 9, 2009 @ 02:03
Glad to hear you got it working. I was going to ask why you just don't use the built-in Gmail contact syncing, but I guess there's no need to ask. Though, I will ask this – is that what you used?
April 9, 2009 @ 13:35
I used the Google syncing via Address Book. The only problem is I spend a majority of my time at my iMac in the office, and the ability to sync through Address Book to Google only shows up if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, and have connected it to your system. I only connect my iPhone to my laptop at home. (Address Book was never showing the sync option on my iMac, so I never dealt with it)
So I had to use Back to My Mac to connect to my laptop at home, and enable the syncing that way.
In short, I was a complete moron about the subject. I am very pleased with the results though.
April 9, 2009 @ 13:53
Glad to hear you were able to get it working on both sides.
As an aside, I am in a similar predicament because I am using the OTA
Google Contact and Calendar syncing on my iPhone. So because of that
the OS X Address Book can no longer sync contacts with Google. Looks
like I might need to investigate a third-party solution like what
you're using, so I can marry everything up.
April 9, 2009 @ 14:56
Have you looked up BusySync for syncing your Google Calendars.
April 13, 2009 @ 06:37
I have and actually used it a bit before the demo expired. I forget why I stopped using it – maybe it had something to do with the OTA sync with the iPhone?
April 13, 2009 @ 10:26
What is it about desktop email clients that you find easier to work with than web-based email?
April 9, 2009 @ 13:34
I purchased a license for Mailplane yesterday. Before I was running Fluid for a couple of months. but running Gmail in a tab in my browser does not give me some of the integration a regular desktop client does, but Mailplane is on the right track solving those problems.
Before, I was a die-hard Thunderbird user –both on Windows and OSX– since its initial release. I liked the speed and offline access in combination with Gmail's IMAP. For the last year I was running nightly builds of Thunderbird 3. The single reason I switched to web-based Gmail is conversation tracking, speed and Gmail Labs. For some reason it just does it all a bit better than what I have been used to.
But that is for my personal e-mail. For work I use Outlook 2007 and I doubt that could ever be replaced by a webbased system. Partly because of the client (speed and search is great for large inboxes), but also because it integrates with other systems.
For me, desktop email clients are not a dying bread unless they can solve the access-everywhere problem. With Gmail I can access my e-mail from home on OSX, from work on Windows, using the Gmail client on my Blackberry or Sony Ericsson or wherever I want to. And what I get on all those devices is still powerful software, not some dumbed web interface (I'm looking at you, Microsoft). I'd be fine with using a client, because I'm sure they can offer some good things, but the infrastructure and development effort behind it needs to be better than say Gmail.
April 9, 2009 @ 16:29
Seeing how extensively desktop mail clients are used in large corporate offices, I don't see them disappearing anytime soon. Everywhere I worked so far, probably starting in the early 90s, Outlook was used and iin one rare occassion it was Lotus Notes. It is almost too embedded in office culture to have a desktop mail client.
Personally, I would need some really strong persuasion to move from Outlook to webmail, because I really don't see any advantage to use web-based mail over desktop mail client.
April 9, 2009 @ 21:28
I think email clients are here to stay.
July 1, 2009 @ 14:19
I use thunderbird as well as my official email address on gmail.
July 1, 2009 @ 14:26