Struggling with Kmail

[Feathers McGraw]

I have been trying to use Kmail instead of Thunderbird for a while now. I like some things about it:

• KDE integration (both the menu style, and the tray notifications).
• Managesieve is supported, which I would like to fiddle with in the future
• Loads of interesting menus! (seems designed to help you learn what it is doing, instead of hiding it from you).
• Shows spamassassin status from header information in the inbox. Nice touch.
• Seems like the default configuration is secure, you have to change it to make it less secure (opening html emails etc.)

On the flip side, it seems difficult to get things to "just work", I feel like I'm fighting it a bit. These are the areas where I have problems:

Folder syncing
Local folders are not synced with the IMAP server like you might expect, which is annoying: if you send an email from your laptop it doesn't appear in the sent folder on other devices. Almost every other email client I have ever used does this by default... which doesn't make it right, but I can't see the reason why Kmail doesn't do it - does anyone know? I thought the main advantage of IMAP over POP is that every device has a complete record of all your emails.

I'm sure it is possible to sync the local folder to the email server, but then what happens if you have more than one account in kmail?

Arrow keys don't scroll through messages in the inbox

A small annoyance, but it does grate on me.

Not easy to increase font size in any of Kmail's windows

In Thunderbird, if I'm composing an email and my eyes are tired and I'd like the text a little bigger, I can just press CTRL + to zoom in. Not so with Kmail... why?

Kmail's rich text editor is weird
I get that Kmail is set up primarily for plain text email, and that it's generally the done thing to send plain text messages (with word wrapping on column 78) on mailing lists etc, for good reasons that I do understand.

Even when you are in rich text editing mode, though, it still insists on word wrapping. Sometimes you just want to send an HTML reply so people don't think you live in a cave.

Messages that look like this are really not cool:

this is a message that was sent from kmail
which
has been word wrapped. Unfortunately, the
screen
that you are reading it on is a different width
and so
it has been wrapped twice and is basically
illegible

Sometimes plain text is appropriate, and sometimes it ain't. It would be nice to have the choice!



So, I guess what I'm asking is: I know some of you use Kmail, and you probably have good reasons. Do the things above frustrate you too or am I being stupid? How did you get around them, and why should I stick with Kmail... or should I give up on it?

Thanks

[claydoh]

I have been trying to use Kmail instead of Thunderbird for a while now. I like some things about it:

• KDE integration (both the menu style, and the tray notifications).
• Managesieve is supported, which I would like to fiddle with in the future
• Loads of interesting menus! (seems designed to help you learn what it is doing, instead of hiding it from you).
• Shows spamassassin status from header information in the inbox. Nice touch.
• Seems like the default configuration is secure, you have to change it to make it less secure (opening html emails etc.)

On the flip side, it seems difficult to get things to "just work", I feel like I'm fighting it a bit. These are the areas where I have problems:

Folder syncing
Local folders are not synced with the IMAP server like you might expect, which is annoying: if you send an email from your laptop it doesn't appear in the sent folder on other devices. Almost every other email client I have ever used does this by default... which doesn't make it right, but I can't see the reason why Kmail doesn't do it - does anyone know? I thought the main advantage of IMAP over POP is that every device has a complete record of all your emails.

I'm sure it is possible to sync the local folder to the email server, but then what happens if you have more than one account in kmail?

I don't know, my imap accounts sync almost instantly, testing between my phone and kmail testing with 3 different accounts (2 gmail and one non gmail, all imap and all NOT set to Disconnected mode) I don't think I have any custom settings that would make a difference.

Hmmmm do you mean your mail Local Folders, the default mailboxes that actually sit on your computer, or your account-specific folders? I have been using my Local inbox and other folders there specifically for things I want saved for local use.

Arrow keys don't scroll through messages in the inbox

A small annoyance, but it does grate on me.

left /right arrows move up/down the message list, up/down scrolls the message. However, the way folders are grouped may hinder the movement on the message list. I have mine set to the default aggregation (by date), but that causes some groups (days) to be collapsed, which seems to block the keyboard navigation, and the default shortcuts to expand/collapse (. and ,) don't seem to work
So I right click on the top most parent folder of the account, select Folder Properties, then go to View, Aggregation, customize, then edit the collapse/expand settings to Always Expand. (this may be a bug, I do believe these shortcuts used to work properly, but I am not a big keyboard jockey outside of the the arrow keys.)

Not easy to increase font size in any of Kmail's windows

In Thunderbird, if I'm composing an email and my eyes are tired and I'd like the text a little bigger, I can just press CTRL + to zoom in. Not so with Kmail... why?

because Tbird is based on a browser??
Actually, ctrl-mousewheel will zoom in on messages in the message window, don't see any action for this in a compose window

Kmail's rich text editor is weird

Agreed 100%
The KDEPIM devs had resisted rich text/html for a verrryy loooonng time, and this shows. tbird, coming from the old suite that contains a browser and an html editor has always had a leg up on others in this area.

I get that Kmail is set up primarily for plain text email, and that it's generally the done thing to send plain text messages (with word wrapping on column 78) on mailing lists etc, for good reasons that I do understand.

Even when you are in rich text editing mode, though, it still insists on word wrapping. Sometimes you just want to send an HTML reply so people don't think you live in a cave.

Messages that look like this are really not cool:

this is a message that was sent from kmail
which
has been word wrapped. Unfortunately, the
screen
that you are reading it on is a different width
and so
it has been wrapped twice and is basically
illegible

Sometimes plain text is appropriate, and sometimes it ain't. It would be nice to have the choice!

You can toggle wordwrap in a messages Options section.

So, I guess what I'm asking is: I know some of you use Kmail, and you probably have good reasons. Do the things above frustrate you too or am I being stupid? How did you get around them, and why should I stick with Kmail... or should I give up on it?

Thanks

Been using Kmail since the KDE 2 days, maybe earlier. I must not get too frustrated by it. Tbird is just fine, really, but I never have felt totally comfortable with it over the years, though I can't really put my finger on why, kinda like Gnome. Kmail just feels like Home for me, even when I used other mail programs. I don't know why I don't use webmail for my Gmail stuff, probably old and set in my ways.

You are not being stupid for liking what you like, how you like it, and when you like it. Kmail has been almost completely trouble free for me for going on 12 years now, though the few times it has not have been doozies (and NOT akonadi related, mostly), but I am fully aware that this has not been the case for others. Kmail suffers from being too configurable, though most of the default settings seem fairly sane, in terms of the UI. Use what you like best. I always say give something like Kmail/Kontact a good try before making up your mind, as you never know what you find using it for a while.

[Snowhog]

left /right arrows move up/down the message list, up/down scrolls the message.

I did not know this. Thank you!

[woodsmoke]

what Claydoh said

It is all very "curious".......... some people it "just works" and some people......."require some fiddling"...

Like for me.........for some reason......... when I open Kmail within Kontack, it "defaults" to a message that is about a third of the way down the list....dunno.....it just does it...
:0
but for both.........when it works it works beautifully.

woodsmoke

[bendy]

Hmmmm - kmail is my least favourite part of kde. The kmail > kmail2 "upgrade" fiasco nearly drove me away from kde completely. Even now I find it randomly "laggy" and tempermental, even after a full reinstall.

[Feathers McGraw]

Thank you all for your replies, I've learned quite a bit already!

I don't know, my imap accounts sync almost instantly, testing between my phone and kmail testing with 3 different accounts (2 gmail and one non gmail, all imap and all NOT set to Disconnected mode) I don't think I have any custom settings that would make a difference.

Hmmmm do you mean your mail Local Folders, the default mailboxes that actually sit on your computer, or your account-specific folders? I have been using my Local inbox and other folders there specifically for things I want saved for local use.

Yep I meant that when I sent an email from that account the draft would be stored in the local draft folder, and the sent message would be stored in the local sent messages folder. After some investigation, I found out why:



So... I can manually change those settings so that it stashes stuff in the IMAP folders. Did yours do this by default when you configured it or did you have to do it manually? I may have missed an option during setup (you mention disconnected mode... was that a checkbox?).

left /right arrows move up/down the message list, up/down scrolls the message.

Brilliant that'll make things a lot easier!

Actually, ctrl-mousewheel will zoom in on messages in the message window, don't see any action for this in a compose window

Cool, thanks! That'll help a bit.

So when it comes to composing messages, if you want to view the text larger while you're composing, you actually have to compose a rich text message with a huge font...?

You can toggle wordwrap in a messages Options section.

Nice, I tried fiddling with that before and typed a long line of a's, and they just continued off screen with a scroll bar. I decided from that quick experiment that it was Kmail's way or the highway, but there are no problems if your line isn't one long word (i.e. my experiment should have added a few spaces!), it wraps things in the window as you would expect.

I always say give something like Kmail/Kontact a good try before making up your mind, as you never know what you find using it for a while.

Yep, I agree. It's different, but sometimes using something different makes you discover a better way of doing things.

While I was researching all this stuff I discovered the whole top posting / bottom posting thing. I am used to top posting at work (not sure it's even possible to bottom post in Outlook?) but I think bottom posting is definitely much nicer to read, unless one person is top posting and the other is bottom posting... then it's just a mess.

Hmmmm - kmail is my least favourite part of kde. The kmail > kmail2 "upgrade" fiasco nearly drove me away from kde completely. Even now I find it randomly "laggy" and tempermental, even after a full reinstall.

I was reading about that yesterday. Have you seen this? The guy basically wrote a novel about his kmail --> kmail2 woes, he must have really hated it.

[blackpaw]

Thank you all for your replies, I've learned quite a bit already!



Yep I meant that when I sent an email from that account the draft would be stored in the local draft folder, and the sent message would be stored in the local sent messages folder. After some investigation, I found out why:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4913[/ATTACH]

So... I can manually change those settings so that it stashes stuff in the IMAP folders. Did yours do this by default when you configured it or did you have to do it manually? I may have missed an option during setup (you mention disconnected mode... was that a checkbox?).

I don't think it does it by default - trouble is, that the IMAP standard does not define sent/draft/template folders, so every server and email client has different defaults, my accounts always end up with "Sent", "Sent Mail" etc folders.

I'm pretty sure Thunderbird defaults to a local sent folder as well.

I've been using kmail for years and I didn't know about Left/Right curson, or Ctrl-Mousewheel, thanks Claydoh!

The space bar will also scroll messages.

[Feathers McGraw]

I know what you mean about the duplicate folders, that can be frustrating!

I'm pretty sure Thunderbird defaults to a local sent folder as well.

Nope, Thunderbird, K9 Mail (Android) and Roudcube (webmail) all default to stashing sent messages in the IMAP sent folder, Kmail is the odd one out (unless I made a mistake configuring it).

[claydoh]

As a Kmail user since 2002, I can testify to the fact that I have only ever lost data twice. Once was a bug in Kmail just after the release of KDE3 that literally deleted mail messages. The other was a hard drive failure. Note that the Akonadi transition, while a major pain in the tush, never destroyed data. Actually, migrations were going rather well in the Kubuntu pre-releases at the time, but serious bugs cropped up literally right before release day with certain KDE updates. That was not fun. I helped test migrations all weekend long. I added warnings to the official release notes and linked to workarounds and caveats I had come up with.

[claydoh]

I know what you mean about the duplicate folders, that can be frustrating!



Nope, Thunderbird, K9 Mail (Android) and Roudcube (webmail) all default to stashing sent messages in the IMAP sent folder, Kmail is the odd one out (unless I made a mistake configuring it).

The stock HTC android email client does not put sent messages and drafts in proper places, it doesn't even sync them off the phone. Frustrating. It also messed with the one account (non-gmail) with they way it did sync.

[Feathers McGraw]

K9 mail is generally a good bet for Android, but it does love to open loads of connections to the server and not close them, they are always left to time out. I had to increase the Max number of connections per IP on my server because if my tablet was connected to my LAN it would use up the quota (all connections appear to be from my router's IP, 192.168.1.1) and none of my other email clients could connect.

Kmail seems to check for messages and then close the connection, which is much better. Perhaps I've misconfigured K9 to keep the connection open, but even so it seems to open one connection for every folder, which is madness!

[blackpaw]

Kmail seems to check for messages and then close the connection, which is much better. Perhaps I've misconfigured K9 to keep the connection open, but even so it seems to open one connection for every folder, which is madness!

You can blame that on the IMAP spec - if you want async notifications of new mail (IDLE command) rather than polling, then you have to open a connection for each folder that you want notifications on. Most email apps just register for notifications from the inbox to keep server load down, but I guess K9 goes all out

[SteveRiley]

Looks like you got most of your questions answered, cool

Re: text or HTML. I use text only. Once upon a time I screamed loudly for adding HTML mail to KMail, and endured text only during the wait. Right about the time they added HTML, I had become a text-only convert. Talk about timing.

Re: line wrap or not. I disable line wrap. Plain-text messages in which paragraphs are essentially single lines means that the recipient's email client will wrap the text at edge of the message reading window. I figure it's cooler to allow the recipient to control how wide the line lengths are rather than me dictating my preference.

Re: top or bottom. Well, that's a personal question, dontcha think? Oh, you mean email. As usual, Wikipedia knows all.

Re: mail client for Android. I like MailDroid quite a lot.

Re: whither Kmail? Give it some time. Play around with aggregation and themes for the message list. KMail is an amazing client. I could never go back to Thunderbird now.

[Feathers McGraw]

Thanks Steve,

I'm still fiddling around with different styles, so who knows, I may become a text-only hardliner too what do you do if you want to send people emails containing stuff like tables of information? Use an attachment?

AFAICT, MailDroid isn't open source, and pushes in-app purchases what do you like about it specifically compared to other clients?

[SteveRiley]

I'm still fiddling around with different styles, so who knows, I may become a text-only hardliner too

There is hope for you, my child

what do you do if you want to send people emails containing stuff like tables of information? Use an attachment?

Well, I only do that kind of thing at work. At work we use Office, so it's top-posting and HTML all the way. Personal email rarely requires anything more than sentences and paragraphs.

AFAICT, MailDroid isn't open source, and pushes in-app purchases what do you like about it specifically compared to other clients?

Didn't realize that...I don't ever check to see if Android apps are open source, TBH. MailDroid is one of the few IMAP clients that groups messages into conversation threads. This is a make-or-break feature for me. Trying to keep track of non-threaded conversations makes my head explode.