Although web-based email has become the norm and can be accessed from any web browser, many users prefer a native email client (opens in a new tab). On windows, you have applications like microsoft outlook and thunderbird. On android or ios, there are clients like nine and k-9 mail. but what about linux (it opens in a new tab)?
Hundreds of native linux email clients have come and gone, and only a few offer features comparable to native windows clients. but one of the best things about linux is that most applications are available for free, forever, so you can try them all to find the best linux email client for your needs.
There’s also a more diverse range of email clients for the linux desktop than you’ll find on windows. When developers don’t like something about a piece of software written in Linux, they often create their own version and release it for free to the world. this has resulted in some unique email clients that you may find more suitable for you than the usual suspects, and which can still rank among the best email providers (opens in a new tab).
In this article, we will look at some of the top native Linux email clients. Whether you’re looking for an email client with a gui (graphical user interface) or one that you can use on the command line, these are all great applications for managing your email on your computer.
Related: How to Write the Perfect Business Email(Opens in a new tab) and How to Create a Banner professional email -off (opens in a new tab).
the best email clients for linux
on the desktop, thunderbird (opens in a new tab) is still one of the best options for linux users. It’s free and open source, of course, and was originally inspired by the Mozilla Firefox internet browser. This is most apparent in thunderbird’s tabbed email interface, which you can use to keep multiple emails open at once for quick reference.
Users coming from a windows email client such as Microsoft Outlook (Opens in a new tab) will find Thunderbird easy to use, following roughly the same interface design. it has strong theme support and comes with a light and dark theme as standard.
The quick filter toolbar is an advanced search tool for finding specific groups of emails, and the search tools in thunderbird have some timeline graphs that show you how many emails you received over a period of time. . you can organize incoming emails from multiple accounts into smart folders by using filters.
thunderbird supports online storage providers, so instead of attaching a large file to an email, you can upload the file and share a link.
The plugin manager in thunderbird is also great. There are nearly 1,500 plugins for thunderbird that add or change the functionality of the software, all easily installed from within the app.
evolution (opens in a new tab) is hot on the heels of thunderbird as the best linux-based email client. it is generally considered part of the gnome desktop environment, but you can use it in other desktop environments.
configuring evolution with online services like gmail is a matter of seconds thanks to the simple wizard. evolution has no qualms about working with proprietary email protocols, so you can use it with microsoft exchange, novell groupwise, webdav, ldap, kolab, and many other services.
but evolution is not just an email client. it also includes a to-do list, notes, contact lists, and a calendar. You can use these features to better harness the power of Exchange, Outlook, or Gmail accounts. there is also an rss plugin that you can use to add rss and atom feeds.
There is a lot of customization to the look of each of the panels, but it still has a somewhat dated look. evolution also consumes quite a bit of resources, so it’s not the best option for older computers.
kmail (opens in a new tab) is the default mail client you’ll find in most kde-based linux distributions. this means that it has tight integration with the kde desktop (opens in a new tab) and other applications created by kde. for example, meeting invitations you receive can be automatically detected and sent to your korganizer calendar, and email addresses are auto-completed by kaddressbook.
kmail has a template system that you can use to automate some of your writing. There’s a powerful mailing list management and filtering system, and Kmail can automatically detect flight or hotel reservations and send them to Korganizer. additionally, you can pair kmail with popular spam checkers like bogofilter and spamassassin.
kmail is not supported by microsoft exchange, which could limit its usefulness in some environments. but it does support end-to-end encryption via openpgp built-in. If you’re not using a kde-based distribution, you usually need to install a few other components for kmail to work, which can cause it to use a large amount of disk space.
bluemail (opens in a new tab) is an email client available for windows, mac, android and ios. in 2020, native clients for linux desktops were added.
bluemail offers a more modern look and feel than most of the email clients on our list. Its sleek menus, colors, and themes feel light years ahead of some of the clunky interfaces we’ve grown accustomed to on Linux. has a built-in dark mode.
bluemail uses a unified email inbox approach, whereby you import all your email accounts and they all appear together as a single inbox. has support for imap, pop3, exchange and other protocols.
Many bluemail features focus on intelligently organizing your inbox. Groups organize people and conversations into collections, and you can define groups of people with the Groups tool, giving each group a name and photo to make them easy to remember. people mode only shows emails coming from people, hiding distracting newsletters or email alerts.
bluemail is not open source, which to some people means it’s out of the question. Previous versions of bluemail were also suspected of leaking password data to bluemail servers, though it seems to have fixed those issues. If you can overcome these doubts, bluemail is a solid and modern email client that has clients for all your operating systems.
All of the email clients listed above require a relatively modern machine to work. but if you’re working on older hardware and using the gnome 3 desktop, a lightweight email client like geary (opens in a new tab) may be a better option.
geary has fewer widgets than most email apps here. there’s no calendar or smart contact management system, and email search options are rudimentary. there is also no support for tags, but this feature appears to be under development. despite this, geary has a sleek interface that is possibly more modern than thunderbird and evolution.
what geary does well is simplify email and it doesn’t consume a lot of resources. consider it if you like using a GUI email client, but don’t want all the extras like calendars and address books that bloat some of the competition.
sylpheed (opens in a new tab) is another lightweight email client for linux, windows and macos. It uses a three-panel display similar to Outlook Express, which is decidedly old-fashioned but preferred by many users.
has been written in the c programming language with a focus on performance. if you work with tens of thousands of emails some email clients will slow down but sylpheed will still work fine. sylpheed rarely crashes, even if you use it to manage thousands of emails at once.
sylpheed has other basic features like email filtering, automatic spam control, and support for signing and encrypting emails using gnupg. you can use email filters to pass specific emails to external commands to help automate your workflow. on the other hand, sylpheed has very limited support for html emails.
in 2005, sylpheed split into two projects, one of which is now known as claws mail (opens in a new tab). Consequently, it shares much of the same DNA. there are claws mail clients for windows, macos, linux, bsd and unix.
claws mail takes a slightly less minimalist approach than sylpheed, so there are a few more features and support for newer authentication methods. there is support for rss and atom and icalendar feeds, for example through the use of plugins. there is also inline pgp support.
claws mail also stands out for its useful plugin system. there are about 30 plugins and 30 other command line scripts you can use to extend the functionality of claws mail. These include a PDF viewer, a mail archiver, and an HTML email viewer. while it makes claw mail a bit tricky to set up in the first place, this modular approach keeps the code base small while still providing the features you might need.
Similarly, there are about 40 themes that you can download and install. they don’t drastically change the interface, they just update the app icons.
claws mail is just as good as sylpheed, and you might want to check it out if you want a lightweight GUI email client with a plugin and theme architecture.
Sometimes those fancy graphical user interfaces get in the way. if you want to check and send email from the console, mutt (opens in a new tab) is the best option. it’s easy to install, supports colors, and once you’ve gotten used to the interface, sending and receiving email is easy.
mutt was first released in 1998 and is based on the even older elm client, but has been actively developed over the years. has support for threads, color, mailing lists, and pgp/mime.
mutt is particularly customizable. you can create your own key bindings and macros to make working with emails super fast. It includes features like searching for emails using regular expressions, delivery status notification (dsn), and even an email tagging system. mutt is also small, easy to install, and consumes very few resources.
mutt and all the command line email tools are not for everyone. but if you spend a lot of your development time using the console, being able to quickly review or send email by typing a few commands can make your life a lot easier.
While most of our options support a variety of email protocols, trojitá (opens in a new tab) is different. is an email client for imap only. By default, emails are saved to the email server instead of being downloaded to your local computer. this has the advantage of taking up less space on the local hard drive and other hardware resources.
trojitá is designed for older hardware or less powerful technology like touch panels. It has a pretty basic UI layout, but there are three layouts you can choose from to suit you. it’s easy to set up with gmail. trojitá is a fast and efficient application that can load large inboxes in seconds without putting pressure on your bandwidth or computer.
mailspring (opens in a new tab) is a unified inbox email app, so you can use it to consolidate all your email accounts in one place.
You can maintain rich profiles of your contacts that contain social links and location information. With the snooze feature, you can set emails to a lower priority and handle them when you’re not busy. you can schedule emails to be sent later, send personalized emails to large groups using mail merge, and get analytics on the number of clicks on your sent links.
This advanced functionality comes at a price. While there is a free version of Mailspring, most of the best features require Mailspring Pro (Opens in a new tab), which costs $8 per month.
mailspring has a reputation for poor customer service. In our tests, the customer support we received was adequate, but this is something to keep in mind and one of the reasons why Mailspring only appears on our list.