Re: [O] [OFF TOPIC] almost giving up on emacs email..looking for advice?

[Ramon Diaz-Uriarte]

You have received several great answers already, but my 2 cents here.

I've used mu4e with offlineimap[1] for about three years now, and I am
reasonably happy with it. I particularly like the search capabilities
(which I now often complement with helm-mu). Setting it up was not
particularly hard (and how to configure for gmail was just a matter of
following the documentation), and I do not recall experiencing any of the
issues you mention (I had a few others, but they have disappeared over
versions).


Before that, I used wanderlust with offlineimap, and I also liked it a lot
(I think I got this to work from emacs-fu, the blog of mu4e's
author). Initial configuration wasn't really harder than mu4e (I think I
quickly found how to configure gmail by googling around). In fact, if you
are used to the gmail way of doing things, wanderlust might be more
familiar; for example, placing the same email in several folders, or
however you want to call them, or being shown the folder structure with
options to collapse/expand easily. Now, I actually prefer mu4e's approach
most of the time and don't care much about the folder structure (I search
and find; no need to try to recall where I filed a message).


Actually, to me, overall, wanderlust just seemed easier to use[2], and many
of the defaults made a lot more sense to me (i.e., with wanderlust I had to
google around less to find how to do what I wanted and I added less code to
my .emacs). That said, I haven't made any serious change to my mu4e
configuration in over two years, I think, so it is well amortized. 

I switched to mu4e because I was using wanderlust but searching for/within
emails with mu so I figured I might just do the full switch; as well,
development and activity around mu4e seemed, well, much more active.



In terms of checking email with gmail from other devices (tablet, phone): I
very rarely do so, but when I've needed to I've never had an issue while
using wanderlust + offlineimap or mu4e + offlineimap. Things work the way I
expect (changes in gmail if checked from my tablet show up in my computer
and viceversa). Of course, checking email from multiple computers has no
problems whatsoever.


Finally, even if setting email with emacs was not a half hour thing, I am
really glad I did so [3]. 


Best,


R.



[1] Offlineimap is slow, and has other issues. I searched for alternatives
two or three years ago, and did not find anything convincing (e.g., see
this resignated summary http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/08/offlineimap-sucks/
from a few years ago). After Titus' answer, I might give mbsync a try,
since now encrypted passwords are supported, etc.



[2] This is, of course, just my experience (or my incompetence). For
example, with mu4e I had to search around to find how to get a reasonable
way to add the date of the original message to the reply or forward but it
worked just fine for me with wanderlust. I still struggle with address
completion and blacklist in mu4e whereas address completion in wanderlust
with BBDB always did exactly what I wanted. Or when I started using mu4e I
missed a lot from wanderlust the C-c C-j that allows you to choose account
to send from. In all fairness this is also available for mu4e
(http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e/Multiple-accounts.html) but
requires you to add some extra code.


[3] Why? I find the web interface of gmail slow to navigate, cumbersome,
and bloated. I also used kmail which was, well, OK, but it was not the
editor/environment I use for everything else (for a while, I used kmail but
used emacsclient for email writing) and searching was not what it is with
mu4e or helm-mu.



On Thu, 06-08-2015, at 14:43, Xebar Saram <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi list
>
> I know this is a bit off topic but im desperately looking for some advice
> regarding email through emacs.
>
> i have tried a bunch of them over the last month (gnus, mu4e, wanderlust,
> rmail,mew and maybe other i forget).
> I had various levels of success with each one to setup (it was never easy)
> but i ended up sorta settling on mu4e. the problem is that mu4e never
> managed to work properly for me (headers were not updating when new mail
> arrived, reply was broken etc) so i had to give up
>
> What i want is basically pretty simple. an easy to setup email for emacs,
> but one that would work tightly with gmail since i do a lot of mail
> checking on the road via my cellphone.
>
> any advise. recommendations or setups that maybe people are willing to
> share?
>
> thx so much in advance
>
> Z

-- 
Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
Department of Biochemistry, Lab B-25
Facultad de Medicina
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 
Arzobispo Morcillo, 4
28029 Madrid
Spain

Phone: +34-91-497-2412

Email: address@hidden
       address@hidden

http://ligarto.org/rdiaz