Replacing Eudora with eM Client

Opinion

We Eudora v7.x email enthusiasts have been nursing along this unsupported email client for 18 years, with fixes issued from time to time, to keep up with increasing security requirements.

Last month, Google forced OAUTH on email clients, which caused my Eudora to fail to collect email; it still can send emails. (My ISP uses Gmail, so my Eudora has to get its email from Gmail.)

I spent several days trying to figure out how to get OAUTH 2 working with Eudora, but gave up. If you want to take a look for yourself, check out this post on Github: https://github.com/simonrob/email-oauth2-proxy

Over the last few years, I’ve played with some alternatives, to no joy:

• Thunderbird - too much like Firefox, whose UX is dislike.
• Eudora 8 - based on Thunderbird, so a no-go.
• Pandora - a new version of Eudora that still has rough edges. For example, after it downloaded about 2,000 emails on the Gmail server, it would not download any more. (There were 8,000 others.)
• eM Client - was too slow to handle thousands of emails, when I first tried it a few years ago

 

Why Eudora Cannot Go Away

There are functions in Eudora that I absolutely require:

a. Show In and Out mailboxes at the same time, because I use the Inbox to list emails with pending events, and the Outbox to list emails that I resend or show not-yet-paid invoices

b. Be able to reuse emails by resending them.

c. Set up emails to go out at a time in the future, such as reminders.

d. I can get Eudora to display emails in specific colors, such as red for upcoming events, brown for reused emails, and green for ones involving money.

e. Fast search.

Over the years, #c has become common in most email systems, but the first two are still lacking. Then I recalled hearing that eM Client might be able to show two mailboxes at once, and so after a gap of several years I re-installed it.

 

a. New Window: Two Mailboxes in eM Client -- Tile Vertical in Eudora

eM Client can display two (or more) mailboxes at the same time, but not cleanly. See figure at the top of this article. In my case, I wan to see the Inbox and the Sent one. To do so:

1. Right-click the mailbox name you want in a second window, and then choose Show in new Window.
2. Tile the two windows so that you see them side-by-side.

Here is what eM Client does: it launches a second instance of itself, which displays the specified mailbox. They are not, unfortunately, MDI windows, so don’t move together. It works for me, however, because I run my email programs in a second monitor dedicated to them.

 

b. Resend: Reusing Emails with eM Client -- Resend in Eudora

I reuse some emails repeatedly, such as the reminder I send out each week to the men’s reading group that I lead. To do so, follow these steps:

1. In the Sent mailbox, right-click a message you want to resend.
2. Choose Resend.
3. eM Client opens the email; make your editing changes, and then click Send.

This is like having templates without having to set up templates.

 

c. Send Later: Scheduling Emails with eM Client -- Queue in Eudora

I usually send the reading group a reminder email Tuesday afternoons, and often I write them up earlier (using the Resend function) and then schedule them for later delivery. To do so, follow these steps:

1. In the open email windows, click the down arrow next to Send.
2. Choose Send Later.
3. Enter the date and time to send the email, and then click OK.

 

d. Tag: Colorizing Emails with eM Client -- Change Label in Eudora

I like to color emails that I reuse or ones that I need to keep top-of-mind, such as emails containing links for upcoming meetings. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Right-click an email (in any mailbox), and then choose Tag.
2. From the Tag submenu, choose a color.

All the text in the message preview will be colored.

 

e. Search: Fast Searches with eM Client -- x1 in Eudora

Eudora is amazing in that it can search tens of thousands of messages in about one second. Even Google Search is a laggard in comparison, and earlier versions of eM Client were downright sluggish. So, I am pleased to see that the current version 10 is as fast as Eudora. To do so, follow these steps:

1. In the search field in eM Client’s title bar, enter the phrase you are looking for, and then press Enter.
2. To narrow the search, click theSettings button.

 

What’s Missing from eM Client

I have 284,412 emails going back to 1994 stored in 466 mailboxes with Eudora; I would like to replicate that structure by simply importing the mailbox structure into eM Client. Although eM Client has an import facility, it doe not work with Eudora files, specifically the .fol (top level mailboxes), .toc (indexes), and .mbx (mailbox) files. Then, I found a work-around:

Step 1: Import Eudora files into The Bat.

Step 2: Import The Bat files into eM Client.

The problem, I found, is that it can take days or weeks for the Eudora files to be imported into The Bat. I halted the process after two days, when the progress bar showed little progress.

 

My Temporary Solution

I continue to look for a solution to the problem of Eudora being blocked from accessing Gmail. In the meantime, I run three email programs on my primary computer:

a. Eudora, because it can still send emails; plus it hosts my 30-year archive of emails.

b. eM Client, because I am trying to get used to using it.

c. Gmail, because it is convenient to use away from my primary computer, such as a second laptop with which I travel.

 

Comments

[Alex]

Have you tried auth-email.com? It handles OAuth and has a "legacy SSL/TLS" option that brought Eudora back to life for me.