User:Imz/mini-research of mail clients

From ALT Linux Wiki

A list of serious, primarily free software mail clients with attention to certain specific features: IMAP, editing of received messages, searching (full-text; through many folders; the result should be presented as a list of messages).

Proprietary well known ones

Lotus Notes (8.5)
IMAP
yes
editing of received message
yes
searching
probably, yes, but only with a Domino server, not on IMAP (I should try indexing with IMAP in the Linux version as well; in Windows, it didn't work)
Office Outlook (2007)
IMAP
yes
editing of received messages
yes
searching
some kind of it -- yes (but not through many folders)

(but it crashes too often)

Free software

Mozilla Thunderbird (and Seamonkey)
IMAP
yes
editing of received messages
with a an add-on -- buggy (not with attachments+IMAP)
searching
some kind of it -- yes (drawbacks: ???)
...
notmuch
"a fast, search-oriented mail client"[1], [2]
???
???
http://www.rpcurnow.force9.co.uk/mairix/
"a program for indexing and searching email messages stored in Maildir (see the documentation section below), MH or mbox folders. "
http://mulberrymail.com/
???
http://www.mailody.net/
??? "...work a lot with shared email folders..."[3]
IMAP
yes
editing of received messages
"a feature to tag emails", "a way to make a quick internal comment on messages"[4] (Is this implemented?)
searching
"IMAP just isn't really suitable for quickly finding messages when I have a customer on the phone. I would like to have a simple database backend to do that in."[5]
http://decimail.org/
???
IMAP
yes
editing of received messages
???
searching
"Decimail Server is an IMAP email server that uses a PostgreSQL database for message storage. Mailboxes are defined by SQL queries, making complex message searchng and categorisation possible."[6]

Conclusion (the choice of the best fitting mail client)