Active Postbox user here. If I'm being honest, it's mainly a nice skin over Thunderbird, and inertia kept me on it all these years. With the wind down, I'll likely switch over to Thunderbird full time. I wonder how many other current users will do the same.
Thunderbird has gotten a lot of love in the past 2 years. Still have random hangs and the like meaning I'm finding myself just using my mail host's web interfaces often, and search... is what it is, but it's better!
the actual title on the link is "Postbox has been acquired by eM Client!" which is different enough to "After 16 years of development, Postbox Inc. is winding down its operations" that I think it should be changed.
Yes, but the current title is more accurate. "Postbox has been acquired" sounds like the purchaser will be continuing to sell and support Postbox. The reality is that eM Client paid for the list of Postbox users, and is hoping to convert them to using eM's clients; the Postbox software is going away ("winding down its operations").
The only relevant sentence is the one where they announce that they're shutting down, though. They buried the lede as hard as they could. I think pulling the single sentence that summarizes the post, rather than the irrelevant "wonderful journey" title, is entirely reasonable.
When looking at the eM Client home page (to see more information about who bought Postbox), I noticed something at the bottom of the page:
> See how eM Client compares to other products on SourceForge.net
Something about this doesn't seem right. It has been super rare for me to find links to SourceForge for years. There are a few outlier projects, but I just don't get it here... in this space... for a commercial program. I'm not saying anything about eM Client the program (I'm sure it's quite nice), but this link for comparisons seemed off to me.
I remember when they originally launched. Happened around the same time I was looking for an email client. Postbox felt the slickest back in the day, yet I ended up not using it due to some reason which I have forgotten.
Slightly sad to see them go, even though I never really used it. Maybe it's because I remember them starting and it was somewhat long time ago (I guess). Usually things that shut down did so relatively quickly, from my perspective.
Well, I'm not mad. eM Client is a very good mail/calendar/contacts client. This is the thing outlook should have been.
Universal, tons of features and cheap.
I've been using Postbox for 4 1/2 years. It's good, but always had significant bugs (e.g. when it would grind to a halt while indexing emails). Once or twice a day I'd have to restart it so it would be useable.
I know nothing beyond the press release, but my guess is that there are fundamental problems with the codebase that they couldn't fix without putting a while lot of time into it, and they just couldn't justify the time.
I don't think I've ever been "in love" with Postbox, but it's always done email reliably well that I never had to think about it. Plus, it never tried to be anything more than an email client - I never had to worry about it trying to be a "business workflow productivity tool" or anything, it just did email decently.
eM looks like exactly the kind of tool I _don't_ want.
It used to be more important to me that my email client also support Windows, but way less so now. (My Windows machine is just a gaming machine, and that's even only just until Windows 10 stops being actually usable for gaming.)
What's everyone favourite Mac "just an email client" email client?
Mailmate may be just what you’re looking for. It’s fabulous for handling an enormous amount of accounts and emails at once imo, and the filtering tools for power users are second to none. So performant. And you can make it as pretty as you like if you know what you’re doing.
Spark. HN probably won't like it on account of HN reasons - but I've tried all the email clients over the years and this one is the one that has stuck the longest. Great on iOS too.
If you're just gonna abandon the code, at least open source it...
(I've been unpacking and re-packaging the CSS in the "omni.ja" bundle for years to preserve the old look-and-feel; it'd be nice to have access to the rest of the code, as well for things I haven't been able to tweak.)
Very upsetting development. Not even a reasonable exit strategy and good deal for those needing to find a new home. 50% discount to exit to eM Client??? LOL, give me a break.
Active Postbox user here. If I'm being honest, it's mainly a nice skin over Thunderbird, and inertia kept me on it all these years. With the wind down, I'll likely switch over to Thunderbird full time. I wonder how many other current users will do the same.
I did exactly that - and after installing Thunderbird i'm now wondering why i hadn't sooner. Looking far slicker than I remember.
Thunderbird has gotten a lot of love in the past 2 years. Still have random hangs and the like meaning I'm finding myself just using my mail host's web interfaces often, and search... is what it is, but it's better!
> it's mainly a nice skin over Thunderbird
I’m wondering how much of it is under MPL then. The only reference I found is this: https://www.postbox-inc.com/coveredcode
the actual title on the link is "Postbox has been acquired by eM Client!" which is different enough to "After 16 years of development, Postbox Inc. is winding down its operations" that I think it should be changed.
Yes, but the current title is more accurate. "Postbox has been acquired" sounds like the purchaser will be continuing to sell and support Postbox. The reality is that eM Client paid for the list of Postbox users, and is hoping to convert them to using eM's clients; the Postbox software is going away ("winding down its operations").
The only relevant sentence is the one where they announce that they're shutting down, though. They buried the lede as hard as they could. I think pulling the single sentence that summarizes the post, rather than the irrelevant "wonderful journey" title, is entirely reasonable.
why not both?
"Postbox is winding down its operations after being acquired by eM Client"
When looking at the eM Client home page (to see more information about who bought Postbox), I noticed something at the bottom of the page:
> See how eM Client compares to other products on SourceForge.net
Something about this doesn't seem right. It has been super rare for me to find links to SourceForge for years. There are a few outlier projects, but I just don't get it here... in this space... for a commercial program. I'm not saying anything about eM Client the program (I'm sure it's quite nice), but this link for comparisons seemed off to me.
SourceForge is trying to pivot to a product comparison website I think: https://sourceforge.net/software/
I remember when they originally launched. Happened around the same time I was looking for an email client. Postbox felt the slickest back in the day, yet I ended up not using it due to some reason which I have forgotten.
Slightly sad to see them go, even though I never really used it. Maybe it's because I remember them starting and it was somewhat long time ago (I guess). Usually things that shut down did so relatively quickly, from my perspective.
Well, I'm not mad. eM Client is a very good mail/calendar/contacts client. This is the thing outlook should have been. Universal, tons of features and cheap.
UI could use a massive refresh though.
I've been using Postbox for 4 1/2 years. It's good, but always had significant bugs (e.g. when it would grind to a halt while indexing emails). Once or twice a day I'd have to restart it so it would be useable.
I know nothing beyond the press release, but my guess is that there are fundamental problems with the codebase that they couldn't fix without putting a while lot of time into it, and they just couldn't justify the time.
I thought postbox sounded familiar and I searched my Gmail and realized I purchased the lifetime sub for 50$ in 2010. Crazy
> Thank you for signing up for the Postbox Beta. We'll be sure to let you know when the Beta is ready.
Man, I’m getting old: just searched my mail and found this mail from… January 26 2009 :-)
I liked it, but it always felt like it “only” added some quality of life functions to Thunderbird.
Lifetime of the company in this case, I suppose
I think I bought Postbox years ago to support them and used them briefly, but wasn't enough at the time
I wish them the best, but I do wish they would have continued to innovate in this space.
Well, shit.
I don't think I've ever been "in love" with Postbox, but it's always done email reliably well that I never had to think about it. Plus, it never tried to be anything more than an email client - I never had to worry about it trying to be a "business workflow productivity tool" or anything, it just did email decently.
eM looks like exactly the kind of tool I _don't_ want.
It used to be more important to me that my email client also support Windows, but way less so now. (My Windows machine is just a gaming machine, and that's even only just until Windows 10 stops being actually usable for gaming.)
What's everyone favourite Mac "just an email client" email client?
Yes, I also don't want an email platform but just an email client (doing one thing well © Unix). I think I will try Thunderbird to see if it is a pleasure to use with a dozen email accounts, or I guess it will be Apple Mail or Spark. I want an email client for power users, not an app that hides (or is missing) functionality behind a beautiful UI. Moreover I really dislike the AI hype.
Mailmate may be just what you’re looking for. It’s fabulous for handling an enormous amount of accounts and emails at once imo, and the filtering tools for power users are second to none. So performant. And you can make it as pretty as you like if you know what you’re doing.
Spark. HN probably won't like it on account of HN reasons - but I've tried all the email clients over the years and this one is the one that has stuck the longest. Great on iOS too.
Apple Mail
If you're just gonna abandon the code, at least open source it...
(I've been unpacking and re-packaging the CSS in the "omni.ja" bundle for years to preserve the old look-and-feel; it'd be nice to have access to the rest of the code, as well for things I haven't been able to tweak.)
Someone ping https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
"Putting the ack! in acquihire!"
Very upsetting development. Not even a reasonable exit strategy and good deal for those needing to find a new home. 50% discount to exit to eM Client??? LOL, give me a break.