Mail User Agents (MUAs) for Linux

maintained by Rick Moen

Last changed: 2008-05-05
Entries: 124

Pointer-highlighted () entries are the most-popular (which of course doesn't necessarily signify merit). Note: For reviews, you'll have to look elsewhere. This page has summaries of feature sets, toolkit/language architectures, code maturity, and licensing -- with only brief comments.

I must also admit to being sloppy in two details, below: "SMTP" merely means the program either does SMTP itself or can invoke (variously) local SMTP agents or remote ones (smarthosts), and "OpenPGP" encompasses legacy PGP support. I am gradually correcting this imprecision.

MUAs (Mail User Agents), graphical, open source:

• Adora: http://www.sover.net/~senecal/adora.html Written in Tcl/Tk. Alpha release. Now unmaintained. Does SMTP, POP3, mbox. GNU GPL.


• Aethera: http://www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera/ Qt-based, written in C++. PIM (integrating with KOrganizer) and Personal Data Repository: e-mail, contacts, notes, tasks, TO-DOs, and journals. Does POP3, IMAP, SMS mail, SSL; supports multiple identities. Python-based scripting language. Plug-in interface: Optional proprietary Jabber and other plug-ins are available. Aethera is The Kompany's fork of Magellan. GNU GPL.


• Aileron: http://ucsu.colorado.edu/%7Enwanua/Aileron/ WINGs toolkit-based, written in C. Inspired by (and closely emulates) NeXTStep's Mail.app: Appearance/operation resembles Window Maker. Fairly light, small, and fast. Supports POP, IMAP, mh. Formerly named "Aeleron". Maintainer suggests using GNUMail.app instead of Aileron, since GNUStep is now sufficiently mature (rendering WINGs obsolescent). GNU GPL.


• Althea: http://althea.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in C++. Designed to fill the perceived need for a stable, feature-rich IMAP client similar to Eudora, Outlook, and Mulberry. Supports IMAP, SSL, XML-based configuration file. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• AMC: http://faceprint.com/~axion/ GTK+-based, written in C++. Calls external POP3. Supports IMAP, SMTP, OpenPGP software. Pre-alpha release. GNU GPL.


• Balsa: http://www.newton.cx/balsa/ GTK+-based, written in C. Design is similar to Eudora's. Highly configurable, fast, light. Multiple character sets for reading/editing, spelling checker. Optional multi-threaded mail retrieval. Address book integrates with GnomeCard. Requires libESMTP, bonobo, GNOME libs. Supports POP3, IMAP (CRAM-MD5 and Kerberos/GSS), internal SMTP or local MTA, LDAP, SSL, GNOME features, mh, mbox, Maildir, nested mailboxes. Program uses a library version of the Mutt mailer as its "engine". If this list's maintainer were to switch to a graphical mailer, Balsa would be his pick. GNU GPL.


• Chandler: http://www.osafoundation.org/ GTK+/wxWidgets-based, written in Python. Mitch Kapor's PIM. Does scheduling, Jabber instant messaging, RSS feeds, contact-management, with much additional functionality yet to be coded. Pre-alpha release. GNU GPL.


• CMC Mail Client: http://www.swi.com.br/~chaos/cmc/ GTK+-based, written in Perl. Supports mbox: Intended to invoke fetchmail as an external mail-delivery agent, and SMTP via local MTA. Formerly named Chaos Mail Checker. Pre-alpha. GNU GPL.


• Columba: http://columba.sourceforge.net/ Java/AWT source and bytecode. Requires proprietary Sun JRE 1.3 or above (or compatible). Supports POP3, IMAP, mbox, SMTP, multiple accounts, filters, vFolders, multilanguage code, GNOME features. XML-based configuration file. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Cronos II: http://www.cronosii.org/ and http://sourceforge.net/projects/cronosii/ GTK+-based, written in C. Fast, light-weight, very configurable. Requires GNOME libs. Supports POP3, APOP, SMTP, multiple accounts/mailboxes, filters, GNOME features, plug-ins. Stores mail in its own database. Provides network-usage monitor. GNU GPL.


• CSCMail (CyberSpace Cowboy Mail): http://download.at.kde.org/opsys/linux/sf/c/cscmail/ GTK+-based, written in Perl and C. Does colour-highlighting of nested quotations. Supports POP3, mbox, Maildir, filters, multiple accounts, OpenPGP. Project is apparently dead: Former Web site at www.cscmail.net is gone. GNU GPL.


• EC: ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ and http://sourceforge.net/projects/ecmail/ Perl/Tk-based, written in Perl. Supports POP3, filters. SMTP via smarthost. Perl Artistic Licence.


• Eucalyptus: http://sourceforge.net/projects/eucalyptus/ GTK+-based, written in C. Being rewritten from the BeOS original; stresses support for multimedia file types and full MIME support. Supports POP3, SMTP, unlimited folders, addresses, filters. Can use internal or external viewer apps. Can use multiple POP servers. Requires GNOME libs. Address book integrates with GnomeCard. Alpha release. Development seems to be stalled. GNU GPL.


• Evolution, Ximian: http://ximian.com/products/ximian_evolution/ GTK+-based. PIM similar in many respects to Microsoft Outlook: e-mail, calendar, and address book. Requires bonobo, GNOME libs, many other libs. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, mbox, mh, Maildir, Outlook Express mailbox format, OpenPGP, SSL/SASL/TLS, multiple identities, filters, vfolders, PalmOS conduits. As of 2003-03, still doesn't add Mail-Followup-To header, and doesn't handle Reply-To correctly. With proprietary Ximian Connector add-on, can be a client to Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 servers that have Outlook Web Access enabled. From Ximian, Inc., formerly Helixcode, Inc. GNU GPL.


• flap: http://flap.sourceforge.net/ Java source or bytecode. Requires proprietary Sun JRE 1.4 or above, or equivalent. Supports IMAP, filters. Full-featured macro language (using BeanShell). XML-based configuration file. Alpha release. GNU GPL.


• fruMailer: http://frumailer.sourceforge.net/ Versions for Perl and for Java/Swing. Toolbar-and-windows user interface layout is modeled after The GIMP's. Perl version is beta release; Java version is pre-alpha release. Perl Artistic Licence.


• Gmail: http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/926285/com/gmail-0.6.0-5.i386.rpm.html GTK+-based, written in C. Experimental SQL-based vfolder mailer, using MySQL, with caching. vfolders are SQL queries. Requires GNOME libraries. Supports POP3, SMTP, GNOME addressbook. Beta release (no longer maintained). GNU GPL.


• GNUMail.app: http://www.collaboration-world.com/gnumail/ GNUStep-based, written in Objective-C. Reimplementation of NeXTStep's Mail.app. Uses Pantomime Objective-C classes for mail-handling. Cross-platform, in that it can be alternatively compiled on Mac OS X using the Apple Cocoa (formerly NeXTStep) libs. Supports POP3, APOP, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, IMAP, mbox, OpenPGP, SSL, external calls to SpamAssassin and similar filters. GNU GPL.


• Grendel: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/grendel/ Java/AWT-based rewrite of Netscape Mail/News. Requires the proprietary Sun JRE 1.2 or later, or equivalent, and the proprietary Sun Javamail class library, JavaBeans Activation Framework, Java XML classes. Requires the NPLed Mozilla Java SDK, and the Apache-licensed ORO Matcher regex engine. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, mbox, LDAP, filters. Code is functional near beta level, but must be checked out of CVS. MPL.


• gtkmail: http://gtkmail.sourceforge.net/ GTK+/gtkmm/gnomemm-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, OpenPGP, SSL. Requires OpenSSL and the gdk-pixbuf and libsigc++ libraries. XML-based configuration file. GNU GPL.


• ICEMail: http://www.icemail.org/ Java/Swing source and bytecode, using the proprietary Sun Javamail class libraries. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, mbox, mh. Requires the proprietary Sun JRE 1.2 or later, or equivalent, and several other proprietary libraries. GNU GPL.


• Infusion Communications Client: http://www.shadowcom.net/Software/infusion/ Qt-based, written in C++. Client for the Citadel/UX Communications Server BBS/groupware system, though SMTP/POP3/IMAP/LDAP will also be added. Design and user interface resemble MS-Outlook. Beta release. BSD-type licence, GNU GPL.


• Ishmail: http://ishmail.sourceforge.net/ Motif/Lesstif-based, written in C++. Very polished. Supports IMAP, POP3, OpenPGP, mbox, mh, MMDF, external editors, regex searching/filtering, multiple identities. GNU GPL.


• JMail: http://www.ultim8team.com/~nono/ Java source and bytecode. Supports POP3, SMTP, LDAP. XML-based configuration files. Requires the proprietary Sun JRE 1.4 or later, or equivalent, and the proprietary Sun Javamail class library and Java Application Framework Java bean. GNU GPL.


• Kiltdown: http://kiltdown.sourceforge.net/ Qt-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, mbox, and SMTP (IMAP soon). Beta release. GNU GPL.


• KMail: http://devel-home.kde.org/~kmail/ Qt-based, written in C++. Requires kdelibs, procmail. Supports POP3 (with various authentication mechanisms including CRAM-MD5 and DIGEST-MD5), APOP, IMAP, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, SSL/TLS, mbox, Maildir, OpenPGP, filters, multiple identities. GNU GPL.


• Liamail: http://www.liamail.org/ Qt-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, SMTP. Pre-alpha release. GNU GPL.


• Magellan: http://ftp.kde.com/Personal_Information_Management/Magellan/ Qt-based, written in C++. PIM from Kalliance (which developer group is now defunct). Scheduling, e-mail, SMS. Project reached pre-alpha "milestone 1" and has been unmaintained since. See also "Aethera" for The Kompany's successor codebase. GNU GPL.


• Mahogany: http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/ GTK+/wxWidgets-based, written in C++ and Python. Supports POP3, IMAP, mbox, mh, NNTP, PalmOS conduits, external editors, filters, incoming fax files. Extensible via Python. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Mail Harvester: http://harvester.sourceforge.net/ GTK+/GTK-Perl-based, written in Perl. Supports POP3, SMTP. Requires several Perl modules from CPAN. GNU GPL.


• Mailliam: http://www.mailliam.org/ Qt-based, written in C++. Will support POP3 and IMAP. Pre-alpha: No releases, yet, other than CVS. GNU GPL.


• Mama Mua: http://www.lundqvist-zone.com/mamamua/ Tkinter-based, written in Python. Supports IMAP, SMTP, OpenPGP. Requires Pmw (Python megawidgets). Free-usage licence.


• ML: http://smi-web.stanford.edu/projects/imap/ml/ and http://ftp.rge.com/pub/mail/ml/ Motif-based, written in C. Supports POP3, IMAP, NNTP, mbox, local MTA. Ancient and unmaintained since 1996. BSD-like licence.


• MMC (My Mail Client): http://mmc.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Mozilla Mail/News: http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/ Mozilla XPToolkit-based, written in C++. Requires Mozilla browser. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, NNTP, LDAP, SSL/TLS, OpenPGP, S/MIME, filters, multiple identities, bayesian spam filters. MPL.


• Paranoy: http://paranox.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in C. Design goal is to make maximal use of encryption. Fast, light. There's also an ncurses version. Supports POP3, SMTP, SSL, OpenPGP, encrypted mailboxes and other files, multiple identities. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• PMC (Perl/Gtk+ Mail Client): http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pmc and http://www.irs-net.com/ GTK+-based, written in Perl. Supports POP3, SMTP, filters, multiple identities, OpenPGP. Stores mail and configuration in MySQL. Seems to be discontinued. GNU GPL.


• Polarbar Mailer: http://www.polarbar.net/ Java source and bytecode. Requires the proprietary Sun JRE 1.1 or later, or equivalent. Supports POP3, IMAP4, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, filters, OpenPGP, LDAP. Formerly named J Street Mailer. Free-usage licence.


• Postilion: http://www.postilion.org/ Written in Tk/Tcl. Forked from TkRat, but omits TkRat's multilanguage support, and was developed to more resemble NeXTStep's Mail.app. Full-featured and highly configurable. Supports POP3, IMAP, mh, OpenPGP. Beta release. GNU GPL, 3-clause BSD, and OpenContent licences.


• Post Office: FLTK-based, written in C++. Web site www.tarball.net/postoffice/ has vanished, but maybe someone can find a replacement site or mirror. Substitute download URL http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/apps/postoffice/. Author is Pim van Riezen, pi@vuurwerk.nl (but that mailbox is no longer valid). Supports POP3, IMAP4, NNTP. Small, fast. Uses GDBM database. GNU LGPL.


• Pronto!: http://muhri.net/pronto/ GTK+-based, written in Perl (forked from CSCMail when the latter recoded to C). Supports POP3, APOP, mbox, Maildir, SMTP, vFolders (MySQL), multiple identities, OpenPGP, themes. GNU GPL.


• Pygmy: http://pygmy.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in Python. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, OpenPGP, multiple identities, external editors. Requires GNOME libs and gnome-python. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Pyne: http://www.moretom.net/pyne/ GTK+-based, written in Python. Supports POP3, IMAP4, mbox, mh, SMTP, NNTP, filtering, news and mail expiry, full news threading. Requires python-gtk. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Sandmail: ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ GTK+-based, written in C. Supports POP3, SMTP. Alpha release, old, now unmaintained. GNU GPL.


• SoapyMailer: http://coding.soapy.ch/ GTK+/wxPerl/wxGTK-based, written in 4500 lines of Perl. Supports POP3, SMTP, multiple identities. Requires CPAN module DateManip. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Soma (Stefan's Own Mail App): ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ XView toolkit-based, written in C. Supports mbox, SMTP. Beta release, old, now unmaintained. GNU GPL.


• Spruce: http://spruce.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in C. Supports POP3, IMAP, mbox, external mail utilities, OpenPGP, filters. Small, fast. GNU GPL.


• SQmail: http://sqmail.sourceforge.net/ GTK+/pygtk-based, written in Python. Supports POP3, SMTP, vFolders, single-click reporting to Spamcop. Requires gnome-python and the mail-lock and mail-unlock utilities. Stores messages and other data in MySQL. Alpha release. GNU GPL.


• Stuphead: http://stuphead.asplinux.ru/stuphead/ GTK+-based, written in C. Small, fast. Supports POP3, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, NNTP, NNTP AUTH. Good multilanguage and character set support, but primarily of interest to Russian language speakers, as much of the docs are in Russian. Forked from the Sylpheed project. GNU GPL.


• Sylpheed: http://sylpheed.good-day.net/ GTK+-based, written in C. Small, fast, light. Appearance and user interface are a cross between Outlook Express and emacs (keybindings, all commands being keyboard-accessible). Supports POP3, APOP, IMAP4rev1, mh, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, NNTP, SSL/TLS, OpenPGP, external editors, filtering, muliple identities. Good multilanguage and character set support. (A development version of Sylpheed is also avqilable packaged separately as "Sylpheed-claws".) GNU GPL.


• Teak: http://teak.sourceforge.net/ GTK+/php-gtk-based, written in PHP. Supports IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, multiple identities. Alpha release. GNU GPL.


• Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/ A rewrite of Mozilla Mail/News, as a standalone MUA. Mozilla XPToolkit-based, written in C++. Formerly named Minotaur. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, NNTP, LDAP, SSL/TLS, OpenPGP, S/MIME, filters, multiple identities, bayesian spam filters. Alpha release. MPL.


• tkmr: ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ Tcl/Tk-based, written in Tck/Tk and C. Read-only mail browser only. Very old, unmaintained. Free-usage licence.


• TkRat: http://www.tkrat.org/ Tcl/Tk-based, written in Tcl/Tk and C. Supports POP3, APOP, IMAP, mbox, mh, filters / event notifiers / virtual folders, OpenPGP, multilanguage code. Formerly named Ratatosk. Free-usage licence.


• TradeClient: http://tradeclient.sourceforge.net/ GTK+-based, written in C. Supports POP3, IMAP, mbox, SMTP, LDAP, filters, multiple identities. Includes calendar/PIM. GNU LGPL.


• XCmail: http://www.js-home.org/XCmail/ Xclasses-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, mbox, SMTP, filters/vfolders, OpenPGP, multiple identities. GNU GPL.


• XFMail: http://www.xfmail.org/XForms-based, written in C++ and C. supports POP3, IMAP, mbox, mh, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, LDAP, OpenPGP, filters, external editors. Misfeatures: setting X-Priority header on sent mail, failing to override Reply-To address when forwarding. XFMail will eventually re-emerge as Archimedes (GTK+). GNU GPL and LGPL.


• xmail: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications and ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ X toolkit-based, written in C. Supports mbox, SMTP. Simple X11 front-end to the system "mail" primitive. Very old, unmaintained. BSD-like licence with advertising clause.


• xmh, exmh: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/ Tcl/Tk-based (exmh) or X toolkit-based (xmh), written in C and Tcl/Tk. Supports mh, SMTP, NNTP, LDAP, OpenPGP. Simple X11 front-ends to the "mh" console mailer. BSD-like licence.


• YAMM (Yet Another Mail Manager): http://www.gjt.org/~fredde/yamm/ Java/AWT source and bytecode. Requires proprietary Sun JRE 1.3 or above (or compatible). Supports POP3, SMTP, multiple identities. GNU GPL


• YPMail.app: http://www.blackraven.cx/ WINGs toolkit-based, written in C. Inspired by NeXTStep's Mail.app: Appearance/operation resembles Window Maker. Small, fast. Supports POP, IMAP, mh. Requires U. of W. IMAP C-client library. Supports mbox, SMTP. Beta release. GNU GPL.

MUAs (Mail User Agents), graphical, proprietary:

• Anyware Mail Client: http://www.vistasource.com/page.php?id=7 Part of Anyware Office, formerly Applixware. From VistaSource, Inc.


• Arrow: http://www.newplanetsoftware.com/arrow/ Gratis-usage, Linux-i386 binary, coded in C++ and based on proprietary JX Application Framework. Supports mbox and POP3. Displays each mailbox and message in a separate window.


• ayuMail: http://www.buildhigh.com/ayuMail/ayu_mail.php4 Java bytecode. Supports POP3, SMTP. Requires the proprietary Sun JRE 1.3 or later, or equivalent. Will eventually be renamed.


• DART Mail: http://www.netaccent.com/ Java/Swing(?) bytecode. Supports IMAP, POP3, SMTP. From NetAccent, Inc. Discontinued.


• ENIP (E-mail Not In Pine): http://ungerware.dhs.org/~rich/enip/ Java/Swing bytecode using the proprietary Sun Javamail class libraries, runnable either as a Web browser applet or as a client-side standalone interpreted app. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, mbox. Uses Pine-format address book. Requires proprietary Sun Java2 JRE or equivalent. Gratis-usage binary.


• Execmail: http://www.isode.com/ and http://www.esys.ca/ From Isode / MessagingDirect Ltd., formerly Execmail, Inc., formerly "Simeon" from Esys Corporation. Discontinued.


• jamail (Just Another e-Mail program): http://www.buildhigh.com/jamail.php4 Written in Java/Kylix. Supports POP3, IMAP, filters. Gratis-usage Linux-x86 binary.


• JM_MailtTool: http://home.t-online.de/home/mainzer/ Motif-based. Supports POP, SMTP, OpenPGP. Gratis non-commercial usage.


• Linux Office Suite 99 Mail Client: www.netzwerk-database.de/Linux-Office-Suite-99-CD-15830.html Mail client component of ApplixWare, OEMed by SuSE GmbH. Discontinued.


• Mulberry: http://www.cyrusoft.com/ Supports POP3, IMAP4, IMAP2bis, mbox, SMTP, OpenPGP, SSL. From Cyrusoft International, Inc.


• Mumail: ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ FWF toolkit-based. Supports mbox, SMTP. Proprietary available-source licence. Beta release.


• Netscape Mail: http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/ Part of Netscape Communicator. From Netscape Communications Corporation.


• Nexor Defender for Motif: http://www.nexor.com/client_products.asp#defm Motif-based. Aimed primarily at the military/intelligence market. User interface resembles Outlook Express. Supports IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, numerous government-standard encryption frameworks. Literature doesn't clarify whether the product is binary-only or supplied in source code form: It just says "Unix workstations" and "Motif/CDE". From Nexor, Ltd.


• PMMail: http://www.pmmail2000.com/ Release for Linux pending.


• PonyEspresso: http://www.i-planet.com/ Java/Swing(?)-based. Supports IMAP4, SMTP, SSL. Discontinued. From i-Planet, Inc.


• Samsung Contact Client: http://samsungcontact.com/ Part of Samsung's complete corporate mail system, "Contact", which was formerly HP's OpenMail.


• Scribe: http://www.memecode.com/scribe.php Written in C++. Supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP. Gratis-usage Linux-x86 binary.


• spaces: http://www.dynamicobjects.com/ Java bytecode. PIM. Supports POP3, IMAP4, mbox, SMTP, SSL, filters, Alpha release, multilanguage code. Requires proprietary Sun JRE 1.4 or above, or equivalent, and the proprietary Sun Javamail class library.


• Star Office Mailer: http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/ Part of Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Star Office. This MUA module was discontinued after v. 5.2.


• TkMail: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~raines/tkmail.html Tcl/Tk-based, written in Tcl/Tk, C, and Perl. Supports mbox, SMTP. Very old, unmaintained. Gratis non-commercial usage.


• UMT (Ultimate Mail Tool): ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ InterViews-based, written in C++. Supports POP3, SMTP, filters, multilanguage code. Old, unmaintained. Gratis-usage Linux-x86 binary, of which the latest I've found self-deactivated as of 1996-06-30 for lack of a new "key" -- but development has now resumed again.


• xP: http://xpine.sourceforge.net/ XClass95-based, written in C and C++. Independent X11 front-end to Pine. Requires Pine. Unstable pre-alpha release. GNU LGPL, gratis-usage proprietary.


• Z-Mail: http://www.netmanage.com/From NetManage, Inc. This was an X11 wrapper for the open-source mush MUA. Supported POP3, SMTP. Discontinued.


• ZOË: http://guests.evectors.it/zoe/ Java source and bytecode. Offers unique design: local Web/POP3/SMTP servers, search/indexing engine for your mail. Intended to be used primarily as a proxy and search/navigation adjunct to another MUA. Supports POP, IMAP, SMTP, SSL. Gratis non-commercial usage.

MUAs, console, open source:

• af: http://www.thing.demon.co.uk/af/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Operation and user interface are emacs-like, by default, but are very configurable. (Emulations of ELM, mush, Pine, ream, and VM are included.) Extensive macro language. Supports POP3, SMTP via local MTA. A bit old and sparse. GNU GPL.


• Alpine: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Compilation depends on UW IMAP Toolkit, GNU gettexst, autotools. Supports POP3, IMAP4, SSL, mbox, Maildir, SMTP (integrated stub MTA or local MTA), LDAPv3, NNTP. Successor to the highly popular Pine mailer (name standing for Apache Licensed PINE), and includes Pine's pico text editor and Pilot file-picker module. Apache Public License v. 2.0.


• Animail: http://animail.sourceforge.net/ Written in Python. Supports POP3, APOP, IMAP4, SSL, mbox, Maildir, SMTP via local MTA. Flexible filtering, and integration with external mail filter utilities. Small, fast. GNU GPL.


• BlitzMail clients (Textblitz and Snail): http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/blitz.html Generic terminal and ncurses-based, respectively, written in C. Clients for Dartmouth U.'s BlitzMail e-mail system. Supports BlitzMail protocol, only. 3-clause BSD licence.


• Civil War: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cwar/ Perl script. Supports POP3, SMTP. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• Cone (COnsole Newsreader and Emailer): http://www.courier-mta.org/cone/ Written in C++. Supports mbox, POP3, IMAP, NNTP. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• ELM (ELectronic Mail): http://www.instinct.org/elm/ Written in C. Obsolecent: See ELM ME+. Supports mbox, SMTP. Free-usage licence.


• ELM ME+: http://www.ozone.fmi.fi/KEH/ Written in C. Supports mbox, SMTP -- and adds full MIME, SSL, anonymous remailer, remailer chaining, delivery-status notification, and PGP/OpenPGP support to the original. Free-usage licence.


• elmo (ELectronic Mail Operator): http://elmo.sourceforge.net/ POP3, internal SMTP support, SMTP AUTH, Bayesian spam filter, OpenPGP, SSL. Full mbox support, IMAP, SSMTP, and S/MIME support are under development. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• emacs/xemacs-based MUAs:


• cmail: http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~fuku/cmail/ Written in elisp. Requires tm or semi. Can do automatic filing of e-mails, summaries for quick folder access, summary threading, address completion. Supports POP3, SMTP, PGP (with Mailcrypt), expiring of e-mails. Uses its own mail-store format; can import mbox or Rmail. GNU GPL.


• emacs-imap: http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk/downloads/emacs-imap.el Written in elisp. An IMAP-only MUA by Nic Ferrier. GNU GPL.


• Gnus: http://www.gnus.org/ Written in elisp. Extremely full-featured mail/newsreader add-on for emacs: Treats e-mail as if it were netnews. Can do off-line reading, auto-replies, spam-detection. Can browse file directories, ftp sites. Can split incoming mail a la procmail. Supports POP3, SMTP, mbox, mh, NNTP, SSL (with w3-el-e2X), scoring (more flexible and adaptive than are killfiles), filtering. Gnus is Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's rewrite of Masanobu Umeda's GNUS, and is packaged by default with xemacs but not GNU emacs. Highly configurable, rich, full-featured. GNU GPL.


• Mew (messaging in the emacs world): http://www.mew.org/ and ftp://ftp.mew.org/pub/Mew/ elisp variant of the mh (Mail Handler) system. Supports POP3, APOP, mh, SMTP, NNTP, and OpenPGP. 3-clause BSD licence.


• MH-E (Mail Handler - Emacs): http://mh-e.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/ elisp-based implementation of the mh (Mail Handler) system. Feature set is apparently the same as mh's. GNU GPL.


• Rmail: http://www.gnu.org/manual/emacs-20.3/html_chapter/emacs_31.html and http://sunland.gsfc.nasa.gov/info/emacs/rmail.html emacs's built-in mail handling mode. Supports POP3, SMTP. Uses its own mail-store format. GNU GPL.


• Semi-gnus: http://emacs-20.ki.nu/semi-gnus.shtml Written in elisp. Fork of Gnus to better support Japanese character sets. Requires semi or tm libs for MIME support. GNU GPL.


• VM (View Mail): http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/ and ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/mail/vm/ Written in elisp. Full-featured mail add-on for emacs. Can do digest-creation, bursting, form-driven mails. Supports POP3, IMAP, internal SMTP (with smtpmail) or local MTA, filtering, vfolders. Packaged by default with xemacs but not GNU emacs. GNU GPL.


• wl (Wanderlust): http://www.gohome.org/wl/ Written in elisp. Good Japanese character set support. Requires semi or tm libs for MIME support. Supports POP3, IMAP4, mh, SMTP, NNTP, threaded sorting, virtual folders. GNU GPL.


• Ezimail: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezimail/> Ncurses-based, written in C. Supports IMAP, SSL. Port of the Carnegie-Mellon Andrew Mail System's ezmail client, updated for IMAP support. Requires Cyrus SASL library. 3-clause BSD licence. Beta release.


• IM (Internet Message): http://tats.iris.ne.jp/im/ Written in Perl. Suite of console mail-handling commands and supporting modules. Can optionally be invoked from Mew as front-end. Native message store is mh format. Supports POP3, APOP, IMAP, SMTP, mbox, mh, Maildir, MMDF, NNTP. 3-clause BSD licence.


• mailutils, GNU: http://www.gnu.org/software/mailutils/mailutils.html Ncurses-based, written in C. Collection of cooperating mail-handling utilities, sharing a common library. Supports POP3, mbox, mh, maildir, IMAP4, SMTP via local MTA, filtering. This toolkit lends itself to creation of diverse front-end interfaces, including guimb (scheme-based), mailx-emulation, etc. GNU GPL.


• mh, nmh, (RAND Mail Handler): ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/mh/ and http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/ and http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Suite of individual console commands to do mail operations, manually or via scripts. Supports POP3, APOP, POP3 with Kerberos, Mobile POP, mh, SMTP via local MTA. Original mh is very old, unmaintained: Authors declare the package to be public domain. nmh is a significantly updated, mostly compatible mh with autoconf support: nmh is under a BSD-type licence.


• mr (Mail Reader): ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Design and user interface are based on the DOS GoldEd editor. Supports mbox, SMTP. Early beta release: old, unmaintained. GNU GPL.


• Mutt: http://www.mutt.org/ S-Lang or ncurses-based (specified at compile time), written in C. Default keybindings are similar to ELM's. Supports POP3, IMAP (plain, Kerberos, or SSL), mbox, mh, Maildir, MMDF, SMTP, SSL, urlview, colour-highlighting, threaded sorting, key remapping, list reply, strict and non-strict threading, message postponing, PGP and OpenPGP, NFS locking. (This MUA list's author uses and prefers Mutt.) GNU GPL.


• OpenXP (Open CrossPoint): http://www.openxp.com/ Written in Object Pascal. This package is primarily FidoNet "point" (private access point) software, but also supports Internet mail. Almost all of the documentation is German-language. Supports POP3, APOP, SMTP, SMTP AUTH, NNTP, UUCP-t and UUCP over IP. For Fido-technology networks, supports BinkP protocol (a la BinkleyTerm), EMSI, WaZOO, YooHoo, Fido/UUCP over IP, netmail, echomail, file requests, file attaches, dial-up sessions. GNU GPL.


• Paranoy: http://paranox.sourceforge.net/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Design goal is to make maximal use of encryption. There's also a GTK+ version. Supports POP3, SMTP, SSL, OpenPGP, encrypted mailboxes and other files. Beta release. GNU GPL.


• pemail (Perl e-mail): http://www.the-den.org/main.shtml Perl script. Supports POP3, SMTP. So far, allows reading, deleting, and entering e-mails (optionally with BASE64 attachments), but not replying or forwarding. Requires CPAN modules Mail::POP3Client and MIME::Lite. Formerly named ppop3. GNU GPL.


• pms (Python Message System, aka PythonMS): http://pythonms.sourceforge.net/ Written in Python. Set of Python modules, utilities, and a shell-like environment for managing mail. Supports POP3, mh, mh over SSH, Maildir, PMS Mail Exchange Protocol (similar to IMAP), SMTP via local MTA, filters, scripting using Python. Author declares it to be public domain.


• Sup: http://sup.rubyforge.org/ Ncurses-based, written in Ruby. Supports multiple accounts, mbox, mbox over SSH, IMAP, IMAP-SSL, Maildir, POP3 (pending), mh (pending), and Gmail (pending). Designed to handle very large amounts of mail. Does fast full-text search, GMail-style threading, multiple buffers, thread-centric operation, automatic contact-list management, custom code insertion via a hook system, organising e-mail with user-defined labels, automatically tracking recent contacts. Project was initially called "Redwood". Beta release at 2007-07-01. GNU GPLv2.


• TTY-Grin: http://www.arbornet.org/~dlbeer/tty-grin/ S-Lang-based, written in C++. Supports IMAP4, mbox, NNTP, killfile with regex pattern matching, OpenPGP. Beta release. GNU GPL.

(System primitives "mail" and "mailx" also qualify, if barely -- as does the "nail" improved version of mailx.)

MUAs, console, proprietary:

• GyikSoft Mailer: http://esp-team.scene.hu/ and ftp://esp-team.scene.hu/esp-team/linux/ Written in C. Supports mbox, SMTP. Licence terms unstated, so proprietary by default operation of copyright law.


• MM (Columbia Mail Manager: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/mail/mm/ Ncurses-based, written in C. Supports mbox, mh, SMTP. Very old, unmaintained. Gratis non-commercial usage.


• mmr (MIME Mail Reader): http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/projects/mmr/ or ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mua/ Ncurses-based, written in C++. Supports mbox, SMTP. Old, unmaintained. Gratis non-commercial usage.


• mush (Mail User's Shell): http://www.well.com/user/barts/mush.html Ncurses-based (optionally), written in C. Supports POP3, SMTP. Gratis usage; redistribution restricted.


• Pine (Program for Internet News and E-mail) : http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/ Easy user interface and provides easy editor, pico. Supports IMAP, SMTP, mbox, NNTP. Gratis usage.


• POSTIE: http://www.infradig.com/postie/ Command-line mail-handling utility, intended to serve as a back-end to graphical mail programs, schedule programs, Web CGIs, and other programs. Supports POP3, IMAP4, HTTP, SMTP, NNTP, OpenPGP. Linux-x86 binary.

Note: Webmail MUAs comprise another entire mammoth category of options, which are not included in the above listing.

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Copyright (C) 2002-2003, Rick Moen, rick@linuxmafia.com.

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