The majority of people on the internet have email accounts from big companies, such as Google, that do not respect your privacy. Thankfully, there are privacy conscience alternatives like Tutanota and ProtonMail. The problems is that not all of them have a desktop client. Today, we will look at a project that seeks to solve that problem for you. Let’s take a look at ElectronMail.
‘Electron’-ic warning!
The following app is built with Electron (the name is ElectronMail for a reason). If the use of Electron upsets you, please consider this a trigger warning.
ElectronMail: Desktop Client for Tutanota and ProtonMail
ElectronMail is simply put an email client for ProtonMail and Tutanota. It is built using three big technologies: Electron, TypeScript and Angular. It includes the following features:
- Multi accounts support per each email provider
- Encrypted local storage
- Available for Linux, Windows, macOS, and FreeBSD
- Native notifications
- System tray icon with a total number of unread messages
- Master password to protect account information
- Switchable view layouts
- Offline access to the emails
- Encrypted local storage for emails
- Batch emails export to EML files
- Full-text search
- Built-in/prepackaged web clients
- Configuring proxy per account
- Spell Checking
- Support for two-factor authentication for extra security
Currently, ElectronMail only supports Tutanota and ProtonMail. I get the feeling that they will be adding more in the future. According to the GitHub page: “Multi email providers support. ProtonMail and Tutanota at the moment.”
ElectronMail is licensed under the MIT license.
How to install ElectronMail
Currently, there are several options to install ElectronMail on Linux. for Arch and Arch-based distros, you can install it from the Arch User Repository. There is also a Snap available for ElectronMail. To install it, just enter sudo snap install electron-mail.
For all other Linux distros, you can download a .deb or .rpm file.
You can also download an .exe installer for Windows or a .dmg file for macOS. There is even a file for FreeBSD.
Removing ElectronMail
If you install ElectronMail and decide that it is not for you, there are a couple steps that the developer recommends. Be sure to follow these steps before you uninstall the application.
If you are using the “Keep Me Signed In” feature, click “Log out” on the menu. This will delete the locally stored master password. It is possible to delete the master password after uninstalling ElectronMail, but that would involve editing the system keychain.
You will also need to delete the settings folder manually. You can find it by clicking “Open setting folder” after selecting the application’s icon in the system tray.
My Thoughts on ElectronMail
I don’t usually use email clients. In fact, I mostly depend on web clients. So, I don’t have much use for this application.
That being said, ElectronMail has a nice feel to it and is easy to set up. It has a good number of features activated out of the box and the advanced features aren’t that hard to activate.
The one question I have relates to search. According to the features list, ElectronMail supports full-text search. However, the free version of Tutanota only supports a limited search. I wonder how ElectronMail handles that.
At the end of the day, ElectronMail is just an Electron wrapper for a couple of web-based emails. I would rather just have them open in my browser than dedicate separate system resources to running Electron. If you only use Tutanota email, they have their own official Electron-based desktop client. You may try that.
My biggest issue is with security. This is an unofficial app for two very secure email apps. What if there is a way to capture your login info or read through your emails? Someone who is smarter than I would have to go through the source code to know for sure. That is always the issue with unofficial apps for a security project.
Have you every used ElectronMail? Do you think it would be worthwhile to install ElectronMail? What is your favorite email client? Please let us know in the comments below.
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I see no feature to Batch download emails to EML files for protonmail. I’ve look aroun on the web to figure out how to do such but no luck. Anybody willing to enlighten me? Or is that not actually a feature.
You are supposed to toggle to “database view” mode first. Take a look at the lower left corner after that.
I recently signed up for a protonmail account, and now I am becoming a little bit concerned about a possible pro-impeachment, pro-mental-health, or pro-gun-control political slant or affiliation with Tutanota, Autistici and other “liberal” email providers who advertise or emphasize “privacy” as such.
Obviously I value my privacy, but privacy is apparently only worthwhile to the extent that I can have it “just like everyone else” and not that “I have something to hide” in such an aggressively policed red-light-district gun control state as post-9/11 America.
My concern is that when guns are banned, people have too many bosses, caregivers, custodians, mental health workers, parents, guardians, and so on and so forth who are not allowing them to make their own decisions with respect to any actual conception of “privacy.”
I especially resent some of the less savory “services” offered online to privacy-minded people “of age” at least 18 or 21, and I always suspect that my privacy has already been grossly violated when I see such ads break though all the filters and adblockers I can possibly install.
Nobody needs to or should justify their right and preference for privacy. You also don’t need to speculate on a doomsday scenario to see how companies like Facebook build a digital dossier on you for sale to unknown people for unknown purposes. I wouldn’t assume the culprit is ProtonMail. Your browser, search engine, and social media are far more likely to be the source. One reason to use a full desktop client (Or tablet client) is so your browser isn’t ‘reading’ your private mail. Quit Facebook, ditch everything Google or Facebook affiliated. Use DuckDuckGo for searching, replace Twitter with Parler, and so forth. I won’t use WhatsApp, I use Line instead – they aren’t saints, but they don’t care about US politics. I seriously doubt the Swiss have more than a passing interest in US domestic politics either.
Dear Mr. John Paul:
1. In response to your report on Electron Mail, please note that I use KMail. It is not the best but I have been using it for the past several years to connect to various types of web and e-mail hosting services all of whom also have web mail.
2. Is there any good reason that I should switch from Kmail to Electron Mail?
3. I await your response.