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Need Email Client for Mountain Lion

Ambrosia7177

Ambrosia7177

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Feb 6, 2016
2,079
396
Life is such a PITA sometimes...

Is there an email client that is compatable with Mountain Lion?

I was hoping to install Thunderbird, but see that it is not compatable with Mountain Lion, and for the time being, I do NOT want to upgrade the OS on this old Mac because it will break some other things.

(BTW: Is www.ThunderBird.net the legitimate source for Mozilla Thunderbird??)
 
Texas_Toast said:
Life is such a PITA sometimes...

Is there an email client that is compatable with Mountain Lion?

I was hoping to install Thunderbird, but see that it is not compatable with Mountain Lion, and for the time being, I do NOT want to upgrade the OS on this old Mac because it will break some other things.

(BTW: Is www.ThunderBird.net the legitimate source for Mozilla Thunderbird??)
Click to expand...
Why doesn't the built in client work for you? This might help others offer possible solutions.
 
chrfr said:
Why doesn't the built in client work for you? This might help others offer possible solutions.
Click to expand...

What do you mean?

I went to the Thunderbird website and it says that it is no longer compatable with older OS's like Mountain Lion.
 
Weaselboy said:
I think @chrfr means why can't you just use the built in Mail.app that comes with ML?
Click to expand...

I dunno...

- Lack of knowledge of Mail.app
- Wanting to use Thunderbird
- General paranoia about proprietary software


Can't I try and find an old version of Thunderbird? (I just need this as a temporary fix to get my email off of AT&T and stored on my old Mac.)
 
Weaselboy said:
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/

Sure... I don't know how old a version you need for it to work with ML, but here they all are direct from Mozilla.
Click to expand...
Here's the list of Thunderbird release notes:
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/

I found this by googling search terms: old thunderbird release notes

The reason for including notes in the search terms is that Release Notes are where one is likely to find system requirements.
 
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chown33 said:
Here's the list of Thunderbird release notes:
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/

I found this by googling search terms: old thunderbird release notes

The reason for including notes in the search terms is that Release Notes are where one is likely to find system requirements.
Click to expand...

Thanks to you and @Weaselboy.

Are there any real risks of using an older version of Thunderbird?

Again, my goal is just to get a local copy of all of my emails until I can get them migrated over to a more reliable email provider.
[doublepost=1561757743][/doublepost]P.S. Is www.Thunderbird.net a legitimate site? (I was expecting something from Mozilla and a .org?!)
 
Texas_Toast said:
Are there any real risks of using an older version of Thunderbird?
Click to expand...
You can assess the risks by going through the Release Notes for versions more recent than the one you use. That's where all the bug fixes would be found.


Again, my goal is just to get a local copy of all of my emails until I can get them migrated over to a more reliable email provider.
Click to expand...
You should be able to do that with Mail.app.

@Weaselboy already outlined how to transfer emails to your local Mac.

Once you have an "On my Mac" mailbox with emails in it, right-click it and choose the "Export" action. You'll see a dialog box for where to put the .mbox folder.

After it's stored in .mbox format, you can Import that to Mail.app. The "Import" action is under its File menu. Choose the .mbox you saved earlier.

After importing, confirm that the emails (including attachments) are exactly as expected.

I'd do a few more things here:
1. Pick a small mailbox or set of emails with attachments, to test with. Maybe a few MB.
Use this small set for testing the entire process of "On my Mac", "Export", and "Import". The goal of this test is to make sure you understand every step (a practice run), and to confirm the imported emails are completely correct (an accuracy check).

2. Make a new disposable Mac account, run the Mail.app there, and Import into that.
You can use /Users/Shared to store the .mbox folders, which all users can read from. All users can also write there, but only the creating owner will have write or delete permission. This Mail account won't inherit anything from your existing Mail.app accounts, i.e. it will be isolated, as if you were setting up an entirely new mail service.

3. Make safe copies of the .mbox folders.
After you've confirmed everything works, and have downloaded and exported all your mailboxes, I'd zip the .mbox files and copy them to a safe backup medium, like a USB drive, or SD cards of suitable size.


P.S. Is www.Thunderbird.net a legitimate site? (I was expecting something from Mozilla and a .org?!)
Click to expand...
Looks legit to me:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird

Click the "Release Notes" link. Where does it take you?

There can be various reasons why an organization can't obtain a .org domain name. The most likely is that someone else acquired the domain before Mozilla did and is using it. Another is that someone else obtained the name and Mozilla (or any other org) is unwilling to pay the sale price.

For a not-made-up name like "thunderbird", it doesn't surprise me that thunderbird.org or thunderbird.com might not be available.
 
Texas_Toast said:
@chown33,

So for someone who is a privacy and security freak, I shouldn't be nervous or suspicious of Mail.app?

o_O
Click to expand...
Do you have articulable reasons or suspicions? If so, give them.

Otherwise what do you think the problem is? I take it you've been using Mail.app until now, so what's your reason for switching to an obsolete version of Thunderbird?

If you're a security freak, then you should already know that relying on unarticulated feelings can be a grave mistake.

In short, justify why someone (not just you, but anyone) should switch to something that you know is obsolete, and for which you can read all the bug fixes in its Release Notes. Compare and contrast that to the Mtn Lion version of Mail.app, for which you can read the subsequent Mac OS release notes and security fixes to discover its bug fixes.

I'm not here to say one is safer than the other, just asking why you decided to be suspicious of Mail.app now, and why you'd choose a known obsolete app (Thunderbird 45) over it.
 
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Texas_Toast said:
@chown33,

So for someone who is a privacy and security freak, I shouldn't be nervous or suspicious of Mail.app?

o_O
Click to expand...
If you're truly a security freak, you shouldn't be relying on an operating system that hasn't had a security patch in nearly 4 years and which cannot run current software.
That said, Mail.app in Mountain Lion is no more or less likely to have a security issue than another outdated mail client.
 
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chown33 said:
Do you have articulable reasons or suspicions? If so, give them.
Click to expand...

- You never know how propietary software works since it is private.

- You (generaly) have greater privacy and security with open-source software since many eyes can inspect the code base for nefarious code.

- While not Google, Apple is still a for-profit take-no-bars company trying to monitize everything and anything for their botton-line. With all of the scary things you see companies like Facebook, Google, etc doing with people's info, I am leery to use Mail.app

- I *thought* that in the past I had read that similar to Safari, mail.app was not nearly as secure or privacy focused as Thunderbird.


chown33 said:
Otherwise what do you think the problem is? I take it you've been using Mail.app until now, so what's your reason for switching to an obsolete version of Thunderbird?
Click to expand...

Actually, no.

I have been an AT&T customer for the last decade, and have been too slow to get the hell off of that service following the Yahoo debacle many years ago. Equally bad, I am tired of the jerks at AT&T/Yahoo locking me out of my email every few months and it taking me 6-8 hours at a time to finally get them to unlock my email on their servers, even though I have never forgotten my credentials or challenges answers. Totally f*cked up!!

So, no, I have been accessing my email via Firefox all of that time.

There is no way for me to import my emails from AT&T directly into ProtonMail, so I have been told my best option is to first download all of the emails from AT&T to my macBook using *some* email client. (I had always hear dthat Thunderbird was the best...)

Then after I have the POP3 emails local on my MacBook, I believe there is a way for me to import these into ProtonMail.

So using an email client is just a temporary step in this migration.

Nonetheless, I feel like THunderbird would be a safer choice, just like I trust Firefox over Chrome or Internet Explorer.



chown33 said:
If you're a security freak, then you should already know that relying on unarticulated feelings can be a grave mistake.
Click to expand...

Following your gut is usually a good idea. And trusting your suspicions and then asking experts - like a lot of people at macRumors - on what they think is even better.

;-)


chown33 said:
In short, justify why someone (not just you, but anyone) should switch to something that you know is obsolete, and for which you can read all the bug fixes in its Release Notes. Compare and contrast that to the Mtn Lion version of Mail.app, for which you can read the subsequent Mac OS release notes and security fixes to discover its bug fixes.
Click to expand...

Here's the rub...

- I have 15+ years of email on AT&T
- I no longer trust AT&T - haven't for years, but I have other fires I am putting out first
- The last straw is AT&T locking me - a paid customer - out every other month when I always seem to desperately need to get into my email!
- Based on my research, ProtonMail would be the safest home for my emails.
- HOWEVER, I do not want to carry over 15+ years of "dirty laundry" onto my virgin ProtonMail account.
- I also do NOT want to put any remnents onto my still virgin Retina MBP. (Hint: Even using IMAP, Thunderbird stores things like email address, subject lines, etc on your hard-drive)

Therefore...

- First I need to download all of my emails using POP3 onto my old MacBook.
- To do that I need some email client. I thought Thunderbird would be the "go to" choice.
- But alas, my old MacBook runs Mountain Lion which doesn't suppor tthe latest version of Thunderbord.
- So I either need to use a deprecated version of Thunderbird, or some other email client.
- I could use the native Mail.app, but I mentioned my concerns above - gounded or not?!

Follow my latest conundrum?


chown33 said:
I'm not here to say one is safer than the other, just asking why you decide to be suspicious of Mail.app now, and why you'd choose a known obsolete app (Thunderbird 45) over it.
Click to expand...

See above.

I am also asking about email clients, because moving forward, I am thinking that using an email client would make my life easier. For example, I have a couple of email servers that I currently access via SquirrelMail and it's an inconvenient bitch to use. I'm thinking if I can find a reliable and privacy/security-foced email client, it might make my life easier.

But the main focus of this thread is ditching AT&T once and for all, and getting things onto ProtonMail *AFTER* I have had a chance to scrub 15+ years of old emails, and just migrate over the things that are worth keeping, AND getting rid of all of those emails to hookers and that recruiter for the circus... (I'm still bitter about not getting that gig with the clowns!!) ;)
[doublepost=1561767613][/doublepost]
chrfr said:
If you're truly a security freak, you shouldn't be relying on an operating system that hasn't had a security patch in nearly 4 years and which cannot run current software.
That said, Mail.app in Mountain Lion is no more or less likely to have a security issue than another outdated mail client.
Click to expand...

I agree, but alas, my situation is more complex than that. (See my response to @chown33...)

As I have said in other threads here, I am NOT simply going to copy over 1 TB of disrganized sh*t onto my "virgin" 2015 Retina MBP!!!

Going through all of my plans and schemes and emails to prostitutes and the circus take time to sort through, curate, and so on! (To be clear, I'm kidding about the clowns...)

And I have LOTS of stuff on my old MacBook pro that would get broken if I did something (seemingly) obvious like upgrading to the latest Mac OS.

So during this transition, I have lots of *pain points*, but this is the best way to go to keep my new Retina clean and not containing anything that I'd regret being on there...

Follow me?
 
I think you’re really laboring over something that’s quite trivial. Mail.app will download your mail just fine and export it to a standard .mbox format that’s easily read by a myriad of products. If you make sure that whatever client you use doesn’t automatically download remote images, security and privacy are really of no issue regardless of what client you use.
Email clients are well understood and use standard protocols regardless of whether they’re open or closed source. Given that whatever client you use with Mountain Lion is out of date, you might as well just use the built in mail client. If Apple’s Mail.app was doing something nefarious you can be sure that we’d all know it by now.
 
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TT wrote:
"So for someone who is a privacy and security freak, I shouldn't be nervous or suspicious of Mail.app?"

Egads, it's another "Texas Toast thread" !!!
Where stability and logic always take a back seat to "security"!
About mail this time!

Um... most folks just use Apple's Mail.app and have no problems with it.

If you were using POP in the past, importing old emails is EASY.
Did I say, .... "Easy" ????
 
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What're we all missing here? ProtonMail can directly import from an IMAP account (most of the decent providers can). You're doing this dance through an obsolete email client just to get an MBOX file so you can feed THAT to ProtonMail's Import tool?

https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-import-emails-to-your-protonmail-account/

I think there was a whinge earlier about not wanting to bring everything over. ProtonMail's Import client allows you to choose what to import.
 
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^^^^This.

Also, 15yrs of mail is a security risk in itself in that there is probably a good chance that there is sensitive information buried in there.

And to ProtonMail, sure, great if everyone you know uses it or manually encrypts their email, but if not, once outside of ProtonMail servers, it's unencrypted. Coming and going.
 
NoBoMac said:
And to ProtonMail, sure, great if everyone you know uses it or manually encrypts their email, but if not, once outside of ProtonMail servers, it's unencrypted. Coming and going.
Click to expand...

The thing about ProtonMail is that it IS encrypted on their servers. Sure, someone could snoop inbound/outbound, but what a LEO is going to want is existing mail, they're going to subpoena the host.
 
Fishrrman said:
TT wrote:
"So for someone who is a privacy and security freak, I shouldn't be nervous or suspicious of Mail.app?"

Egads, it's another "Texas Toast thread" !!!
Where stability and logic always take a back seat to "security"!
About mail this time!
Click to expand...

Face it, @Fishrrman, I bring excitement to your otherwise uneventful existence! ;)

Yes, this is turning out to be another TexasToast thread and endeavour where I try to really understand things front and back. (And it is quickly turning out to be a case where others are leaving out important details that I'm catching since I'm more detail-oriented than most...) :cool:


Fishrrman said:
Um... most folks just use Apple's Mail.app and have no problems with it.

If you were using POP in the past, importing old emails is EASY.
Did I say, .... "Easy" ????
Click to expand...

I spent most of Saturday tinkering with Mail.app and Thunderbird. I set up accounts as both IMAP and POP3 and tried to get a feel how things work.

Like most things I touch, I can see that things are not as "easy" or as "smooth" as a lot of you say/think.

Some observations...

Thunderbird:
- I like it better since it has more settings/power
- I don't like that MBOX files aren't labeled as such!
- I think Thunderbird has a messy filing system!
- I would prefer if an email was one file.
- No easy way to read emails from Finder.
- I discovered a rather freaky bug where I completely deleted an email yet it sit persisted in the INBOX file afterwards. (Can you say "security risk"?!)


Mail.app
- More consumer focused
- Much cleaner file/folder structure!!
- Definitely like how emails are individual files
- Definitely like how you can just <spacebar> them in Finder and have a legible email!!
- Noticed strange behavior with how IMAP was (not) working - another bug! (If I recall correctly, I would delete an email in my AT&T account yet it would persist in Mail.app for a long time. I think they only way to get rid of it was to compact folders and exit out of Mail.app wich is not how IMAP should work, but whatever.)
- I don't think I tried POP3 with Mail.app, and it gives you no menu options to choose that. I guess you need to know the settings yourself.


I am torn on whether IMAP or POP3 is better for my purposes. Each has benefits and drawnbacks. Neither is the "silver bullet" i'd like.

My bigger propblem right now is that Protonmail is being a *bitch* and the Import-Export application isn't workingw ith either my Mail.app or Thunderbird MBOX files. (Will have to see what ther support says, sicne there isn't any help online.) *sigh*

Looks like I have to "hurry up and wait" again... Never anything easy in my life... :rolleyes:
 
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