It’s no surprise to anyone at this point that I really like the Mu/Mu4e mail client. It runs in Emacs, has excellent search capabilities, and is fast and easy to use. I run it on top of macOS and get my mail from my Apple and Irreal accounts but it’s really an Emacs app and should run on any system that can arrange to download email from an email server.
Emad Elsaid decided that he was tired of depending on the Gmail Web interface so he decided to handle his mail locally with Mu. He’s a Linux user (Archlinux) so his setup may interest other Linux users who want to move to Mu.
It’s sad, for the reasons described in my The Trial post, that Elsaid hasn’t abandoned Gmail altogether, just their Web interface. On the other hand, using Mu means that he has a local copy of his mail so even if Google accuses him of bad think™ and freezes his accounts, he still has all his mail and email addresses and will only have to deal with letting his correspondents know his new email address. My point, here, is not (just) to relitigate the lessons of The Trial post but to offer yet another reason for moving to Mu or other local mail client option.
If you’re a Linux user with a Gmail account and would like to switch to Mu, Elsaid’s post gives a nice configuration for doing so. He uses offlineimap to retrieve his mail from Google. It’s a bit easier to configure than the faster mbsync and is used by lots of folks so it’s a reasonable choice, especially for an individual account. All-in-all, it’s a useful post to get you started. If your experience is like mine, you won’t be sorry.