Claws Mail
Ranked 11 of 16 email clients by recommenders
Free desktop email client that people trust with multigigabyte inboxes, praising its speed and light footprint. Critics say it has bugs and a non-native look on Windows.
Free desktop email client that people trust with multigigabyte inboxes, praising its speed and light footprint. Critics say it has bugs and a non-native look on Windows.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Handles multigigabyte inboxes well
“Claws-mail has all my email for over 15 years. My inbox is several gigabytes in size, which claws handles flawlessly.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Microsoft's "Fix" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating” “Native desktop app, lightweight, extremely fast, able to handle multigigabyte inboxes for breakfast.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why” Lightweight, fast native desktop app
“Native desktop app, lightweight, extremely fast, able to handle multigigabyte inboxes for breakfast.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why” “Compact, efficient, to the point.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements” Seen as a sensible traditional client
“There are X frontends to NMH like Sylpheed or claws. They make sense.”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Good IMAP Email Clients?” “Clawsand SeaMonkey both have a more reasonable design.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements” “Seamonkey or claws mifht be good alternatives too.”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Help Keep Thunderbird Alive” - Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “The 1987 Game "The Last Ninja" was 40 kilobytes”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Bugs and unreadable emails reported
“it has enough bugs that I didn't even find it usable, nevermind reliable”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Haiku” “Literally less than half of my emails were readable.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why”
Other email clients people recommend
The four most recommended other email clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozilla Thunderbird | 210 | 155 | 58% | 13 | 20 yrs12 owners | — |
| Microsoft Outlook | 117 | 403 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs8 owners | — |
| Apple Mail | 57 | 88 | 39% | 12 | 10 yrs9 owners | — |
| Penguin Mail | 14 | 13 | 52% | 1 | — | — |
| Claws MailThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
All 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Which is part of why I still use it, despite the various warts.”
“It’s GTK based, so it looks not very native on windows.”
“There are X frontends to NMH like Sylpheed or claws. They make sense.”
“I'd still use Claws-mail for reading and replying to kernel mailing lists”
“it has enough bugs that I didn't even find it usable, nevermind reliable”
“Seamonkey or claws mifht be good alternatives too.”
“Ever user can understand Thunderbird/Claws Mail”
“I never had any problems with HTML Mail rendering in Claws.”
“Literally less than half of my emails were readable.”
“Native desktop app, lightweight, extremely fast, able to handle multigigabyte inboxes for breakfast.”
“Claws-mail has all my email for over 15 years. My inbox is several gigabytes in size, which claws handles flawlessly.”
“Compact, efficient, to the point.”
“Clawsand SeaMonkey both have a more reasonable design.”
“why not a traditional client (thunderbird, claws, even outlook)”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.