mu4e
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 9 of 16 email clients by recommenders
Fast email search and opening for people who already live in Emacs; critics mention slow indexing of new mail and some emails not rendering or sending properly.
Fast email search and opening for people who already live in Emacs; critics mention slow indexing of new mail and some emails not rendering or sending properly.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 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
Faster email opening and searching than Gmail
“opening and (especially) searching for emails seem much faster than doing it in Gmail”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Putting email in its place with Emacs and Mu4e” “Mail was fast with Mu4e and Mairix.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Offpunk 3.0”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Some emails fail to send or render
“one too many emails didn't send because I missed some notification or something in mu4e”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Putting email in its place with Emacs and Mu4e” “Too many emails not rendered properly in mu4e”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI”
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 | — | — |
| mu4eThis page | 10 | 2 | 83% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
9 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Not having to open a browser to read email also helps with staying focused for me.”
“Too many emails not rendered properly in mu4e”
“if you’re not able to use mu4e and similar”
“Mail was fast with Mu4e and Mairix.”
“Once I moved my email management into Emacs things improved dramatically, productivity-wise.”
“I've only been using it for less than a month and it will be a while before I know whether it is a net win.”
“opening and (especially) searching for emails seem much faster than doing it in Gmail”
“Performance can be an issue, especially indexing new mail”
“one too many emails didn't send because I missed some notification or something in mu4e”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.