Current & up-to-date threads for an e-mail client/reader, are virtually non-existent. I'm also looking "to finally graduate" from gmail, yahoo mail, etc. to an offline e-mail client. Plus, my hunch is some may be new to the eCS/OS2 community over the past 5 years.
What is your personal experience? Is Polarbar, or Rexx Mail, still viable without maintenance & updating for the past 7+ years? How about Mozilla offerings like SeaMonkey? Does anybody still use Lotus Notes? Does anyone have a SOHO e-mail server scenario? Who syncs e-mail clients cross-platform? Are there any neat e-mail utilities? ...etc.
The intent here is a more detailed what-is-most-effective-thread for circa 2011 forward.
Here are a handful of weblinks to begin this e-Mail Client thread:
[1] Hobbes mail => http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=mail&pushbutton=Search (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=mail&pushbutton=Search)
[2] Hobbes rexx mail => http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=rexx+mail&pushbutton=Search (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=rexx+mail&pushbutton=Search)
[3] Voice PMMail => http://pmmail.os2voice.org/index.php?title=PMMail_for_OS/2 (http://pmmail.os2voice.org/index.php?title=PMMail_for_OS/2)
[4] (java-based) Polarbar => http://polarbar.net/ (http://polarbar.net/) {also note 40+ instructive screenshots}
I see that you have PMMail listed. While it is a current E-mail client, it isn't available to the general public. It is only available to V.O.I.C.E. members. Too bad, since it is a great client in itself and the only one that is still being maintained, is written for OS/2 and not ported from another platform.
MR/2 ICE is still available, but if it's being maintained there is no evidence of it. The code changed hands a few years back with promises of good things to come, but those words turned out to be air vibrations and nothing more. Too bad!
JAVA based clients I tend to stay away from because of the additional overhead. However, with JAVA 6, things may have improved.
There are the Mozilla-based, ported clients, (Thunderbird for example), stand-alone and integrated, but there are problems associated with those, mainly that they unintentionally delete messages if you have a large number of them. It's not a problem if you only have a few thousands messages. Now, maybe this problem has been fixed since I last used one, but if it has, then I know nothing of it.
Frankly, not a lot has changed in the last five years.
But, maybe someone can add something significant to the thread that will brighten our opinion on that. :D