Em client on linux

Lately I have been seeing on the companies I work with a growing interest in Linux, partly impacted by the move in Europe away from Microsoft. This fact may help EM Client business case for Linux. Although my last Linux machine was long time ago, my next Laptop will be Linux and I would love to keep using EM Client on Linux, specially with the possibility to use data files would be a killer for the email migration from Windows->Linux

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Yep gets my vote, I’m sick of Microslop, and have used Ubuntu on and off for years. Now that Steam is on Linux and I’m using Libreoffice there is less and less that will keep me on Windows

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+1 - I have been em Client enthusiast for years, got lifetime license and it was - by far - the best client ever, together with the mobile app a huge benefit for my daily work. however, I finally migrated fully to Linux (Kubuntu) (Windows was only necessary due to some client’s legacy app, this is no longer the case), and was devastated seeing there is no emClient. I tried wine, bottles,but ended up running emClient in a win11 VM, but this still feels bloated and unpracticable in many ways, so I installed an alternative mailclient aside for quick usage.
I would personally be happy, if the emClient Team start a (wine-)port and declare it as ā€œproof of conceptā€ or ā€œearly alphaā€ showing it will be unstable but already charging for it (make it an ā€œsupport linux migration licenseā€ for double the normal price - I’m in!)…

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+2, please add full out of the box linux support! Need Em Client native on linux!

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I already have a lifetime license and have migrated away from windows completely and am 100% on linux now. Just wanted to include myself as another user that would love em client to be native on linux.

For those interested, I put some Claude tokens to use and have been working on IL patches for emClient so it works under wine… well specifically Crossover. I have version 10 running really well in a VM, but have a few threading issues on some other test boxes. I’ve also got the beta 11 build patched - mostly for those that are concerned about EWS retirement. If you are interested in helping with testing/trying it out let me know.

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@grover Another user in the forum worked on this in the past: GitHub - BenJamesAndo/Linux-eMClient: Instructions on getting eM Client running on Linux using WINE Ā· GitHub

You might want to contribute if possible.

It had all the same issues I was having. Missing embeeded unicide handling. Lots of crashes and thread starvation issues. It short… it was still wildly unstable once you had several accounts.

Also with emClient 11 requiring windows 10/11 as a base os and the installer no longer being an MSI… it just seemed to make more sense and identify what was incompatible with running under stock wine and patch it.

If that one works for people… great, but if you start running into stability issues and want a version that runs under a windows 11 bottle, and you’re aligned with what I’ve been looking at… that’s what I was interested in seeing if anyone else was at that same level with the above post.

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Hey thanks for letting us know. My version was definitely a minimal viable product and I targeted getting it working on whichever wine runner worked best. I do believe your approach is a much better one. I did start going down the route you did but never committed anything, so it was great to see how far you got with it.

Are you going to make the deploy.sh script support wine prefixes that aren’t managed by Crossover? If so this should then allow the majority of people to use it.

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I do plan to. Right now I’m deep into issues with screen redraws managed by the chrome engine they have embedded into version 11… so I’m elbows deep. But 10 runs pretty well.

How far I go into setups that aren’t mine really depended on how many people here say they’re interested in at least helping with testing or trying it out

I will say at anyone… if you only have one account and you don’t need a local copy of your emails… go with what Ben put together. You really only start hitting issues once you have 5 or more accounts… and you really hit issues once you ask to sync all your emails locally (even with just 2 or 3 accounts). But if that’s not you… go look at what Ben put together… especially if you don’t use M365.

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HI @grover , can I test your 11 beta version? I’m running Ubuntu 26.04. My email requires GraphAPI access with a specific ClientID though so hope it’s configurable.

It’s on GitHub. It was originally written for crossover, but I backported it to work with plain wine/bottles.

The threading inside emClient is interesting (probably more inside .NET really). In VM’s it runs really smoothly, but on my main host it’s a complete dog, so there’s some optional patches that can be applied specifically incase you get UI lock-ups… it’s the main UI thread getting starved.

wow!!! thanks for all.

i’m using bottles and i tested a lot. tested on Fedora 44 with bottles on flatpak and local wine (11.0-3) , and on CachyOS with bottles and wine (11.18), and works very well.

it only really well emulating windows 8.1, windows10 still failing on settings window.

your script fixes lots of glitches. thanks!!

if anyone need details. ask for it.

I’m using em Client on Linux CachyOS with wine, and although it works the experience is not perfect. I hope they release a native version for Linux soon, since it is a paid product, and taking into account that Linux has more and more users, it will surely be tempting for them.

I’ve been in touch with them and they have zero interest at this point. Who knows though… Maybe since I’ve done much of the work to isolate the issues, have the test cases outlined and something of an example of a working solution… maybe they’ll put a small amount of effort towards incorporating either what’s here or a compliant version of it… but I won’t be holding my breath

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Hi everyone,
Thank you all for your interest in eM Client and for the enthusiasm behind the Linux version idea.

We’d like to clarify one thing: it’s not that we have no interest in a Linux version. We are currently exploring the options for porting eM Client to Linux. As you can imagine, it isn’t a simple task, and if we decide to go down this route, we want to do it properly so that everything integrates well with Linux.

With that in mind, we’d kindly ask you not to start any unofficial efforts of any kind. In particular, we would appreciate it if you didn’t try to reverse engineer eM Client. Besides going against our license terms, it could lead to an unstable experience and potential issues with your data.

We’ll definitely share news if/once we have something concrete about the Linux version. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

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Totally fair. I’d be worried too after watching AI reverse engineer Adobe’s main cash cow.

It’s been a year since I’ve dumped every Windows system in the house for Linux and I couldn’t be happier. It’s always such a drag to get to work and have to mess around with outlook and windows misbehaving. That said, I miss you eM Client and I hope you join the light side soon!

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I’ve been an eM Client paid customer for over 10 years. Great email app. Windows 10 is the end of the line for me with Windows. I just don’t like the direction Microsoft has taken with Windows 11. So, my desktop OS on multiple systems is now Ubuntu MATE. I’d prefer to stick with eM Client, but I’m currently using Evolution for email and calendar. It integrates well with Google Gmail, Calendar and Contacts. But I’ve encountered several serious bugs, which I’ve reported but have had no fix for over 6 months.

So, I’d be willing to pay for a LInux version of eM Client. My understanding is the eM Client is a dotNet app. Maybe now that dotNet has been ported to Linux (well, dotNet Core), the job of creating a Linux version will be slightly easier.

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fwiw, agreed on MacOS able to run Linux VMs. For example, Docker Desktop runs a Linux VM behind the scenes in order to run containers on a Mac. I use this daily.