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Thunderbird EWS??
Problem reported by Cris Mead - 2/24/2026 at 7:21 PM
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Sébastien Riccio Replied
2/24/2026 at 9:36 PM
Hello,

I did not try it yet, but as it only supports mail operations for now and not contacts / calendars, I don't see any advantage of using this in TB instead plain IMAP/SMTP + DAV ?

Kind regards.
Sébastien Riccio System & Network Admin https://swisscenter.com
D
Douglas Foster Replied
2/25/2026 at 6:33 AM
Keep in mind the SmarterTools has been clear that their preferred successor to Outlook Classic is emClient, because it has a good feature set and the vendor is actively cooperating with SmarterTools to ensure good integration.   

Any future development effort spent figuring out why Thunderbird EWS does not talk to SmarterMail will be time not spent on tasks of interest to all customers.
Cris Mead Replied
2/25/2026 at 7:35 AM
EM client is my go to baby, yea, but now that I'm 100% Linux at home, I wanted a non-emulated client that's not IMAP... And a cheap client for the business ;)

I'll try winboat/bottles/wine see how it works
t
terry fairbrother Replied
2/25/2026 at 8:12 AM
I have emclient on my mobile (imap), it's awful. Tells me there's an email but then the message can't be reached or emails don't appear at all. I only have it because of webdav.

And for some bizarre reason, whilst I am in the UK, it seems to connect to my server via Germany and USA
J
J. LaDow Replied
2/25/2026 at 8:55 AM
Thunderbird is free, and is getting a lot better at it's uniform appearance across platforms.

It auto-configured on all our test devices without issue and so far is proving to be a valid contender. Price point always helps. Saying that SmarterMail shouldn't work to support multiple clients just feeds the beast of vendor/client lock in when it comes to features and compatibility.

The best thing that can happen with Thunderbird is people use it, and actually participate in the bug-reporting process. We're dealing with that now with the XMPP connector.
MailEnable survivor / convert --
Cris Mead Replied
2/25/2026 at 9:12 AM
I just found "Evolution" that has an EWS plugin... Email, Calendars, tasks, contacts... maybe sold here
D
Dan Sheehy Replied
2/26/2026 at 7:35 AM
I agree with J. LaDow. Not supporting multiple email clients is disappointing to say the least. And eM Client certainly is not without its faults.
t
terry fairbrother Replied
2/26/2026 at 10:19 AM
There's no way they can drop support for Outlook. People are coming to them from MS exchange and want to continue using Outlook with MAPI support. If they drop Outlook classic, even in 2029 when Outlook is officially culled, there will be an exodus to 365 from SM. Lets face it, they selling SmarterMail as an Exchange alternative. There's plenty of imap server alternatives but few mapi.
M
Mike Mulhern Replied
3/4/2026 at 2:27 PM
why not make webmail better and then Outlook, emClient, etc aren't needed at all?
kevind Replied
3/5/2026 at 9:25 AM
@Mike -- good idea!  Webmail is built-in, nothing to configure, and easy to support.

Here's an idea to enhance webmail:
Cris Mead Replied
3/5/2026 at 9:53 AM
@Mike that's the perfect ideal / Best plan..

Other features needed in webmail for perfection:
  • open .eml files
  • move the "unsubscribe link" as far away from the attachments list as possible
Naaah we need to integrate Zoom and teams if possible and the ability to have more than one email account open at a time...

Thunderbird/Evolution/Outlook/EM is the only viable alternatives....
J
J. LaDow Replied
3/6/2026 at 6:11 AM
Unless "new Outlook" gains a ton of features in the next year or so that make it viable again - Outlook "compatibility/compliance" won't matter - as Microsoft will disable policies that block out-out of the new Outlook as well as remove the ability for users to "roll back" to Outlook "Classic"


So everyone can say all they want about "Outlook forever" but the writing is on the wall - and "new" Outlook only works via proxy.

So "needing an exchange alternative" boils down to if you want a client to have features, you probably need to start working with that vendor to get them "included" --
MailEnable survivor / convert --
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