It is possible to use DC with a regular email account.
Explanation
Even though using DC with regular email accounts can be very useful, it also has its drawbacks. Many free email accounts have strict sending limits and spam detection systems that make chatting on these accounts difficult.
To circumvent these difficulties, users must use paid accounts or their own server, which is something very few do.
Nevertheless, free regular email accounts in DC make sense for communicating with non-DC users. I have often made use of this option.
Unfortunately, this type of use has been made more difficult since DC version 2. Even before that, the situation wasn’t perfect.
For example, non-DC contacts only had a character avatar, but a workaround made it possible to use emojis as avatars for them.
Now everyone has the same dull envelope avatar. Personally, this bothers me just as much as if all regular DC contacts had the same avatar.
The more I think about this situation, the more I wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to stop supporting regular email accounts altogether.
Sure, DC could be better adapted for regular email communication (I even have some ideas), but I don’t get the impression that this goal is a particular priority.
Rather, I think support is being gradually phased out by making this type of use less attractive. This is understandable, as resources are limited and could be used more effectively in other areas.
If DC could only be used with chatmail servers in the future, compatibility with regular email servers would no longer have to be considered during development.
This would open up new possibilities. Since the number of chatmail servers is (still) relatively small, even fundamental changes to the protocol would be conceivable.
For example, the base64 encoding could be removed. This would save bandwidth and storage space on the relays, making them even more efficient.
Furthermore, a real online status and a typing indicator would also be possible.
Therefore, I think it would be better to end support for regular email accounts and focus entirely on DC as IM and the chatmail servers.
But then Deltachat would just be another IM app (with decentralized servers). It would lose a lot.
No interoperabilty with mail, and other mail software. This decreases functionality (I can get my process to e-mail me on completion easily; I may not be permitted to make it emit some entirely new format, even if I had time) and blocks me from talking to others not yet using DC.
No ability for DC messages to look just like regular encrypted mail, so DC messages would promptly get blocked in many countries.
Lower reliability. No sure interoperability between DC clients. IMs often force you to always use the same version of the same software on both ends. If you don’t, stuff breaks. Contrast that with the client ecosystem of Deltachat. The reliability of Deltachat is really valuable, especially if you are trying to maintain a communications channel under adverse conditions.
Less possibility for work on Deltachat to improve the broader standards ecosystem. Many mail clients have adopted parts of Autoencrypt. SecureJoin and autogeneration of accounts on Chatmail servers could (with great benefit) be adopted by other mail clients.
Less possibility for work on e-mail standards to improve Deltatouch. Other developers also have good ideas.
I really like open standards and interoperability.
Now if you are saying that e-mail standards have issues, I completely agree, but this post is long enough already.
there is no reason to drop support for it abruptly without an important blocker/barrier that would make progressing very hard or impossible, in fact it will COST RESOURCES to work on remove support for it and notice that using classic email servers is totally fine (as long as it is a sane provider or if you use it for low level of communications)
about unencrypted email, this is the actual problematic aspect, but the current support is good enough and as long as it doesn’t becomes a too costly burden to keep support for it, I would say it is a “nice to have” extra even if not many people actually use that feature since most people are on chatmail servers and never see an unencrypted email, I personally don’t even have any email client to read emails, only Delta Chat
The best feature of this great project is the possibility of choosing whatever server you wish / like. This is far more important than anything else, arguably encryption included.
Choosing from all of the world’s email servers pool = freedom for the user.
I myself am a DC user, and have been for many years. I promoted it and converted many people. If classic email support is dropped, any argument I used to make them switch would me empty. Probably everyone would be fully back at telegram, signal, or even whatsapp (none completely left this platforms, myself included).
Also, the possibility of choosing whatever client app you like!
Freedom for the user is the whole point of open-source and open-standard protocols. That’s the biggest selling point for Delta Chat since it makes use of the largest, most-used, decentralized, and open internet messaging infrastructure ever created. Just about every internet connected electronic device with a keyboard has an email client built in (and an email account sign-in practically required). The fact that I can choose whatever SMTP program I want (and switch whenever I want) and still communicate with literally everybody is a hugely attractive freedom that I would hate to see dissolve.
Strong vote on always keeping classic email support too!
I don’t care if someone makes a fork that doesn’t allow adding custom SMTP servers, but I certainly wouldn’t use or promote that since that would be heading in the opposite direction of communications freedom.
When that is done, let’s not forget to remove “avoiding xkcd927” from the main page.
I appreciate the boldness, but I don’t think this is the way to go.
If one for whatever reason likes just the UI / UX of Delta Chat but wants to use a different transport / protocol (not email), then the core API is not too thick to re-implement. In fact, at some early stages Delta Chat UI itself used to reuse the UI of Signal and Telegram.
I’m actually in favor of continuing to support regular email accounts.
What was special wasn’t just the email compatibility per se, but email communication with a chat interface. Unfortunately, this option has become significantly worse with the latest update. Therefore, supporting regular email accounts no longer makes sense for me, and I won’t be using this feature anymore.
Anyway when considering the problems described by Raiden above, it’s not clear why dropping email support is the best way to address those problems. In Raiden’s thread about gray email avatars, he proposed several solutions which do not involve dropping email support.
Even if it’s true that only few people use paid accounts or their own email server, abandoning these users in order to force everyone onto chatmail doesn’t seem justifiable. However, it’s not quite true that you need to use a paid account or your own server to avoid sending limits, as some people have had success explaining their situation with Delta Chat to their email provider and they raised the sending limit for them.
Saved bandwidth and storage space on relays could be a real advantage, but the experience of relay operators so far suggests that at least storage space is not yet even close to a problem.
Delta Chat has already shown us that innovations are possible, for example we now have message editing and deletion all done through email, and I would encourage the exploration of further innovations with Delta Chat and Chatmail.
For example there have been several requests for scheduled messages here, here, and here, and now that chatmail is the default/recommended type of server for the app, I think it is worth revisiting this idea, but notably features like this could be achieved without dropping email support,
It’s not the solution to the problem, but its logical consequence.
In my opinion, since chatmail, it only makes sense to use a regular email account to communicate with non-DC users. It wasn’t perfect before the update, but it’s gotten significantly worse since then. I don’t get the impression that anyone wants to change anything about it.
If things continue like this, I won’t use DC for regular email anymore. Hence my suggestion to drop regular email support altogether.
It’s about the new avatars. If DC had the same avatar for every encrypted chat, everyone would probably be annoyed. Why should it be any different for email threads with non-DC users?
With all the respect, I disagree. I use two different classic email providers (both free, disroot.org and a local provider in my country) to communicate with DC contacts. I also have many contacts that use classic providers with no issues.
In fact, the only chatmail contacts I have are iphone users, and that is just apple’s fault for making notifications their walled garden. I made them switch to avoid their complaints about missing notifications.
You can just not use the feature if you don’t like it, why removing it for everyone?
Regarding the icons in version 2 (I did not switch yet…), I believe the developers will come up with a better solution. Many good ones have been proposed already.
Keeping classic email support is what makes this software the chat program with the largest user base.
These problems apply to most mainstream providers. GMail, for example.
I’m curious. Have you ever used your regular account intensively in several large groups at the same time? I mean real chatting and not a few messages per day.
To be honest, I locked myself out only twice in about four years. The first time, was sending dozens of pictures in a group. This never happened again, I really did not need to do that…
The second time was more recent, I was deleting messages and I made the mistake of doing it from the desktop client, which meant one message to each group member per message deleted. When necessary, now I do this thing from Android. At least until multiple selection get to desktop disroot.org has relaxed limitations, in an hour or so everything got back to normal.
I do not use very large groups, and only have a handful of contacts. But that’s enough to get most messages out of telegram. I ditched whasapp an signal a long time ago…
But your experience speaks in favor of chatmail. Many users are in larger groups and write a lot. Especially during the holiday season, masses of vacation photos are sent in chat groups.
Couldnt disagree more. For those that want it and can do it let it be.
I started using DC because I could reuse IMAP services and because of the encryption. I am also one of those users who pays for an IMAP service (its cheap, its reliable, it does IMAP and nothing else; doesn’t scan your mails for “legitimate interests”). I use G mayle and such for junk accounts tho, great for that
Perhaps its not perfect but its “good enough” for me. I don’t have to rely on a 3rd party relay if I dont want to and I even have a good chance of persuading those in my workplace that this is better solution than relying on a large scale commercialised provider who may do things with my metadata that I dont like or want to let have. The enterprise proposal even leverages existing servers and skills and GDPR wise, leaves controllership where it is and where it is already dealt with for email.
In that use case, you can open and use a chat mail account right now.
I can do that too. If I want / need to send a hundred attachments, I have the choice of sending them in several days, open a chatmail account and do it over there, or even passing them though telegram or any other service.
Why limiting the options for the end users?
If a user has an email provider which is close / trusted, why removing the possibility of using it?
I am continuing to use my classic email accounts as usual, with the letter envelope, not a big deal at all when things change there is always some friction for old users, but eventually no one will even talk about this anymore, as it happened with many other changes that were made
and notice that using classic email servers is totally fine (as long as it is a sane provider or if you use it for low level of communications)