In early 2026 I started using the Em Client software (the software’s home page), and it soon became my daily driver, despite not having a Linux version (only Windows and Mac). These are my notes, as a personal reminder primarily – if they help anyone else, great!
Installation
It will try to auto import all and connect with Microsoft Exchange. It is best to manually select “other” (like IOS mail account adding) – this goes for all but Gmail accounts (Gmail just asks for approval in your Google account and works automatially).
In a separate article I explained manual email configuration for both POP and IMAP sync.
- I have configured directory for storing all the logs, profile database etc:
D:\emails\emclient\ (and “Logs” subdirectory). - Created a brand new BikeGremlin-Emclient-Profile and set it to be stored in that directory (otherwise it gets “lost” within User Windows tree somewhere).
- Backups are set to X hard drive partition on my home PC.
- Theme chosen Mystic (one of the default themes, nice and clear).
Linux install, UNTESTED
Copy pasting what I found:
I remember there being talk about how to get eM client to run on linux in the past and i just tried and it worked flawlessly (I think, I didn’t really like it so haven’t used it much and went back to thunderbird) using bottles with their “caffe-9.7” runner. just give it the .msi eM client installer from their website and go through the setup as normally.
https://usebottles.comjust for posterity: there’s this error at the start of the installation:
https://forum.emclient.com/uploads/default/original/3X/1/e/1e4b30cfdd18d458ac793e0d266c3f965efa79a4.pngno idea what it means so just hit okay and continue on with the installation and it will still work
and this is the runner you want:
https://forum.emclient.com/uploads/default/original/3X/7/6/76ff3636edd955bf228a5ee258742150f50b5a7d.png
Using and operation
General info, tips & tricks I figured out along the way.
Warning
STAY AWAY from the contact deduplication option or most other mass contact editing functions.
I use (managed) Nextcloud as the source of truth for contacts, calendars and task lists – see my contact sync problems for details how I came to that.
Also, to notice email spoofing and phishing frauds:
Settings -> Mail -> Read ->
check “Show email address in email header”
This should be checked by default!
Search operators
NOT
Use the hyphen/minus symbol ” – ” in front of a searched term or keyword to specify you want your results without these terms.
Example: You want to find messages from Google but NOT the ones concerning security alerts
Search: google -alert
If you want to specify that the word should not be in a specific part of the message you can combine the feature with keywords.
Search: from:google subject:-alert
Or you can even negate the whole section (more intuitive than the format above)!
Search: from:google -subject:alert
OR
To use OR, make sure to use the curly brackets “{}” and put your two conditions inside.
Example: You want to find messages that are from Tom or include party in the subject.
Search: {from:Tom subject:party}
Bugs, problems, and troubleshooting
Contact sync problems
Syncing CardDAV (v3.0 vs v4.0) is buggy. Treat eM Client as read-only for contacts. Make all edits directly in Nextcloud or on your iPhone to avoid “invalid format” errors or similar bugs (see Appendix for details).
Lacking feature: Placing replies in a directory automatically
An important productivity and compliance feature – store sent emails in the same directory as the email replied to is missing (years since the option was requested).
This is possible in Betterbird!Account settings -> Copies & Folders -> Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to
Slow on phone
Gmail was stuck! Relevant eM Client forum thread:
https://forum.emclient.com/t/why-is-em-client-slow-on-mobile/111138/19
Settings -> Account (do this for each email account) -> IMAP:
- Download messages for offline use
Customize download options -> Full messages with attachments - Message sync time period -> All time
Settings -> Show Operations
This will list if any operation is stuck!
For my Gmail, when it got stuck, I had to remove it and re-add it. 🙂
That solved the problem.
Slow start – DB repair
Before you do anything make a Backup:
Menu ->Backup
Run a repair of the data base using the following steps:
- Close eM Client and open a Windows Run window (Win + R keys) or open the command prompt.
- Run this command:
MailClient.exe /dbrepair - If Em Client was installed in the default path, you could simply paste in this command including the leading quotation mark (because of the spaces and other nonsense in modern Windows pahts):
"C:\Program Files (x86)\eM Client\MailClient.exe" /dbrepair
When it’s done, it will show a list of checked or repaired stuff for a few seconds (with a countdown), and then that screen will be gone and Em Client should start normally when you open it next time.
Review
The review part – fair to add in case anyone else happens to read this.
Em Client is a part of my stack. No more honest recommendation than what I’m using (and paid for).
I originally received a Business license with NameCrane email service, but I liked the software enough to purchase a standalone “Business With Lifetime Upgrades” license. This supports development and ensures I can use it across all my machines independently of any specific email provider.
The UI offers the best of both worlds: a clean view of individual emails with the option for forum-style conversation threads. Managing all accounts (including Gmail) in one interface saves significant mental energy. The calendar and task list overviews are equally well-executed.
Mobile performance is solid on iOS (Android untested). Regarding the inevitable “AI features”: they require a separate opt-in (paid) subscription and can be disabled. Currently, there is no option to connect other LLMs (like ChatGPT, Gemini etc.).
Like the rest of this article, I will update this section too over time, with new info, when needed.
Appendix
This is work-in-progress stuff that I’m keeping as notes.
Contacts problems
This has not helped and I had to use Nextcloud with many manual edits. Still, worth keeping the notes.
I saw many contacts missing when viewing the synced CardDAV. When trying to export those (using Betterbird in this case) and import to local Em Client contacts, it said: “One of the identified items was in invalid format”.
When trying to edit contacts, I saw this too often:
I played with Windows Power Shell in a separate directory. Made my list saved as “contacts.vcf” and moved it to “radni” directory on my swap D drive for a start. Then:
$i=0
Get-Content contacts.vcf | ForEach-Object {
if ($_ -eq "BEGIN:VCARD") { $i++ }
$_ | Out-File "contact_$i.vcf" -Append -Encoding utf8
}Code language: PHP (php)Verify how many contacts I’ve got now:Get-ChildItem contact_*.vcf | Measure-Object
Confirmed the current 775 as I see in Betterbird and on Nextcloud. OK. Then, check if any are formated in a way that Em Client will complain:
Get-ChildItem contact_*.vcf | ForEach-Object {
$c = Get-Content $_
if (-not ($c -match '^N:' -and $c -match '^FN:')) {
Write-Output "INVALID (missing N/FN): $($_.Name)"
}
}Code language: PHP (php)I got a bunch of:INVALID (missing N/FN): contact_28.vcf
If I am not mistaken, eM Client handles vCard verstion 3.0, while Radicale CardDAV and Betterbird support version 4.0.
Again: I haven’t figured out how to automate fixing contacts. Had to do a lot of manual work. What prevents problems (as far as I can tell for now) is to use Nextcloud as the soruce of truth and make edits there, or on Iphone, but keep Em Client (and Betterbird for that matter) as read-only basically.
The irony of this solution is that the only way to truly test if a contact is OK is to try editing it and saving the edit in EmClient – and then confirm it is all good in Nextcloud and on Iphone. Sigh.
For now, I have settled with Hetzner managed Nextcloud for contacts and it works accross all platforms – including the Em Client application.
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