Note that it contains hard line breaks to satisfy the 78-characters-per-line limit: Content-Type: text/plain charset=UTF-8 Here’s what the source of a plain text email composed in Gmail looks like. In fact, Gmail already kind of supports this: it’s capable of decoding and displaying Quoted-Printable-encoded emails flawlessly, and it encodes HTML emails with it before sending them - it just doesn’t do the same thing for plain text emails (yet). It is perfectly possible to send non-hard-wrapped plain text emails by using the Quoted-Printable encoding as defined by RFC 2045. Sure enough - the problem can be solved without violating any standards and without exceeding the 78-characters-per-line limit. But if this is what causes the broken behavior in Gmail, how come other mail clients don’t have the same issue? They have to respect the line length limit too, right? The solution It’s true that section 2.1.1 of RFC 2822 recommends a maximum of 78 characters per line (excluding the CRLF newline characters that end each line) in the source of email messages. The 78 characters per line is not a limitation implemented by Google, but rather an internet standard for plain text messages (RFC 2822) recommended and promoted by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). After some painful back-and-forth, this was the response of the Google Enterprise Support team: So I did - I asked whether the hard-wrapping behavior for plain text emails could be disabled. Since I’m a Google Apps for Business customer, I get to file support tickets in hopes of getting issues like these fixed. This behavior annoys pretty much anyone who sends plain text emails from the Gmail web client. on a smartphone:Ĭombined with the auto-wrapping due to the small viewport, there are now two lines in the message with just one word on them. This is especially annoying when viewing such emails on small viewports, e.g. Instead of filling up the available screen width and letting the text flow naturally, the automatically inserted hard breaks ensure no line is longer than 78 characters. Here’s a screenshot of such an email, in Gmail:Īnd here’s what that same email looks like in another email client (in this case, OS X’s Mail.app): Ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation Nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam What would actually get sent is the following: Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. If you would send this message, for example: Unfortunately, Gmail hard-wraps emails that are composed in plain text mode before sending them. Gmail remembers your preference, so any new emails you compose after that are automatically in plain text mode, too. In the ‘new email’ window, click the downwards arrow and check ‘Plain text mode’. Luckily, it’s possible to opt-out of that and use plain text email instead. Maybe consider reducing the price to $15 so at least it would compete head-to-head with Nine, which I think is the closest competitor.By default, composing a new email in Gmail results in an HTML email under the hood - even if you don’t use any formatting. I am definitely thankful to have a one-time-purchase option, because I dislike subscriptions. But I do understand that software development and support are expensive, and I also appreciate that AquaMail does not try to monetize my personal data, so the purchase/subscription fees are the main funding mechanism. I think it is a barrier to new users, which could cause the product to gradually die. At $20 US, the price seems a bit high.As you use the app, then you can adjust the options as desired. My advice is to keep in mind that the defaults generally work well, so you don't have to utilize all the options up front. The number of configuration options may seem overwhelming to new users.Good performance, reliability, and battery usage.The AquaMail app talks directly to my email providers without using any intermediary servers, and doesn't monetize itself using my email data. This makes it easy to move to a different phone, a tablet, etc. The ability to backup/restore the options and account settings.It has also remained pretty stable, no changes just for the sake of change. The interface is generally simple and efficient, and makes good use of available screen real estate.Plenty of options to configure the user interface and operation to my liking.Support for Exchange / Office 365 accounts, including the ability to sync calendar and contacts.Some of the things that I appreciate about it: I have been using AquaMail for years and am very happy with it.
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