"The option “Move automatically to DeltaChat Folder” as well as other legacy options will be removed in the next weeks.
...
Only if you share the same email address for chatting and classic usage, which is discouraged since some time, the encrypted messages in the Inbox may be annoying."
https://delta.chat/en/legacy-move
This is news to me @delta.
(1/?)
The whole value proposition of Delta Chat for me was that it gave me a chat-like interface for my personal email account, plus E2EE with anyone I could convince to use it too. No more it seems. This decision by DC devs forces me to either put up with encrypted gobbledygook in my inbox or switch to another email app.
Most of the family and friends I convinced to try DC have since uninstalled it. I have maybe one contact still using it. So I'm afraid it's the end of the road for me and DC.
(2/?)
I'm surprisingly sad about that. Delta Chat has been a regular part of my communications with family and friends since about 2020.
When I first adopted it, I managed to convince a lot of them to try it, presumably because they could use it with an existing account. I really hoped this could lead to a critical mass of usage that would allow it to displace Meta's Messenger, which is what most of them used.
(3/?)
Sadly, corporate email providers soon started taking steps that made it harder to use Delta Chat reliably with their services. If at all. One by one my family and friends stopped using it.
Meanwhile the DC team seem to have abandoned this bootstrapping strategy. In favour of improving UX for those of us with the knowledge and motivation to take extra steps to use software that respects our rights. At which point it started to lose the point of difference it had with XMPP/Matrix apps.
(4/?)
It seems that process has now come full circle. To use Delta Chat, people are expected to set up a dedicated email account for it, and connect to a specialist server running their ChatMail package or something similar. So it has no UX advantage to balance out the many disadvantages it has compared to XMPP or Matrix apps.
Thanks DC, it's been a good run. Guess I better start looking through F-Droid for another mobile email app. Any recommendations?
(5/5)
@strypey for longer there is a FAQ entry https://delta.chat/en/help#can-i-use-a-classic-email-address-with-delta-chat, and blog posts and public communication saying we are going for "dedicated" mailboxes . Today, and going forward, you can use your own email server, and many other servers, and also a growing set of chatmail relays world-wide. You can also change them later and take all contacts and chats with you.
But Delta chat as cleartext email client with a chat interface, is not the recommended setup and requires expertise.
@delta Seems like you're responding only to the first post of 5. Here's a TL;DR;
Making it awkward (if not impossible) to use DC for both classic email and E2EE chats breaks my use case. Without that, I can't see any advantage to using DC over XMPP or Matrix, and many disadvantages. I will no longer be using or recommending it. I'm sad about that, it's been a good run. Thanks for your work, and best of luck with future development : )
@ben
> you really should have a separate e-mail address just for Delta Chat, or have Delta Chat be the only client you use with that address
See;
(1/2)
@delta
> focus on end to end encryption with zero metadata causes collateral damage, sadly, with those who valued delta primarily for
... being able to use one app for both cleartext email communication *and* E2EE chats with those willing to install a chatmail app.
> are not worried about servers having lots of metadata
and controlling the identities of users
I am, and implying that I'm not is a little rude. It ignores choosing apps for communication with others involves tradeoffs.
@delta
> if you are looking for email apps on fdroid, definitely give FairEmail a run?
Thanks for the tip, but I'm already using that with my Disintermedia account. Besides, as @deutrino points out in another branch of the thread, it's a powerful app, way overpowered for the purpose I use DC for. I need something with a much simpler and friendlier interface for non-work use.
@ben
> I rather like using Thunderbird on Android. It supports Autocrypt too!
I didn't know either of these things. Thanks for the tip!
I've installed Thunderbird via F-Droid so I can try this out. I'm told it supports XMPP and Matrix too, which might allow me to get rid of a bunch of the apps I'm currently juggling on my ancient and increasingly decrepit Android.
@strypey I started testing Delta Chat last year and quickly came to the conclusion that using a Chatmail server was the least worst option for chatting, but I never attempted to use it to do anything with my normal email account other than chat with people.
this is kinda like when Signal ditched SMS support, you can see why they did it but some people weren't happy (including me at the time) and forked it.
@strypey FWIW the "dedicated email account" and Chatmail account are one and the same and onboarding is super easy, you just pick a Chatmail server and go.
there aren't zero warts - it's too easy to run a Chatmail server in problematic ways, and they aren't standardized with respect to sane storage quotas - but the actual flow of making an account and such was pretty easy.
if you change your mind, I can recommend a server or two that should be decent.
@deutrino
> when Signal ditched SMS support ... some people weren't happy (including me at the time) and forked it
Were you involved in any of the forks? I used Silence as my SMS app for a while.
> if you change your mind, I can recommend a server or two that should be decent
As I said, I can't see the value in adding yet another chat account to manage. I need less admin debt, not more. Anyone willing to use a ChatMail account is most likely just as willing to use an XMPP or Matrix account.
@strypey I tried a number of different more-or-less grassroots E2EE chat apps last year, and the only one I'm still using on even a weekly basis is XMPP. the one I'm most interested in following development of, though, is Delta Chat.
either way, I would like to see Delta Chat's webxdc idea implemented properly on XMPP clients ... it seems promising even if there aren't too many useful apps for it yet on Delta Chat.
@ag1km
> deltachat + chatmail is like reinventing the wheel, we already had xmpp
To be fair, email protocols are much older than XMPP, so in theory they could argue the same in reverse. But in practice, both XMPP and Matrix have more features and a much bigger network effect than ChatMail. For me, the only thing that made Delta Chat worth using or recommending was the interop with existing email accounts, and the fallback to plaintext email. Without that, why bother?
@rakoo I really don't understand what you're saying here. Some of it just seems factually wrong on the face of it, but rather than assuming you don't know what you're talking about, I'm going to presume that you need more than 500 characters to explain what you mean with all this.
Care to expand?
> Sadly, corporate email providers soon started taking steps that made it harder to use Delta Chat reliably with their services. If at all. One by one my family and friends stopped using it.
so you are telling me the reason your contacts stopped using Delta Chat was exactly because the classic email usage is horrible and a terrible experience for anyone that wants a WhatsApp replacement, it sounds to me they are on the right track then
@strypey notice that you can have several accounts/profiles in Delta Chat tho, you could have a dedicated address for the (very few according to what you say) contacts that use DC, and keep using the other address in DC just for unencrypted emailing
migrating addresses is super easy in DC nowdays, you can go to settings add new relay/address, then re-configure in a new profile the old address for unencrypted email usage
(1/2)
@arcanechat
> contacts stopped using Delta Chat was exactly because the classic email usage is horrible
No. There were a range of reasons. They didn't use it with anyone but me, and they can just email me. They wanted to free up space on their device. They got a new device and couldn't figure out how to transfer DC with chats intact, or just never got around to it. Etc.
Basically, my theory of change - interop with classic email would enable it to achieve critical mass - didn't pan out.
(2/2)
I can't parse your descriptions of nonstandard ways to use DC right now. But it sounds like a lot of admin, with a possibility that these options too could disappear out from under me, to better support the ChatMail UX. Easier and more futureproof to just find a different app for plaintext email, and direct anyone who wants to do E2EE chat with me to XMPP or Matrix.
Strypey
Delta Chat
Benjamin Kwiecień 🇵🇸
Lardier
deutrino
ag1km
rakoo
ArcaneChat
AZ Guy 