Products · Broad category
Email clients
Raised as a usability problem by 85 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 75 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Sender names hide the real address, and filter rules are too complexUnreviewed
20082026- Full sender address hidden, making scam emails harder to spot2022-07-09
- Configuring the mail client to send from a weird address is a pain2022-06-02
- Modern email clients hide addresses behind names, so users can't find their own address2019-08-07
Email takes five seconds to load in a local appUnreviewed
20082026- Email takes five seconds to load in a local application, which feels miserably slow2023-04-27
- About a second of lag when selecting and deleting emails with the keyboard2019-07-25
- Sending an email feels slow because the UI delays showing it as sent2016-05-29
Inline replies and plain text need extra work to sendUnreviewed
20082026- Emails sent from one client display poorly in others, e.g. black text on dark grey2024-09-05
- Most email clients handle inline replies poorly and need extra work to send plain text2023-10-12
- Most email clients handle inline replies and plain text sending poorly for patch workflows2023-10-12
Pasted text brings in fonts and colors when composing emailsUnreviewed
20082026- Must manually copy-paste one-time login codes from emails2026-10-07
- Copy-pasting text brings in fonts and colors, which is frustrating when composing emails2024-03-22
- Copying addresses is hard because clipboard gets mailto text, and real address is hidden behind display name2022-07-09
Writing HTML email in common clients breaks mailing listsUnreviewed
20082026- Hard to write HTML email in common clients without breaking mailing lists2023-08-11
- Email clients garble plaintext workflow with HTML default, hard-to-correct top posting, and attachment handling2020-08-27
- Email clients ignore or override HTML/CSS, so layouts break inconsistently and need constant workarounds2020-07-31
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Must manually copy-paste one-time login codes from emails2026-10-07
- Self-ejecting panels on website are a horrible user experience2026-07-27
- Sidebar is confusing; cannot click the INBOX folder2026-03-20
- Mandatory subject field forces junk text; repeated sender metadata clutters message list2025-10-05
- Email clients append the previous message to every reply, cluttering threads2025-02-04
- Gets completely lost in long threads mixing Outlook and Gmail replies2024-11-08
- Emails sent from one client display poorly in others, e.g. black text on dark grey2024-09-05
- Website is unusable on mobile without Reader view2024-07-13
- Copy-pasting text brings in fonts and colors, which is frustrating when composing emails2024-03-22
- Threads collapse into one row, so each separate email can't be reviewed individually2023-12-23
- Grouped threads mix unrelated private conversations, so the user can't see emails in plain received order2023-12-23
- Most email clients handle inline replies poorly and need extra work to send plain text2023-10-12
- Most email clients handle inline replies and plain text sending poorly for patch workflows2023-10-12
- Email clients display threading badly, making patch review hard to follow2023-08-11
- Hard to write HTML email in common clients without breaking mailing lists2023-08-11
- Previous email client became unworkable and confusing for an elderly user2023-06-25
- Thread navigation in email is terrible, hard to follow conversations2023-05-22
- Email takes five seconds to load in a local application, which feels miserably slow2023-04-27
- Email text spans full width, making lines too long to read comfortably2022-12-03
- Reply and reply-all buttons sit close together, so users press the wrong one2022-09-05
- Calendar invites and HTML features force manual steps to use2022-08-25
- Templates render inconsistently across clients, forcing nested tables and framework workarounds2022-08-25
- Legitimate tax service emails keep getting flagged as spam with no way to whitelist the sender2022-08-25
- Unsubscribing from corporate email takes many steps, which is hard to get through2022-08-25
- Webmail as installed web app is terrible across operating systems; users keep tabs open2022-08-24
- Many email clients have bad UX, though some are nice2022-08-24
- Email client UI/UX is hostile, trendy designs make everyday use harder2022-08-24
- Messages render unreadably or with quoted text in the wrong place across clients2022-07-27
- Full sender address hidden, making scam emails harder to spot2022-07-09
- Copying addresses is hard because clipboard gets mailto text, and real address is hidden behind display name2022-07-09
- Configuring the mail client to send from a weird address is a pain2022-06-02
- IMAP sync is slow and unreliable, and clients choke on large archives2022-02-18
- Filters can't manage mail received via BCC or nested mailing lists, forcing manual rule upkeep2021-05-12
- Site is clunky on mobile, and visitors can't tell what the site offers or what value it gives2021-04-07
- Emails are hard to search and threads become a messy graph hard to follow2021-03-30
- Send, Save Draft and Discard look equally weighted, so the main action is not obvious2021-03-09
- Search does not work properly, so messages can't be found2021-02-26
- Inline replies appear as blank messages, confusing recipients about what was sent2020-11-27
- Users can't tell the spam button apart from delete, so they mark receipts as spam2020-11-07
- Contributor couldn't figure out how to open a plain text email in their client2020-08-27
- Email clients garble plaintext workflow with HTML default, hard-to-correct top posting, and attachment handling2020-08-27
- Users can't see the attachments field, so they unknowingly send files they didn't intend to2020-08-18
- Email clients ignore or override HTML/CSS, so layouts break inconsistently and need constant workarounds2020-07-31
- Each mail client must be configured so mail for the other doesn't clutter it2020-05-01
- Email threads are harder to read than in most other interfaces2019-09-24
- Modern email clients hide addresses behind names, so users can't find their own address2019-08-07
- About a second of lag when selecting and deleting emails with the keyboard2019-07-25
- Plain text emails without hard wraps are painful to read in small windows2019-07-24
- Clicking through folders to find attachments is much slower than tab completion2019-06-11
- Dark mode hides text, search maxes CPU, and Inbox Zero shows despite new mail2019-04-23