Forward Email vs Himalaya
Forward Email: Forward Email's webmail in the terminal: mail, calendar, contacts and settings, with mouse support and a key hint bar.
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
Differences
- Forward Email is a full-screen terminal client; Himalaya is a command-line program.
- Forward Email connects to Forward Email accounts through its API; Himalaya works with any provider over IMAP, including Forward Email.
- On BSD, Forward Email runs natively and Himalaya builds from source.
- On Android, Forward Email runs through Termux and Himalaya is not available.
- Forward Email has mouse support; Himalaya does not.
- Forward Email has calendar support; Himalaya does not.
- Forward Email has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- Himalaya has OAuth2 sign-in; Forward Email does not.
- Forward Email is written in TypeScript; Himalaya in Rust.
- Configuration: Forward Email uses settings screens, keyboard shortcut editor and an optional user.css, and Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard.
- Forward Email is source-available (Business Source License 1.1); Himalaya is open source (MIT or Apache 2.0).
Side by side
| Forward Email | Himalaya | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | TypeScript | Rust |
| License | Business Source License 1.1 | MIT or Apache 2.0 |
| Latest version | 0.14.16 | 2.1.0 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Native |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | No |
| IMAP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| POP3 | Forward Email API | No |
| SMTP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| JMAP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| Maildir | Forward Email API | Yes |
| mbox | Forward Email API | No |
| notmuch | Forward Email API | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | No |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | via script |
| Threads | Yes | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands |
| Search | built-in, across messages, contacts and events | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP |
| HTML mail | shown as formatted text with links; plain text by default | No |
| Mouse | Yes | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | drafts and changes made offline are sent when the connection returns | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync |
| Calendar | Yes | No |
| Contacts | Yes | No |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | settings screens, keyboard shortcut editor and an optional user.css | TOML file; interactive setup wizard |
Which to choose
Choose Forward Email for
- Calendar, contacts and tasks in the same terminal app as mail
- Mouse clicks, scrolling and text selection work, and the bottom row always shows the keys for the current screen
- One self-updating executable with no setup files to write
Watch out for
- Only works with Forward Email accounts
- Images and video are not drawn; HTML mail is shown as text with links
- Passkey sign-in needs a browser or the desktop app
Choose Himalaya for
- Every action is a shell command with optional JSON output, suited to scripts
- Native Windows binary through Scoop and GitHub releases
- Also supports JMAP, the Gmail API and Microsoft Graph
Watch out for
- No interactive interface; himalaya-tui is still pre-release
- Composing rich MIME or PGP messages needs the separate mml tool
- Version 2 dropped the notmuch and sendmail backends
Questions
What is the difference between Forward Email and Himalaya?
Forward Email is a full-screen terminal client; Himalaya is a command-line program. Forward Email connects to Forward Email accounts through its API; Himalaya works with any provider over IMAP, including Forward Email. On BSD, Forward Email runs natively and Himalaya builds from source.
Which runs on Windows, Forward Email or Himalaya?
On Windows, Forward Email runs natively. On Windows, Himalaya runs natively.
See also: Forward Email alternatives, Himalaya alternatives.