Looking for a Linux email client that works with Microsoft Exchange servers, Office365 or Outlook accounts?
You’re far from alone.
We regularly receive emails and tweets from Ubuntu users who want to know how to set-up a Microsoft Exchange account on Ubuntu so that they can access their work email, calendar, tasks and contacts.
Many opt to use Mozilla Thunderbird with the (paid) ExQuilla plugin. This is a decent enough solution, but its not without its problems.
And while there are other solutions out there, from DavMail to Evolution set-ups, that let use an Exchange account on Linux, a decent, dedicated and dependable app is hard to find.
Or rather it was.
Hiri Email Client Lets You Use Exchange Accounts on Linux
The Hiri email client is a desktop app that works with Microsoft Exchange servers and Office 365 accounts (and works just dandy with regular Outlook.com accounts too). The app is written in Python and PyQt/Qt and is available on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Hiri is not a straight e-mail client like Thunderbird, Evolution or Geary are. Both the design and feature set of this app is based on the idea of helping you minimize and manage your email workload, not merely read it and move on.
To this end the app coaches you to sort incoming mail into an actionable list and a passive ‘FYI‘ list.
The other standout feature is the Dashboard. It reminds you not to check your email too often. The company behind Hiri say that, on average, we check our email 96 times a day, which works out as being roughly every 5 minutes. The dashboard helps keep that habit in check.
Other Hiri features include:
- Set alarms & reminders
- Manager folders
- Separate emails by priority
- Search emails
- Create events on buil-in calendar
One of our readers recently recommended the app to us, adding that it “…integrate[s] well with my corporate exchange servers email, calendar, tasks, contacts etc” on Linux.
“It might not be the email app for every linux user out there, but I can not stress enough the importance of actual Exchange integration.”
It’s Not Open Source
Now, let’s get the big “issue” out of the way: Hiri is not open source software.
It’s free to use for the first 14 days, but you’ll then need to stump up for a $39/y subscription (or $5/m, depending on your needs) to continue using it.
This might sound pricey, but if you’re forced to use an Exchange account for work, and don’t want to switch OS just, it seems like a small price to reliably receive email on your Linux desktop.
Install Hiri Email Client on Ubuntu
While I don’t use a Microsoft email service enough to tell you how well this app works compared to other alternatives, I do recommend giving it a whirl based on the feedback I’ve heard about it from other Linux users.
And the good news is that taking the app for a spin is easy.
A Snap package of Hiri is available for testing on Ubuntu and on other Snap supporting Linux distributions. You can install it from the command line by running:
sudo snap install hiri
Or from Ubuntu Software by clicking this button:
If Snap packages aren’t to your taste you can also download a regular runtime from the Hiri website below. You won’t need to compile it or install it; just download, extract, and double-click on the binary inside the folder.
For more details on Hiri, its features set, pricing and more skip over to the application’s official website:
Mentioning proprietary or non-free software always causes a few eyebrows to be raised in the comments, but do remember that you’re not reading OMG! FOSS!, but OMG! Ubuntu! We cover news/update on a number of non-free software that pertains to Ubuntu (e.g, Steam, Chrome, Vivaldi, CrossOver, games, etc) — and have done since 2009.
We’re not here to dictate what you should or shouldn’t use. We surface things, sure, but we consider you to be grown up enough to make your own decisions as to whether you use them.