[Novalug] Forcing email to plain text

[Omari Norman]

I was a happy Mutt user until I got an Android phone. It's very handy to be
able to read mail anywhere and to be able to delete mail anywhere (most
email reading consists of deletion). I used to keep my mail on an IMAP web
host but finally I have switched to Gmail; I just don't want the hassle of
maintaining mail anymore.

So I use Gmail on the Android and through the desktop browser web
interface. The one thing that annoys me about both is HTML mail. What a
hassle. A lot of email senders are complete idiots and they don't realize
that I might be reading mail on a phone or even on a desktop with a screen
that is only (gasp, how ancient) 1024 pixels wide.

Of course there is a solution to this: the text/plain part. Mutt will
happily read this, so I might use Mutt while on a desktop to read the
Gmail. But I have had no luck finding a mail client for Android that will
allow me to prefer reading the text/plain part. I was surprised K9 Mail
does not do this. Any ideas?

(I do chuckle though as I remember that even text/plain is not a 100%
solution: some HUGELY idiot senders send a text/plain part that says only
"if you are reading this, it is because your email program cannot read
HTML. Click here to read our message." Man, that's even dumber than just
omitting the text/plain part entirely! At least Mutt will render something
that has only an HTML part. Including a bogus text/plain part breaks the
system! I just trash these mails...the other thing I chuckle about is
websites describing how to make email that is readable on any device, with
all sorts of fancy HTML to help. How odd that some huge email senders like
Netflix and Amazon already know the solution to this problem: text/plain!)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://calypso.tux.org/pipermail/novalug/attachments/20120323/ee9843e1/attachment.html