I have to manage thousands of email messages in my inbox and am looking for a mail client that will handle this well. Every one I have tried so far maintains the messages in mbox format, which leads to massively large files even when split apart into various folders. I think it would be better if the messages were managed by the client in maildir format instead so that each message is a single file. emacs/gnus I use IMAP, and have it read from a local IMAP server (dovecot), which itself stores each message in a file. But gnus is able to store messages itself (that's more normal, actually), fetch from /var/mail/$USER, etc. If you are already a fan of emacs, it's a good choice, with a bit of a learning curve, but then very rapid handling of mail. It seems a little weak on html mail, but then no one should be sending you that anyway :-) If you are not already an emacs weenie, you'll likely find gnus to be ridiculous.
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