Archives For November 30, 1999

Geary is a free and open-source email client formerly developed by Yorba. Now, it’s a community maintained app for GNOME Desktop.

The source code of the email client is available in this Gitlab page. And, features include:

  • Quick email account setup
  • Shows related messages together in conversations
  • Fast, full text and keyword search
  • Full-featured HTML and plain text message composer
  • Desktop notification of new mail
  • Compatible with GMail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com and other IMAP servers

The graphical interface of this app is a little bit lag behind, since GNOME is porting to GTK4 plus Libadwaita, though it’s still working good. And, users can install it in all current Ubuntu releases, through either Deb package or Flatpak package.

How to Install Geary in Ubuntu:

Option 1: Deb package

For those who prefer the native .deb package format, Geary is available in system repository, though it’s a bit old.

To install it, simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then run commands below one by one:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install geary

Option 2: Flatpak package

If you want the most recent version, then it’s available to install as Flatpak package which runs in sandbox environment, and can be installed in most Linux.

Linux Mint 21+ and Fedora 38/39+ can directly search for and install the package from either Software Manager or GNOME Software.

While Ubuntu users can install the Flatpak by running 2 commands below one by one in terminal (Ctrl+ALt+T):

  • First, enable Flatpak support:
    sudo apt install flatpak
  • Then, run command to install the email client as Flatpak package:
    flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gnome.Geary.flatpakref

  • For future updates, use command to update it:
    flatpak update org.gnome.Geary

NOTE: If you’re first time installing an app as Flatpak package, then you may need to log out and back in for the app icon visible in start menu or Gnome ‘Show Apps’ screen.

Uninstall Geary:

To remove Geary email client, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove geary

For the Flatpak package, use this command instead to uninstall:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gnome.Geary

Yorba Geary Shotwell

Yorba Team has recently announced its Geary Mail Client 0.8 with lots of new features and improvements. Here’s how to upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

According to the release note, Geary 0.8 now looks a lot sharper and more modern than before. The compose new message and reply window are now inline the main window. You can still pop the composer out into a separate window through the Detach button.

Compose new message and Reply window are now inline the main window

Compose new message and Reply window are now inline the main window

Another new feature is that signature support has been made into Geary. It will automatically insert a signature of your design into an email, whether new or replying to another.

Geary with signature support

Geary with signature support

Also the new release brings great improvement on database speed and IMAP connection stability, and more:

  • Saving drafts to server can be disabled
  • Improved interface, now using GtkHeaderBar and modern widgets
  • Database speed optimizations to reduce lags and improve read times
  • Improved connection handling and reestablishment
  • Show attachments lacking a Content-Disposition
  • Important bug fixes
  • Updated translations

Install Geary 0.8 in Ubuntu 14.04 or Linux Mint 17:

UPDATE: The step below is outdated! See how to guide instead.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yorba/ppa

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install geary

install-geary-ppa

Above commands will add the official PPA and install the latest geary packages in your Ubuntu. For those don’t want to add the PPA, you can grab the .deb directly from the Launchpad Page.