I don't think GMail is pretty, but it's very functional. Good UX != visual beauty.
As a result of a fairly recent job change, I have been forced into desktop IMAP clients again. I have to admit I have discovered a whole new level of appreciation for GMail.
Just the fact that it actually runs filters server-side and it has a (conceptually speaking) equivalent application for mobile devices trumps everything else. You can actually get it do to what you want.
The company I work for has a very heterogeneous systems landscape and I can say without much hesitation that GMail + Gcal's only serious alternative is Outlook. Everything else seems to me like a digital version of pen and paper.
I think that IMAP-serverside filtering is possible: https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter I haven't really looked into exactly what it's doing though (and I'm no expert on the IMAP spec).
Seems like that is just a command-line version of an e-mail client filter: it connects to the server, runs a query, and moves stuff to folders. Based on my experience with the average IMAP server search performance, I wouldn't let my users use this if I was in control of the server.
As a result of a fairly recent job change, I have been forced into desktop IMAP clients again. I have to admit I have discovered a whole new level of appreciation for GMail.
Just the fact that it actually runs filters server-side and it has a (conceptually speaking) equivalent application for mobile devices trumps everything else. You can actually get it do to what you want.
The company I work for has a very heterogeneous systems landscape and I can say without much hesitation that GMail + Gcal's only serious alternative is Outlook. Everything else seems to me like a digital version of pen and paper.