Clients like Thunderbird are great because you have everything stored locally so you can easily search offline. They also support encrypting and decrypting emails in PGP. However, they seem to have the same limitation as protonmail where you can’t search through encrypted emails....
Just as it inconveniences you to have to decrypt to search, it would similarly slow down anyone malicious who gains access to your machine.
Am in favour of allowing users to decide which features are best for their needs, but this seems like it would be easy to forget to reinstitute local encryption after a search, so can also understand why developers prevent storing in plaintext.
Why Not Store Encrypted Emails in Plaintext Locally?
Clients like Thunderbird are great because you have everything stored locally so you can easily search offline. They also support encrypting and decrypting emails in PGP. However, they seem to have the same limitation as protonmail where you can’t search through encrypted emails....