Roundcube

Roundcube is a web-based IMAP email client. Roundcube's most prominent feature is the pervasive use of Ajax technology. Roundcube is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL-3.0-or-later), with exceptions for skins and plugins.^[3]

Roundcube

Developer(s)	The Roundcube Team^[1]
Initial release	2008; 15 years ago (2008)
Stable release	1.6.1^[2]  / 23 January 2023
Repository	github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail
Written in	PHP
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Webmail
License	GPL-3.0-or-later with exceptions for skins and plugins ^[3]
Website	roundcube.net

History

After about two years of development the first stable release of Roundcube was announced in early 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Technology

Roundcube is written in PHP and can be employed in conjunction with a LAMP stack, or any other operating systems that support PHP are supported as well. The web server needs access to the IMAP server hosting the email and to an SMTP server to be able to send messages.

Roundcube Webmail is designed to run on standard web servers such as Apache, LiteSpeed, Nginx, Lighttpd, Hiawatha or Cherokee in conjunction with a relational database engine. Supported databases are MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite. The user interface is rendered in XHTML and CSS and is fully customizable with skins.

Roundcube incorporates jQuery as part of its distribution, as well as other libraries such as GoogieSpell and TinyMCE.

Plugins

Starting with version 0.3, Roundcube introduced a plug-in API which allows non-standard features to be added without the need to modify the source code. A variety of plug-ins are available from the Plugin Repository.

Project "Roundcube Next"

On 3 May 2015, Roundcube announced, in partnership with Kolab Systems AG, that they planned to completely rewrite Roundcube and create Roundcube Next. A crowdfunding campaign was set up to finance the project. The goal of $80,000 was reached on June 24.^[4] The final amount raised was US$103,541.^[5]

Roundcube Next was intended to include additional features like calendar, chat and file management. This was to be implemented using WebRTC and connectors from popular services like Dropbox and OwnCloud.

However, Kolab Systems and Roundcube stopped development on the project in 2016, with no information or refunds provided to project backers, leading to a failed crowdfund.^[6] A Roundcube developer later claimed Roundcube had no ownership over the Roundcube Next campaign,^[7] despite its public engagement and ownership on the crowdfund page.

Current features

• Ajax technology spread throughout the user interface, allowing features such as drag-and-drop message management
• Multilingual with over 70 languages
• Connects to any IMAPv4 server
• Encrypted TLSv1.2 connection to IMAP server using PHP5.6 SSL/TLS libraries
• Full support for MIME and HTML messages
• Sophisticated privacy protection
• Compose Richtext/HTML messages with attachments
• Multiple sender identities
• Threaded message listing
• IDNA support
• Full-featured address book based on vCard with group support
• LDAP directory integration for address books
• Find-as-you-type address book integration
• Forwarding messages with attachments
• Built-in caching for fast mailbox access
• Searching messages and contacts
• Spell checking
• Support for external SMTP server
• OAuth Support
• Support for shared/global folders and IMAP ACLs
• IMAP folder management
• Pretty Good Privacy and Mailvelope support
• Template system for custom themes
• Canned response templates
• Three column (widescreen) mailbox view

Notable installations

Roundcube is used by a number of universities to provide email services to students and staff such as Sanger Institute Tata Institute of Social Sciences,^[8] University of Florida,^[9] Harvard University,^[10] University of Utah,^[11] University of Oregon,^[12] Stevens Institute of Technology,^[13] Norwegian University of Science and Technology,^[14] the Technical University of Dortmund,^[15] the University of Cambridge,^[16] the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi,^[17] Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,^[18] Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata and Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras,^[19] University of Victoria, Bard College at Simon's Rock^[20] and Bilkent University.^[21]

In a 2009 interview, two of Roundcube's core developers noted that the largest deployment to that date that they were aware of was at the University of Michigan with 70,013 students.^[22] Roundcube is also used in the Kolab Now service which supports its further development.

CPanel includes Roundcube, as a result of which many hosting companies around the world such as HostGator,^[23] Media Temple, Gandi, OVH^[24] and others use RoundCube. Roundcube Webmail IMAP client was also incorporated into epesiBIM (epesi Business Information Manager), a web-based, open source CRM-like application.

Apple's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server operating system provided Roundcube as the default webmail client in Mail Server.^[25] In prior versions, SquirrelMail had been the default client.

In 2013, Iran's Ministry of ICT launched the national email service at mail.post.ir which used Roundcube.^[26] Synology Inc.'s DiskStation Manager (DSM) uses Roundcube for their Mail Station package. ^[27]

See also

• Comparison of email clients
• Internet Messaging Program

References

1. . Trac.roundcube.net. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
2. "Update 1.6.1 released". 23 January 2023. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
3. . Archived from the original on 2012-04-26.
4. "Tweet from @roundcubenext".
5. "RoundCube-Next is Woefully Behind Schedule - Phoronix". from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
6. "In 2018, RoundCube Next Remains Dead In The Water - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
7. "What about Roundcube Next? · Issue #6030 · roundcube/roundcubemail". GitHub. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
8. "RoundCube Webmail". tiss.edu/. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
9. . Archived from the original on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
10. . Spl.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
11. "University of Utah, College of Engineering Webmail". from the original on 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
12. "University of Oregon Webmail". from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
13. "MyMail - ITwiki". Stevens.edu. 2011-09-13. from the original on 2012-02-03. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
14. "Alternative NTNU Student Webmail :: Welcome to Alternative NTNU Student Webmail". from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2013-07-31.
15. "Roundcube Webmail :: Willkommen bei Roundcube Webmail". webmail.tu-dortmund.de. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
16. "Computing Service News: New Hermes Webmail". Computing Service, University of Cambridge. 2013-07-03. Archived from the original on July 6, 2013. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
17. "IITD Webmail :: Welcome to IITD Webmail". webmail.iitd.ac.in. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
18. "WebMail IITB :: Welcome to WebMail IITB". webmail.iitb.ac.in. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
19. Subhashis Banerjee (2011-09-04). . www.cc.iitd.ernet.in/CSC/. Computer Services Centre, IIT Delhi. Archived from the original on 2021-03-05. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
20. "Bard College at Simon's Rock Webmail :: Welcome to Bard College at Simon's Rock Webmail". warlock.simons-rock.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-25.
21. . 2022-06-08. Archived from the original on 2022-06-08. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
22. . Blogs.techworld.com. 2009-11-20. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
23. "Host Gator Adds RoundCube | WHTop News". WHTop.com. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
24. OVH. "Webmail: RoundCube Guide - OVH". www.ovh.com. from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2017-02-07.
25. . Apple. Archived from the original on October 6, 2011. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
26. "Archived copy". from the original on 2021-07-15. Retrieved 2021-10-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
27. "Mail Station - Add-on Packages | Synology Inc". from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2021-10-19.

External links

• Official website