Given all the issues with PGP mail, SMTP, and IMAP, as well as the flexibility of Matrix, I was wondering if it makes sense to apply Matrix to non-realtime communication like email. Developments like autocrypt and pEp just seem like attempts to fix a broken protocol rather than anything cohesive. Other attempts like Dark Mail don't seem to have yielded much.
I imagine implementing something like this would be pretty straightforward and could either be in the style of a local IMAP/SMTP bridge (similar to Protonmail Bridge) or as an extension of existing email clients. All the matrix magic and encryption could be very transparent, and for users which don't have a matrix account associated with their address, a regular SMTP homeserver bridge could be used to send and receive for out of band users.
Anyone have any ideas, resources, or comments about this?
Did you check Mailrise and Apprise ? Apprise can talk to Matrix servers.