Decent mail client for mac?

[game_over]

I'm looking for a new mail client for mac, i just can't use Mail.app anymore because:

1. It doesn't style text, emails looks great when sending composing but when sending, and most people don't know this, it doesn't style your text. Your emails are sent in Times New Roman. If you want to style the text you must select it and choose a font. It's the app thats styling your text but it is not applied to the body of the email.

2. Attachments, i appreciate they tried to make things a little bit nicer but it's so inconsistent it's a mess. Sending images is one of the worst implementations i've seen, it attaches the full image to the body and regularly scales it down, sometimes people will reply and say it's not attached, sometimes they receive a little image icon thats so small they can't even see what it is.

As a designer both of these points make for a very unprofessional email process.

I'm looking for something else and the obvious choice would be Sparrow.. however it has recently been acquired by Google so development has stopped. The latest update is reported to be a memory hog.

Outlook, i don't have any major issues with this, but i would prefer something a little more independent, that will be regularly updated with new features.. Outlook has a very specific use and it's unlikely to change.. i like the dropbox feature of Sparrow.

So, what other options do i have? what are you using? any suggestions?

[sagum]

As someone who has to read and manage a lot of email in my inbox, i'd like to suggest;

1. don't do it. please send in nice clean text that I can view as I like. I constantly get people sending me emails in weird and wacky ways with things like HTML that is totally broken to the point I can't strip it out or rtf.. I had one company that sent everything as a PDF attachment wtf is that about?!. I'd just like a plain text email that I can assign my own fonts to , not size 8px red on orange background or size 120px klingon superscript. I know this propbalby doens't apply to you, but I do prefer my emails to be clean.

2. Yeah, don't do that either. I hate it when I have to wait several minutes for new mail to finish downloading because someone decided it'd be great to send screenshots of issues, lots of screen shot and attachthem to the email... or the actual email as a PDF file.. please use links to anything you want the recepiant to view where possible, please.

As for email clients. Can't really suggest one for Mac, sorry. Not sure what you're actually looking for with updated features. Email is, or rather should be pretty basic and feature set by now.

Anyway, I hope you find a decent email client for your needs..

[game_over]

Thanks for the reply

As someone who has to read and manage a lot of email in my inbox, i'd like to suggest;

1. don't do it. please send in nice clean text that I can view as I like. I constantly get people sending me emails in weird and wacky ways with things like HTML that is totally broken to the point I can't strip it out or rtf.. I had one company that sent everything as a PDF attachment wtf is that about?!. I'd just like a plain text email that I can assign my own fonts to , not size 8px red on orange background or size 120px klingon superscript. I know this propbalby doens't apply to you, but I do prefer my emails to be clean.

I guess thats just an acquired taste, i love clean emails but i need the ability to make things bold for headings, and make important parts stand out.. I'm tired of highlighting my entire email just to give it a more readable font such as Arial, imo is more readable that times and plain text, i know mail clients can style text to the users requirements but is not always the case, the severity is noticable when i get a reply and i can see my email in the quote, looking awful.

2. Yeah, don't do that either. I hate it when I have to wait several minutes for new mail to finish downloading because someone decided it'd be great to send screenshots of issues, lots of screen shot and attachthem to the email... or the actual email as a PDF file.. please use links to anything you want the recepiant to view where possible, please.

Unfortunately it's the way the mac mail app handles things, if you add an image it's automatically embedded in the email, you do have the option to right click and choose 'view as icon' but depending who i'm sending to it doesn't always work.

Not sure what you're actually looking for with updated features. Email is, or rather should be pretty basic and feature set by now.

Fair comment and not much in particular, but i do like the dropbox feature of Sparrow, and the ability to click a button and view all attachments and be searchable without digging through emails.. just little things make the user experience a little better, this is something we wont see with Outlook as it has a very specific use.

[Maximum Error]

Outlook in office for mac 2011 is the best mail app ive found. Would do everything you are looking for.

[cooky560 Veteran]

I've been using Sparrow for a little while and I quite like it.

[The Guvnor]

Sparrow, Mon ...... you need it

[Scorbing]

There is nothing wrong with Apple Mail. If you want to get "colorful" and fancy then you will have to get a 3rd grade mail client such as Incredimail - which I don't think its available for Mac.

[szo]

Maybe Thunderbird, or http://dotmailapp.com/

I personally prefer Sparrow. It's clean, fast, great ui and so far it's been working well. Once dotmailapp comes, I'll use that!

[Stetson]

Postbox is another one, not sure if it suits your needs or not: http://www.postbox-inc.com/

Personally I just use the Gmail web interface for 99% of my email.

[tiagosilva29]

GNUMail was cool... but I am not aware if it is still actively developed.

[Lunfai]

+1 for Sparrow.

[Rohdekill]

Based on the reviews (via App Store) for the current version of Sparrow, I would avoid it like the plague.

[tim_s]

This is a good question,

For me I must have some odd setting which is conflicting with my home network. Adding a new account takes 5 minutes, sending an email is 1 minute. This is true on my imac / mac book pro / iphone but not on my windows machines / linux machines or andriod phone.

[Shadrack]

I've heard Sparrow eats through battery on laptops. A mail client shouldn't do that I don't care how fancy it is.

If you don't like Mail, probably the best alternative is Outlook 2011.

[Sarm]

Outlook for sure, Apple Mail is easily the worst and most incompatible email client when sending to PC users.

Adding an image is not attached but embedded most the time, fonts are not sent correctly and many more issues.

Whereas, any other client works!

[RottGutt]

+1000 for Postbox

http://www.postbox-inc.com/

And, if you purchase it, you get to use it on your Windows computers too!

Tim

[game_over]

+1000 for Postbox

http://www.postbox-inc.com/

And, if you purchase it, you get to use it on your Windows computers too!

Tim

This looks like the one! Thanks

[Elliott]

Based on the reviews (via App Store) for the current version of Sparrow, I would avoid it like the plague.

Only because it was bought up by Google and probably won't be updated much anymore. It still continues to work.

I've heard Sparrow eats through battery on laptops. A mail client shouldn't do that I don't care how fancy it is.

I have heard that it sometimes spikes on CPU usage, but I've never had it do it to me.

Postbox seems nice, but I have the same problem with it as I do with Firefox: it falls into an "uncanny valley" of sorts in OS X. It looks so Mac-like that I expect it to behave like a typical Mac application, but then I run in to odd cross-platform quirks that make me hate it.

[Scorbing]

Why

+1000 for Postbox

http://www.postbox-inc.com/

And, if you purchase it, you get to use it on your Windows computers too!

Tim

I don't understand why you people keep telling the OP to get Postbox and pay $$$ for that client when he can just get Thunderbird, which is the exact same thing. Postbox is based on Thunderbird and it is basically Thunderbird with a different UI. I am sure the OP can get that UI or similar theme UI on the Themes page and save himself some $$$.

[threetonesun]

I'm confused as to how an e-mail sent in mail could ever end up in Times New Roman. I've never seen it happen, myself, and I use OSX and Windows.

[tim_s]

Hi Everyone,

I have been following this as well to see what sort of response we have. Both at home and as a laptop I use a Mac for 1 of my companies. It is just how it has been from the start.

I originally had Outlook running (which is the companies standard) but I had an issue with the ?Sent? folder when using IMAP. IF I sent an email ¼ of the time, the email could not be found within the ?Sent? Folder.

Of course the old ?I never received your email? conversation is a frequent reason to not get a task done and it was killing me that I could not forward or find text to look into the issue.

So I used Thunderbird, which in all aspects has functioned well but the search results never seem to be accurate. The search seems to show the oldest emails first and of course I am waiting through the pain of the page to load.

So I have resorted to using the using the stock mail app which works fantastically in all regards except for 2.

1: When people reply to me I notice that the emails have some items of a larger / bold font, I would prefer that it did not have the appearance that I am expressing certain parts of the email. In certain emails this can appear to be a negative response.

2: The email delivery time is really slow ? this is not a huge issue, more of a productivity issue. When adding a new account it seems to take 5 minutes (often times out) and when I send an email it takes 1-2 minutes of just ticking away. IF I am trying to get through 600 emails ? this can get frustrating.

I am sure I am the problem with my calibration of the tools but to be fair I do not have time to investigate these issues ? I need a solution that just runs.

[game_over]

I'm confused as to how an e-mail sent in mail could ever end up in Times New Roman. I've never seen it happen, myself, and I use OSX and Windows.

You wont see it happen because the app is styling the text, most clients add some basic styling as a standard, for example, arial/12px/black ... Mail.app does absolutely nothing, if you do not select the text and manually select a font then it is sent in Times New Roman/13px/black ... the end result depends on the client as if the client is styling unstyled text then it will look fine, but if the client does not style text then i assure you your mail is being sent in Times.

personally i think it looks rubbish and unprofessional.

example:

[einsteinbqat]

You wont see it happen because the app is styling the text, most clients add some basic styling as a standard, for example, arial/12px/black ... Mail.app does absolutely nothing, if you do not select the text and manually select a font then it is sent in Times New Roman/13px/black ... the end result depends on the client as if the client is styling unstyled text then it will look fine, but if the client does not style text then i assure you your mail is being sent in Times.

personally i think it looks rubbish and unprofessional.

example:

<snip>

I have been using Apple Mail for years now, and I have never seen this. Perhaps, the problem does not lie with you, but the other person? Just an hypothesis.

[threetonesun]

You wont see it happen because the app is styling the text, most clients add some basic styling as a standard, for example, arial/12px/black ... Mail.app does absolutely nothing, if you do not select the text and manually select a font then it is sent in Times New Roman/13px/black ... the end result depends on the client as if the client is styling unstyled text then it will look fine, but if the client does not style text then i assure you your mail is being sent in Times.

personally i think it looks rubbish and unprofessional.

example:

It sends it as rich text using Helvetica. My guess is, since Helvetica isn't standard on Windows, whatever e-mail client you're reading it on isn't smart enough to replace it with Arial, so it goes to Times New Roman.

Try, in Mail, changing the default font to Arial or something else that's found on OSX and Windows.

[blachole]

This issue has bugged me for years. The issue like OP said is with MacMail app and when it sends to a Windows based outlook receiver it strips the font used by mac and uses Times New Roman. Working with a bunch of tech guys, this drove them nuts. I used Postbox in the past and loved it. The main issue I have with it now is that it lacks Exchange support, so having to receive my exchange email via IMAP and not having calendar support ****ed me off. I also use Sparrow for my gmail, but it's not very friendly for exchange.

Recently I found an app called MessageFont (http://messagefont.com) which lets me input/define the font in Apple Mail and it actually sends to the user intact. It works great and works with the built in keyboard shortcuts in Mail. It takes some time getting used to it, but it works great and lets me continue using Mac Mail without the worry of loosing my font look. Also with attachments I've installed a plugin called AttachmentTamer which gives you much better control over attachments in Mail. Check this one out as well.