Email client in 2021

Reading @Bmosbacker reminds me that Spark’s customizable keyboard shortcuts, along with the Snooze, Send Later, Send Again, and occasionally creating a URL to a specific email, are also very useful… they help me be more efficient when going through my accounts.

Still can’t find anything that satisfies my requirements as well as MailMate.

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I use Airmail, but I can’t say that I am really happy with it. I canonsidering moving to an alternative, or Apple Mail. What helps is that I have cut down my mail usage.

I’d like:

  • good encryption support (wonky on Airmail)
  • unified Inbox
  • app integration
  • great search

If you have Exchange email then I believe Outlook is by far the best app.

I actually use it for all my emails (I’m a madman who likes to read work and personal emails at the same time).

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MailMate is probably the best client for power users and Preside is a splendid match for iOS since it can mirror lot of workflows. One app that does not get mentioned often is Missive. It mainly focuses on teams and is thus quite expensive ($10 or $15/month) but it is insanely good and powerful.

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Mozilla Thunderbird! :bird:

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A happy Postbox user here.

Perhaps not as powerful as MailMate, nor as pretty/modern looking as Airmail or Spark, but it does it job without issues. And has some features that others don’t have (or only with a workaround).

It’s not perfect. But no mailclient is.

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I have been using the “new” Outlook for Mac of late, with Sanebox… ever since Outlook decided to try a smoother integration with iCloud, I have all I need: Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks in one application, along with add-ins like Sanebox and Mailbutler

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@vco1 If Postbox had iOS clients I think many many people would be there with bells on. Why they don’t do this is so beyond me…

I’ve been loving Airmail lately, but as others have noted the app’s reliability can be… seasonal. It has been at least a few seasons since I’ve had any issues, though, and it’s gotten slicker and more powerful since. If anyone hasn’t played with it in a few months, it might be worth checking out again.

Have you been able to send later emails using an alias on regular IMAP? Because it never worked for me.

Also, their new Smart Inbox screen is possibly one of the most obscure piece of UI/UX ever made.

Work

MailMate and Mail.app on iOS.

Personal

Fastmail with Fmail as the app on my Mac and the official Fastmail apps on iOS.

Gmail

Mailplane for my Gmail account (mailing lists, forum notifications, etc. All the non-crucial stuff that I don’t want in my personal or work emails. (I use the Gmail app on iOS.)

I realize some people would hate using 3 different mail apps. It works great for me. On the Mac, I use Bumpr to redirect mailto links to the proper app.

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I’m a Readdle fan so I’m on Spark. I like the integration it has with their PDF, scanning, and calendar apps.

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Shameless plug here for articles I wrote about MailMate and Preside (and the latter for exactly what you said, a superb iOS match for MailMate users):

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Email - the topic that will never be put to rest.

I’m currently in what I anticipate will be a decade long transition from having many free email addresses to fewer paid ones. So besides email hosting, I’ve been looking at clients. A recent change in my computing (acquiring an M1 MBP) did change things as I no longer need mail on Windows while my wife used our only Mac at home. Here’s what I’ve settled on, but I’m open to suggestions if anyone has other ideas on what I need.

Mail.app (MacOS) - Mostly for filing mail locally(using rules), for email I don’t need, like coupons or bills. Since the M1 is always running, it continues to apply the rules even when the lid is closed. So I no longer need to rely on my Windows box acting as a mail server. It’s not always immediate, but it works. I wish you could use special characters in filters but that doesn’t seem to work. I also like color coding emails forwarded from older accounts.

Spark (macOS/iOS) - I love the swipe gestures and smart notifications. Signatures is done well, and I can’t believe it took me this long to use templates, that’s been incredibly helpful in my work. But there are no rules or local folders. I don’t use any snooze or send later. I hate when apps create their own folders on my IMAP email or when they point to the wrong one. I like that they collect emails from correspondents, but I also wish they used a true CardDAV.

Postbox (Windows) - I looked at many (when I didn’t have daytime access to a Mac) and settled on Postbox. Best UI for Windows, good local folders and rules. Again, they don’t sync with CardDAV.

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Do any of the alternatives to Mail.app (macOS) support the same universal message links that the native app does?

I think this answers your question where MailMate is concerned, unless I’m misunderstanding your meaning.

I was intrigued by that and, after some googling, found that M1 chips “never sleep”. Wow! That almost neglect the need for server side rules.

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MailMate is just fantastic. I’m using the latest daily build (which allows for OATH2 authentication necessary for my work account) and have been so happy I gladly paid for a license.

Other apps might have good keyboard shortcut support (but I haven’t seen any as flexible or as powerful as MM).

But more than that, the default “Correspondence” view is a real game changer. It eliminated the need for about 90% of the searching I might do in a more typical mail app.

The “Correspondence” pane is a list showing all your emails to or from the currently highlighted email’s contact. It’s where I go to find out when I last emailed a person, whether they responded, etc.—it’s better than searching a “Sent” folder and a Client folder—and far more reliable than any “threading” view baked into some apps.

And the whole thing is fast.

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I’m using hey.com. I love it.

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@macsparky I will be the first one to buy a MailMate Field Guide from you. I can be a beta tester too :grin:

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