I have updated to Ventura. I tried the new Apple Mail app (Version 16.0 (3731.200.110.1.12), it seems there are good performance improvements that I can almost use it as the daily driver. Obvsiously still early days but it is refreshing to see that the native Mail app received some attention from Apple
Cannot wait to see what’s more will come out from various developers making use of MailKit
Just wondering what are your thoughts and experience on the new version.
It’s great that Mail got some TLC in Ventura!
Based on my initial experiences, the search is significantly better. The search UI has been improved, and searches seem faster and more accurate.
It’s great to have some new features as well (e.g. scheduled send, undo send), though I’ve been enjoying these features in Mailbutler for years. I’ll likely continue to use Mailbutler as it’s more flexible than Apple’s equivalents.
I can’t upgrade for a while, so I will ask the question I always ask of any email client…
Is there a setting to make closing/archiving/deleting an email do only that? I.e. do not open another email automatically. It seems like such a simple requirement — people would lose their rag if every time you dismissed a photo it brought up another one — but many high profile mail clients do not offer this. Including Mail for iOS.
I haven’t noticed any changes. I know it got a couple of new features, but those are things I won’t use.
Search has been good on the new version, but that will be a long term test for me. I also need more time to see if flags are fixed. As in if I put a green flag on an email on my Mac, will it show as red on my iPhone? Will it clear the flag on all devices when I clear it on another device? This has been an issue for me for years.
I just want the spam filtering to improve. Is that too much to ask? I don’t get tons of spam but far too often I’ll catch something from a sender that I’ve received 100s of times before and every once in a while spam does get through. And no matter how you try to teach it, it doesn’t seem to learn.
What has it come to that “now it actually works” is deemed a ‘feature’ for a new version? 
a funny way to put it, but in reality, we have lowered our own expectation on the Mail app that it actually works is an improvement 
I’m glad that I can now snooze an email on my iPhone and then be reminded when I get home and use my Mail on my MacBook Pro.
I also appreciate that Mail got some attention from Apple. Pre-Ventura, Mail was the slowest app to load/open on my M1 MacBook Air. Now it opens just as quickly as anything else. I think something just needed a reset within my system, however, so I’m not sure if this—for me improvement—has anything to do with the new version of Mail.
Similarly, URL links to individual emails have become a big thing for my productivity—I often drop them in notes, tasks, etc. The catch is, the URLs would work for me consistently on my Mac, but on iOS devices, they would only work if said email was an inbox. Now the URLS are working across devices regardless of whether the message is in the inbox or not, which is really useful.
Search too seems useful. But to restate what others have said, these improvements might also be understood as “making existing features work as one might expect them to,” rather than as new features.
Great question. I’ve heard so much negativity about flag syncing in the past that I simply never tried it, but if it were to work, it would indeed be useful. One can hope…
I use flags a lot; so far, tags are working perfectly and almost instantaneously on all devices.
Tags or flags? 20 char
Sorry, typo. Flags.
…
Everything I have done with flags has worked perfectly between devices since updating. That has been broken for so long, it’s a miracle. 
Flags were working fine for me if the email in question was flagged in Inbox. But my Macs and iOS devices were out of sync if I flagged an email in a folder. For example, if I flagged an email on my Mac in @waitingfor, it did not show up in my iOS devices Flagged Smart Folder. Then I discovered if I touch the @waitingfor folder on my iOS device, the flagged email would then show up in Flagged Smart Folder.
That led me to investigate further. I discovered I had Push set for only a few folders. When I turned on Push for more folders, the sync takes longer for iOS but the flags consistently sync. (Settings, Mail, Fetch New Data, Push, then choose the folders you want to sync “instantly”, which are almost all of them for my workflow other than “Ω archived projects”).
This is important to me because I leave MailMate running all the time. Rather than filing on iOS on the go, I had a workflow whereby MailMate would move all items flagged yellow to @waitingfor to the appropriate folder, move all items flagged blue to @actionrequired to that folder, etc. It was inconsistent so I abandoned. Now I see why. I will reenable that workflow and see how that goes.
Not a knock on your workflow in any way, just genuinely curious - which mail clients offer this? And is it usually a hidden setting that most people aren’t aware of?
I’m pretty sure Spark by Readdle has got an option where you can set it to take you back to the mail list after any action.
Spark and Edison on iOS, that I am aware of. Spark and MimeStream on macOS. I think AirMail also has it on both platforms as I used to be a user.
My needs are simple enough I would just use Apple Mail if it had this ability.
It’s not a “hidden setting” but it is, I guess, in settings which may make it hidden to a lot of users.
Once it’s launched, it’s fast and stable. However, I’m finding that it takes a good 10-15 seconds to launch, and beachballs until the iniitial window shows up.
Granted, I have a lot of mail but this feels slower to me than Monterey.
Once it’s open, no complaints. I may need to just get used to leaving it open instead of quitting it when not using it…
@Michael_Fessler This sorted out the beachball for me. I removed the Houdahspot plugin too. Apple Mail Slow to Open on One Computer - #5 by rms