Hello…
Mail.app was so far my favorite mail program on Mac. It is basic, no unnecessary features, no clutter. Just mail. The headaches began when I had to add my work accounts. Both are on Microsoft Exchange. This is not Apple’s fault, it clearly is Microsoft’s, but the first problem was that MS is creating senseless folders I would never use and I can’t delete or disable them. MS thought, it would be a good idea to mess around with server settings so one account calls its sent messages just “sent”, the other one “sent items” and so on.
I was able to get it to work somehow and literally spent hours or days researching it.
But now the next problem came up: I’m using Adguard. It’s awesome. It blocks ads and it does this IMHO better than any other adblocker. Battery life got better using it and all. Adguard uses something similar to a VPN to filter ads. iCloud doesn’t like that. At all.
After 30 minutes, or an hour, Mail.app starts using 99% of CPU and energy and won’t react anymore. If I turn Adguard off everything is fine.
Now I’m looking for another mail client because I hope that it will be easier.
I already looked into Outlook but it clearly is a MS app and I don’t like it. It messes with my Exchange folders, again, although it’s MS own product.
I love Postbox, I’m using it on Windows, but it has no Apple silicon native app so far. So this is no option either.
Does any of you have good recommendations for mail clients for Mac?
In my opinion, rejecting an app because it isn’t native-Apple Silicon is ridiculous. The app is going to work fine and you aren’t going to notice any performance issues.
Either way, I’m surprised you weren’t directed to this thread as you were posting your question…
Sync between devices makes it easy to add accounts on a new device
Support for scheduling and snooze
Gmail keyboard shortcuts (on Mac only, alas — I wish they’d bring those shortcuts to iPad OS)
Integration with task managers like Things, OmniFocus, Todoist, etc.
Free for individual use (they make their money selling team subscriptions)
Support for Gmails labels
Downsides:
Scheduling and snooze uses their servers, not Google’s (though that’s on Google, no Readdle — Mimestream doesn’t get to have native access to those features, either)
Keyboard shortcut for labels doesn’t work (labels have to be added by clicking the + at the top right of the message)
I should note that little if any of what I do is terribly sensitive.
If you’re concerned about performance of Postbox on the M1, then there’s nothing to fear. I’m using it and it works perfectly fine. I’ve no issues with it and it works as it should. I to use it on Windows and am impressed with it - I think it’s better on the Mac, purely because it works with the inbuilt contacts app.
Using Postbox on my M1 MBP (non-Max), and it works as well as on my iMac Pro.
I think the license is tied to you, and you can run it on both computers. Have you tried it on the M1? I just can’t see that it wouldn’t be performant enough.
I’m not sure this will help, but are you aware that you can normally rename folders in Mail.app? And choose which folder you want for Sent messages (& Archive, etc).
(Preferences/Accounts/Mailbox Behaviors)
Only time it really uses CPU is when I tell it to index my 60,000 emails, but that doesn’t cause any issue.
I’m sure if you wanted less battery consumption, you could set how often it connects to the network, as I that’s probably when it uses the most resources, but even then, that must be a fraction of the time it’s in use and a fraction of your battery.
You cannot do this with Exchange accounts. MS ditched more and more functions in the recent years. You can’t even delete most folders. There is a folder called conversation history for people who use their chat program. There is a folder called sync errors that is just showing up in Outlook for Windows when there is a problem.
But in any other mail app it is shown constantly.
You can’t disable them, you can’t hide them, you can’t remove them (this function was disabled by Microsoft 2 years ago). You CAN just not subscribe to this folders in apps like Postbox. But Mail.app hasn’t this function anymore.
Yea Outlook app for Mac is one of the worst apps I’ve tested so far.
I’m wondering why Microsoft won’t follow its own standards on its own app. But then it’s probably made by some other company for MS like Outlook on iOS.
The only apps that won’t show those folders are Outlook on windows and Mailmate and Postbox where you can choose what folders to subscribe to.
Or open the app, check mail, then close it.
I guess the ability to do this depends on how available one needs to be.
Another thought is Quitter to automate quitting the app. Perhaps some timed launching of the app for checking mail. All in all, I doubt theses gyrations would save much over having the app open and idle.
Good to know, I wasn’t sure it would work on Exchange. I replaced our v5.5 server with a Linux system around 20 years ago which is why I hedged my answer . . . you can “normally” rename folders . I was hoping it would be a simple solution.
You could but MS stripped this “feature”.
It feels like they want to force people to use their software.
The problem is that their apps aren’t good. Outlook on windows is great but complicated. Outlook on Mac is a mess. On iOS it is great but has security issues…
