# What's better than Apple Mail?



## danaekitty (Jan 11, 2008)

I'd really like to know if there's a mail program that Mac users prefer over the standard Mail that comes installed with OSX.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I have gmail...but I have it hooked straight up to mail. So I rarely ever go to gmail.com. Mail is pretty good man.


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## psxp (May 23, 2006)

I use ThunderBird as well as Mail.

Thunderbird is easy to migrate to another platform.. ie. copy the files to you Windows box !


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

My boss swore by Entourage, but that's because he needed to connect to the company MS Exchange server.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

psxp said:


> I use ThunderBird as well as Mail.
> 
> Thunderbird is easy to migrate to another platform.. ie. copy the files to you Windows box !


I agree that Thunderbird is a good alternative. Better out going HTML mailing options, but no address book and iCal integration. I run them both and when I need to send something out with HTML I use Thunderbird. For regular e-mail, I stick with Mail for it's Address book and iCal intergration.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

I've used em all ... Eudora used to have a compelling case but not anymore ...

As of Leopard, Mail now conforms to the mbox standard fully, so Thunderbird's one big advantage just went poof.

I have to say I think Mail is, overall, the best email client on any platform. The data detectors in particular just put this thing over the top.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chas_m said:


> As of Leopard, Mail now conforms to the mbox standard fully, so Thunderbird's one big advantage just went poof.


chas_m, not familiar with what you mean by mbox standard. Could you explain.

Also for marketing purposes I often send out HTML e-mails. To create them in Thunderbird I just create a new e-mail, choose insert HTML, copy it the code into the window and poof I have a perfectly formated outgoing HTML e-mail. I have looked through Mail time and again and cannot figure out how this can be accomplished. If you know could you please enlighten, as that is the only reason why I continue to use Thunderbird at all. Tanks, tanks a lot.


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## vacuvox (Sep 5, 2003)

I've used a Entourage, Eudora and Mail Smith and have ended up sticking with Apple Mail which I'm very happy with. It works well, it's fast, the junk filtering and search capability is great, it's got Smart Mail boxes, and it is well integrated with Spotlight, iCal and Addressbook. And it's free with the OS. It seems like a no brainer unless you need specific features that Apple Mail doesn't cover. On the other hand...


What's better than Apple Mail?
Hiking a mountain trail,
Going for a sail 
in a modest gale,
Europe by rail,
escaping from jail or making bail
and catching a beyond-the-pale
Monty Python Tale
about The Holy Grail
with a sultry female
in a veil
without fail
is less stale
than any app for email.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

I'm quite satisfied with Apple Mail as well - it's so nice to use after spending the day having to put up with Outlook (_look out!_) combined with a crochety exchange server on my WinXP box at work.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Apple Mail is the best. Haven't used another since Jaguar.


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## a7mc (Dec 30, 2002)

> I have looked through Mail time and again and cannot figure out how this can be accomplished.


Mail accepts HTML in WYSIWYG format. Wanna try? Go ahead and copy any section of this site... that's right... just highlight a chunk of this site, hit Apple-C, then open a new message and Apple-V. It will look exactly like when you just copied.

So, if you want to use HTML in Mail, just find a way to view the end result (open the html file in Safari) copy the formatted version and paste away.

A7


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

a7mc said:


> Mail accepts HTML in WYSIWYG format. Wanna try? Go ahead and copy any section of this site... that's right... just highlight a chunk of this site, hit Apple-C, then open a new message and Apple-V. It will look exactly like when you just copied.
> 
> So, if you want to use HTML in Mail, just find a way to view the end result (open the html file in Safari) copy the formatted version and paste away.
> 
> A7


Thanks A7mc, I will give that a shot. In the past I had tried copying in the code, and all I would see is code, whereas with Thunderbird, you copied in the code and you see formatted HTML. This will mean I can dump Thunderbird, YAY!


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## gwillikers (Jun 19, 2003)

vacuvox said:


> IWhat's better than Apple Mail?
> Hiking a mountain trail,
> Going for a sail
> in a modest gale,
> ...


:clap: :clap: :clap:


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## Arne (Jan 27, 2003)

Eudora has been my only email app since 1997. Started with Eudora Light, then the Sponsored version, then Full Paid version for the past 3 or 4 years.

For web based email, I've used Gmail for about 3 years, but use Eudora to POP download all Gmail. I rarely log on to GMail.

Just a few of the many features I like about Eudora:
- probably the most configurable email client on the planet, thanks to the way it provides access to hundreds of internal settings that are off-limits in other programs; yet it doesn't clutter the interface with obscure options, instead almost every aspect of Eudora can be changed and customized via the Expert Eudora Settings list, right down to the "Send" button - mine says "Fling it!". 
- an excellent online knowledge database that actually works.
- extraordinarily fast and flexible Search and Find.
- addresses the spam problem with the addition of SpamWatch, a plug-in that employs Bayesian filtering to move spam-like messages to a new top-level Junk folder.
- enhanced IMAP support.
- Eudora doesn't use a monolithic database, but instead all of its mailboxes are separate text files.
- and it even plays well with Sympatico  , though unsupported  .

What needs improving:
- filters implementation is a bit awkward at times.
- a few aspects of the interface could use some polishing; for example "Blah Blah Blah" button's purpose may not be obvious until you click it once.

No affiliation with Eudora. Just a happy customer.

PowerMac G4/Dual 1.25 FW800/OSX.4.11
Powerbook G4 15"/1.67/HD/DLSD/OSX.4.11


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## polywog (Aug 9, 2007)

Gee, no love for Pine? 

I think the built in email app is great myself. The feature set is nice, it's stable and quick. Love the iCal integration (when it works.)


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

screature said:


> chas_m, not familiar with what you mean by mbox standard. Could you explain.


mbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(warning, technical)



> Also for marketing purposes I often send out HTML e-mails.


Expect to be excoriated shortly. 



> To create them in Thunderbird I just create a new e-mail, choose insert HTML, copy it the code into the window and poof I have a perfectly formated outgoing HTML e-mail.


That's "formatted." You might want to spell-check your HTML mails ... 

Anyway, it's not quite THAT easy to do HTML mail in Mail, but it's almost that easy. Here's a page that reveals the trick:
» How to create customized OSX Mail stationery in Leopard

They talk about "stationery" but this also applies to "regular" HTML mail.

There are also a BUNDLE of third-party programs that bypass Mail but instead use the (built-in) postfix SMTP server to create and distribute HTML (or any kind of) mail. I bought "Direct Mail" a while back as part of a bundle, have never needed to use it yet so I don't know enough about it, but click the name to get to their website.


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## bgw (Jan 8, 2008)

*Cool*

Vacuvox,

_What's better than Apple Mail?
Hiking a mountain trail,
Going for a sail 
in a modest gale,
Europe by rail,
escaping from jail or making bail
and catching a beyond-the-pale
Monty Python Tale
about The Holy Grail
with a sultry female
in a veil
without fail
is less stale
than any app for email._​
I like it, I like it a lot.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

vacuvox said:


> What's better than Apple Mail?
> Hiking a mountain trail,
> Going for a sail
> in a modest gale,
> ...


Hey, somebody just put a lovely fountain in our little playground!


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Arne said:


> Eudora has been my only email app since 1997. Started with Eudora Light, then the Sponsored version, then Full Paid version for the past 3 or 4 years.
> 
> (SNIP)
> 
> No affiliation with Eudora. Just a happy customer.


You're one of the few, I'd wager. We have similar histories - I've been with Eudora since version 1.3.1, a Eudora Pro customer, and I still run the last version released. I adore Eudora for its power, filters, and minimalist interface (which, curiously, many critics dislike intensely).

But I'm not a "happy customer." Qualcomm's abandonment of Eudora to a half-baked open-source alternative (essentially pasting a lucklustre theme on top of Thunderbird) has alienate much of Eudora's user-base (check out the user forums). Thunderbird's ability to import Eudora's mailboxes is a significant problem, especially for those of us with more than a decade of email stored.

A third-party company is building a "Eudora replacement", Odysseus, about which we are anxiously awaiting news.


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## (( p g )) (Aug 17, 2002)

The key issue I had with Entourage is that its database is one gigantic file. In my experience this makes it more prone to data corruption. I also found the application became progressively slower as the database grew in size (mine's well over 5 GB)

Mail, on the other hand, manages its data as a series of folders inside of ~/Library. That way, data-corruption risks tend to be isolated to a single message without compromising the rest of the email database. Mail's also a lot more capable of crunching large mailboxes. Plus I really like the way it lets you filter things with smart folders. 

Plus if you install a simple plugin, you can associate and tag messages to your heart's delight. Details from indev: 
Keystrokes of Genius
and
MailTags

If Mail wasn't included in OS X, I'd pay for it. I can't say the same about the value of Entourage being included in Office.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Another former Eudora Pro user who's satisfied, if not overjoyed, with Apple Mail.

I've had problems with Apple's mail.app that keep me from jumping around like "Tom Cruise on Oprah" about it, but the alternatives are, surprisingly, not so easy to live with either. It seems eMail is, I dunno, 200 million different things to 500 million different people, the modern Job Nobody Wants.

Microsoft doesn't help much with it's built in half-assed solution that comes with every Windows machine ... not so much that it's no good, but more so that no software company ever feels it's a space they can do anything with. After all, you're competing against a free solution that comes with most computers already installed and that integrates with corporate mail. A tough nut to crack, so to speak.

What is out there is really apps built out of frustration by developers who can't get what they want from what's out there and who have the means to write something for themselves, more than anyone else. Nice, if their needs mesh with yours, but not so useful otherwise.

There is is the "One Massive Database" method of archiving mail, there is the endless, cryptically named nested directory method (worst example: iPhoto, but Mail.app isn't far behind) and a few others. As someone has mentioned, corruption can be an issue with the huge file, and nesting can simply be maddening to look through.

The "new way" seems to be let each app do whatever wherever and use metadata to find everything from a huge pile.

I don't really like it, since I've always been able to archive data in nested folders and find it later, even a decade later. My mail was well organized into folders; at any one time I used to have perhaps 30 messages unsorted in the inbox.

But, the amount of data we have is growing at an exponential rate. I personally think well crafted directory structure, not too deep and with meaningful folder names, along with meta-search, is the answer. But, sometimes the apps themselves are quite rigid in how they store data, and there's not much you can do about it.

Mail app changed how it stored data a few times (now it uses mbox, which is a good thing) and a lot of my mail, I think because of my folder discipline, got pretty much screwed up in the process of upgrading from one version of mail.app to another (especially when upgrading to 10.3).

For whatever reason, mail.app hated all those well organized folders. I really had to abandon that whole method as it made Mail.app choke far too often. Now I have 1000 messages in the inbox, and thousands more in archives, all pretty much unsorted but accessible with search via keyword, metadata, etc. I don't like it, but you have to go with what works.

Now I have some messages that instead of being stored locally like they should have been (where I can archive them, and do) I open old mail and see some message about it being no longer available on the server. I think it's because changing mail.app storage formats didn't work so mail.app has info _about_ a message in one place and the actual messages and attachments stored in one or fifty other places. It finds the metadata, but the actual message is who-knows-where, so it thinks it must still be on the server (it's not) and can't find it there either.

I hate that. Bad mail.app. Bad!

I also use MailSteward to archive mail (from Eudora Pro, Mail.app, & Thunderbird) which stores mail in a MySQL Lite format, so it should be able to be read anytime in the future. But, especially with something so massive as eMail, it's not trivial to insure you can read this stuff in the future.

Pick a mail application carefully. You are essentially making a permanent decision as to how you will access (or not access) your messages 10 days, 10 months, and 10 years from now.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

I was an Entourage user a couple of years ago. I got a bit nervous with reports of the database getting corrupted at a certain point, so I then tried out GyazMail. In fact, I'm surprised no one has mentioned it. I used it as a registered user for awhile and then, for some reason, and I can't remember why, I switched over to Mail. Haven't gone back to anything else. I, too, have wondered what else actually compares or puts to shame Apple Mail. Haven't found anything yet.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

I use gmail, and prefer it over Mail by a great deal.

If I were to use a local client, I would go with mailplane.app, as it's basically just gmail still with some OS hooks.


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## pismo923 (Dec 21, 2002)

I have been using Gyazmail for over a year now. It's been great. Not one problem, for that matter not even a hint of a problem. Mail drove me nuts as on a regular basis it would forget login passwords. Not a critical flaw but annoying as hell. Granted I am still on 10.3.9 but with Gyazmail being as stable as it's been for me I can't see changing anytime soon. It also works great with spamseive.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

a7mc said:


> Mail accepts HTML in WYSIWYG format. Wanna try? Go ahead and copy any section of this site... that's right... just highlight a chunk of this site, hit Apple-C, then open a new message and Apple-V. It will look exactly like when you just copied.
> 
> So, if you want to use HTML in Mail, just find a way to view the end result (open the html file in Safari) copy the formatted version and paste away.
> 
> A7


A7mc, I tried what you suggested and no go. If I copy and paste a web page text is all I get and if I copy and paste in code, all I see is code. Looks like I will be keeping Thunderbird for sending HTML e-mail after all.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

screature:

A7mc may have been using the Leopard version of Mail, and you might not be. His suggestion works for me.

Can you clarify?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chas_m said:


> Expect to be excoriated shortly.
> 
> That's "formatted." You might want to spell-check your HTML mails ...


chas_m thanks for the info, appreciated. What is not appreciated is the smart a** assumptions and rude "netetiquette".

When I send out HTML marketing pieces it is to permission based clients, who have opted in to such mailings. I have been in this business long enough to know what is and isn't kosher. To assume that I don't is presumptuous at best, with a bent towards arrogance. 

Secondly to point out a typo in someones communication is definitely rude and peevish. 

I have noticed on this forum that you have a definite tendency towards pushing peoples buttons and seem to enjoy confrontation Being that you are a visitor to this country, and posting on a Canadian forum you may want to try take the attitude of "when in Rome..." and be a little more diplomatic and polite in your postings.

It is the Canadian way... Eh!.

Edit: chas_m, Upon sober second thought I would like to retract the comment in green. It was said out of taking offense to your comments. This comment was not called for and not really true. You are often quit helpful in your postings to people and only occasionally (as well all are from time to time) a bit confrontational (in my opinion).


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## Mississauga (Oct 27, 2001)

screature said:


> chas_m thanks for the info, appreciated. What is not appreciated is the smart a** assumptions and rude "netetiquette".
> 
> I have noticed on this forum that you have a definite tendency towards pushing peoples buttons and seem to enjoy confrontation. Being that you are a visitor to this country, and posting on a Canadian forum you may want to try take the attitude of "when in Rome..." and be a little more diplomatic and polite in your postings.
> 
> It is the Canadian way... Eh!


Geez, I must have missed the part which raised your hackles.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chas_m said:


> screature:
> 
> A7mc may have been using the Leopard version of Mail, and you might not be. His suggestion works for me.
> 
> Can you clarify?


chas_m and A7mc, I think I have found out why I was not getting the results that you two are. My browser of choice is Firefox. When I copy and paste out of Firefox. The results are as I indicated. 

However as you clearly are obtaining different results I tried what A7mc suggested using Safari as the browser to copy from and low and behold it worked. Well mostly. The formatting is not 100% correct, it seems that there are certain pieces of CSS style sheets that are not interpreted correctly. Close but no cigar. With Thunderbird, when the code is inserted I truly get WYSIWYG.

So I think for HTML based e-mails I will be sticking to Thunderbird. Thank you for the helpful suggestions though, they are appreciated.


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## Atroz (Aug 7, 2005)

polywog said:


> Gee, no love for Pine?
> 
> I think the built in email app is great myself. The feature set is nice, it's stable and quick. Love the iCal integration (when it works.)


:lmao: 

Been a while since I used Pine, then Elm. I think I prefer Apple mail. MIME on elm was a PITA. 

Actually, when I first bought a Mac 2.5 years ago I assumed that I'd stick with Thunderbird that I'd been using on Linux. I figured I'd give Apple Mail a fair try first though, and never left.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Mississauga said:


> Geez, I must have missed the part which raised your hackles.


For clarification here is what raised my "hackles":

Quote: 
Also for marketing purposes I often send out HTML e-mails. 

Expect to be excoriated shortly.


Quote: 
To create them in Thunderbird I just create a new e-mail, choose insert HTML, copy it the code into the window and poof I have a perfectly formated outgoing HTML e-mail. 

That's "formatted." You might want to spell-check your HTML mails ... 

excoriate |ikˈskôrēˌāt|
verb [ trans. ]
1. formal censure or criticize severely

To suggest that I need to be prepared to be excoriated shortly is to suggest that I am doing one of two things: spamming or sending HTML e-mail to those who have not authorized receiving it.

Either way, it is presumptuous to assume that I don't know what I am doing and I can expect to be criticized for it.

Secondly, I left out a t in formatted (formated). Where I come from and how I was raised it is impolite to correct the spelling or pronunciation of another adult, especially a stranger. That is something that you do with a child and not an equal, it is as I said rude and peevish. I know chas_m put a  afterwards, which quite frankly does not serve to lessen the offense in my books. It merely is a feign attempt to "soften the condescension".

If I am wrong in my interpretation of chas_m's comments, then I most certainly apologize, sometimes it is quite easy to be misinterpreted via electronic communications.


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## Mississauga (Oct 27, 2001)

screature,

By their very nature, online forums cannot portray one's expression or demeanour. This fact, coupled with a little sarcasm, can turn a harmless note to an insult or derogatory remark. I strongly doubt chas_m was trying to demean or insult, rather offer a little constructive criticism with a dash of sarcasm. I've been guilty of the same.

I see your point, but respectfully beg to differ... while keeping as many friends as I can.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Mississauga said:


> screature,
> 
> By their very nature, online forums cannot portray one's expression or demeanour. This fact, coupled with a little sarcasm, can turn a harmless note to an insult or derogatory remark. I strongly doubt chas_m was trying to demean or insult, rather offer a little constructive criticism with a dash of sarcasm. I've been guilty of the same.
> 
> I see your point, but respectfully beg to differ... while keeping as many friends as I can.


Hey, we all see things from different perspectives and often what is right is the combination of all those viewpoints. I'm not sure with what aspect you are begging to differ with, but then again I don't think it really matters. I get the jist.

I enjoy this community very much and hope that we all just want to try and get along and be helpful.


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## vacuvox (Sep 5, 2003)

screature said:


> we all just want to try and get along and be helpful.


Bravo, I suppose you won't be needing this then after all ...










apologies to all concerned...


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Whatever you use, today we have a very topical reminder to back up your eMail.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

vacuvox said:


> Bravo, I suppose you won't be needing this then after all ...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


NIce work!! Too funny!!


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