Times are changing for email on the Mac. As more people use universally available Web-based services as their primary email accounts, and as POP accounts from Internet providers gather dust, Mac email clients have begun to morph accordingly.
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The new contenders focus less on powerful cataloging and search capabilities—most webmail accounts handle those tasks quite well already—and more on lightweight, go-anywhere access. The rise of the Mac App Store has made these clients more affordable and more similar to their iOS cousins.
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Apple’s default Mail client remains firmly in the middle of the road. Its meat-and-potatoes feature set will work fine for most people, and it’s still my default email client—though mostly due to my own inertia.
If you’re hankering for something different, though, the latest crop of Mac mail clients has you covered. Better features? A sleeker interface? More raw power? Greater simplicity? Whatever you seek, you’ll find it on the App Store, and in this roundup.
Apple Mail 6
Mail 6 sports a small handful of new features, and much of what it does offer owes more to features introduced in Mountain Lion OS X than to anything specific to Mail itself.
Besides improving Safari’s ability to email webpages in various forms, and integrating Mountain Lion’s systemwide notification features, Mail 6 strengthens its predecessor’s already amped-up search powers. The Lion upgrade sharpened Mail’s ability to find messages across multiple mailboxes, but Mountain Lion enhances its ability to find words and phrases within individual messages.
The new VIP feature is more of a snooze. You can add people to or remove them from your roster of special senders only within individual messages, not from a message list itself. And the VIP feature can do little that Smart Mailboxes and mailbox rules couldn’t do already.
That said, Mail remains a dependable, pleasant workhorse of a client. And it’s among the few non-Microsoft mail programs that support Exchange email.
Full Review: Apple Mail 6 ()
Mozilla Thunderbird
If you like building things from scratch, Thunderbird may be your dream come true. This free, open-source client from Mozilla, makers of Firefox, lets you bolt various extensions onto the basic email client—or program your own extensions.
By default, Thunderbird is extremely bare-bones, with a last-decade interface and few of its rivals’ fancier features. Add-ons can help fill it out; but they are spotty and difficult to find, and they tend to favor obscure open-source services over more-popular options. I wasn’t impressed with Thunderbird’s security features, which sometimes didn’t flag dubious messages.
Thunderbird’s search, however, is outstanding, with clever filtering abilities and an appealing interface. I can’t believe that some wily rival hasn’t yet swiped the idea. Unfortunately, that excellent feature isn’t enough to persuade me to recommend Thunderbird as a whole.
Full Review: Mozilla Thunderbird ()
Freron MailMate 1.5
Gray, bland, and humorless, MailMate compensates for its lack of charm with astonishing efficiency and power. Like a trusted accountant, it may not be the life of the party, but it tackles complex jobs with grim relish.
MailMate’s decision to use text-based buttons instead of icons sacrifices visual flair in return for clarity and ease of use. It lacks the ornamentation of most other clients, but offers mind-boggling horsepower under the hood.
MailMate packs the most thorough search abilities I’ve seen in an email client. Sure, Gmail can find names or addresses, and it can add dates to your calendar. But can it sort messages by server domain, or by a prefix in their subject lines? Can it display statistics about your mail, based on these criteria? MailMate can.
I don’t know anyone who has been longing for these features, but I’m sure that such users exist. And for them, this proudly all-business app will be like manna from the email gods.
Full Review: MailMate 1.5 ()
Postbox 3
Postbox starts with Apple Mail’s friendliness and ease of use, and then adds a host of why-didn’t-anyone-else-think-of-that features.
From its poise and polish, you’d never know that Postbox was built on Thunderbird’s framework. I liked its eye-pleasing interface, and especially its superb Inspector pane, which plucks links, dates, addresses, package tracking numbers, and more from the body of your message, and displays them for at-a-glance discovery.
Postbox’s designers have thoughtfully built in ways to tie the program to Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox, and even LinkedIn. And unique among the clients I’ve tested, Postbox lets you save precrafted email responses easily, and then deploy them with a few quick clicks. If you have to send out a lot of form email messages, this feature could spare your hands and wrists some serious repetitive stress.
Microsoft Office users, take note: Postbox does not support Exchange. But otherwise, anyone who has grown weary of Apple Mail's limitations will find Postbox, at just $10, an inexpensive and impressive step up.
Full Review: Postbox 3 ()
Arcode Inky
If you need access to your different email accounts in one place, or if you need a consistent interface in a many locations, try Inky. This beautifully designed, free client stores your account information—but not your message—securely in the cloud.
After you create an Inky account, the program will quickly set up your IMAP- or POP-based mailboxes. (IMAP messages may take a while to show up, but they’ll get there eventually.) Thenceforth, when you log in on that computer or anywhere else, Inky will have all your mail waiting for you.
The program also recognizes and categorizes different kinds of messages, from daily deals to social media notices, in custom views that you can switch on or off in its settings.
The only drawback of this otherwise sterling program is that Inky will periodically bug you to tell your friends about it. But considering how impressively it performs, you may want to spread the word anyway.
Full Review: Inky ()
Macsimize MailForge 3
Many fans of Eudora, the trusty email client, were crestfallen when Mac OS X Lion shut down support for PowerPC-based programs. Macsimize Software’s MailForge has resurrected Eudora in a new, Mountain Lion-friendly incarnation. Unfortunately, though it may be from the past, it’s anything but a blast.
From its chunky interface—the text formatting icons look disturbingly similar to the ones from the PC version of Microsoft Word—to its lack of modern conveniences (like automatic account setup, inline image display, and threaded messages), MailForge feels like a relic from a late and unlamented decade. It can import mail only from Eudora, and its ungainly search feature leaves much to be desired.
Eudora enthusiasts may see MailForge as the answer to their prayers. But if you lack any very strong nostalgia for the email clients of yore, you’ll find plenty of better and less expensive options out there.
Full Review: Macsimize MailForge 3 ()
Email Pro for Gmail, MailPop Pro for Gmail
These two lightweight Gmail-only clients—think of them as Web browsers that can navigate to only Gmail—offer basic functions at pocket-change prices. Both of them can display Gmail in a simplified mobile view or in a more complex desktop view. And both of them hang out in your menubar, as icons that summon pop-down windows.
To me, Email Pro seemed the better choice. It has a more colorful and intuitive interface, and it explicitly tells you when it is loading messages, instead of just showing a blank window. I also liked its ability to make Gmail my desktop background, persistently hanging out behind my other apps.
The relatively monochromatic MailPop Pro switches between its various views more easily than Email Pro does, and it offers more keyboard shortcuts. But it costs buck more, and has little else to distinguish it. Users who want convenient, no-frills access to Gmail without having to fire up a Web browser might as well stick with Email Pro instead.
Full Review: Email Pro for Gmail ()
Full Review: MailPop Pro for Gmail ()
Sparrow 1.3.1
Google liked this slender, appealing client so much that it bought the entire company. Even though its creators aren’t updating the client anymore, it’s still available on the Mac App Store (use at your own risk, since you won't be able to get much support). And its pleasantly clean and simple interface—strongly reminiscent of Inky, though Sparrow came first—has won the program more than a few fans.
All in all, Sparrow is an attractive choice for anyone who wants a convenient front-end app for Gmail. It won’t bog you down with features you don’t need, nor will it make you feel as if you were using some hastily engineered workaround.
Full Review: Sparrow 1.3.1 ()
Postcards from the future
If these clients don't seem quite right for you, keep your eyes peeled for two new Mac clients that are in development as of this writing.
Mailplane, a Gmail client that adds tighter integration with the Mac OS, is currently in beta for version 3.0. Among other new features, it will incorporate Gmail’s latest interface.
The mysterious Unibox promises “a whole new approach to email on the Mac.” The developer has been teasing prospective users by posting snippets of the client's crisp, swanky interface on its blog. At press time, Unibox’s creators still listed it as “coming in early 2013.”
Mac email users have a wider array of higher-quality, better-looking apps to choose from than ever before. Whatever you need email for, the odds are excellent that you’ll find a well-crafted option that delivers what you want.
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The internet has changed our lives for the better. From connecting people across nations to establishing a communication centred way of life, the World Wide Web assists users in almost everything. Emails have become a convenient medium of communication especially for entrepreneurs and web developers. However, as workload increases, users might find it difficult to manage their emails and contact lists. This is where email clients come into the picture.
An email client, also known as mail user agent (MUA), is a program used to manage and access a user’s mail. Desktop email clients, on the other hand, are specially configured to suit the interface you are working on. Moreover, the application offers a set of additional features such as mail generation, encryptions, secure backups and cloud storage that set it apart from other mailing services.
What Is The Best Email Client?
Mentioned below are the top 10 that are well suited for your Mac or Windows device. You can easily download these applications from the internet and install them on your computer. Also we recommend you to check one of our other posts – 15 Best Free Website Builders of 2017.
Outlook
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Outlook is an email manager introduced by Microsoft and is a part of the Office Suite tools. The program though mostly used as an email client has other features as well. For instance, Outlook consists of a calendar, a task manager, contact manager, note taking journal and web browsing functions. You can use the program as a stand-alone application or club it with other platforms such as Microsoft Express and Microsoft SharePoint Server to expand its productivity and performance. Outlook is tailor-made for the enteprise environment, from sharing mailboxes, public folders, SharePoint lists to scheduling meetings, you can do everything here. Microsoft has also recently launched a mobile-friendly Outlook interface that is compatible with all Android, IOS, Mac and Apple devices.
Top Features:
- Features such as Sweep, Pin and other tags allow users to focus on important matters and deal with things quickly
- Includes a host of other Microsoft apps such as OneDrive, Office suite, Skype, and One Note
- Allows users to customize their contact lists, schedule meetings, set reminders- in short manage and monitor the integral aspects of their business successfully
Claws Mail
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Claws Mail is a free and open source GTK+ email client service provider loaded with a set of really cool features that can be configured quickly. Considered to be among the fastest, more extensive and reliable programs in the market, Claws store your mail in MH mailbox format. You can even save the content in Mbox format using the many plug-ins and extensions offered by the application. Anti-spam, HTML viewer, RSS aggregator, Python scripting and Perl filtering happen to be some of the main plug-ins provided by Claws that can help you manage your work better.
Top Features:
- Claws Mail protects the shared content using SSL, GPG, and anti-phishing security encryptions
- The program runs on both Windows and Unix-like platforms and allows free testing as well
- Customizable toolbar, X-Face support, pre-folder preferences, foldable quotes, plus various extensions enhance the look and feel of the program
- Search and filtering, importing files from external formats are other features
- An external editor armed with an extensive range of readymade templates and designs
Thunderbird
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Thunderbird is a powerful email client software that is free and open sourced. A cross-platform program, it can be used to process RSS feeds, contacts, and other news as well. Developed and released by Mozilla, the program development was discontinued in 2012. However, a stable and more robust version was updated quite recently; it supports all kinds of business ventures and personal requirements. Other than the standard functions such as filtering emails, scheduling meetings and setting up reminders, the program has a lot of extra features. For instance, it protects all your files using an SSL encryptions, also the many plug-ins and extensions further simplify your job.
Top Features:
- Thunderbird can manage multiple email, newsgroup and news feed accounts as well as support multiple identities. Quick search, grouping and message filtering enhance the efficiency
- Email clients like Thunderbird incorporates a Bayesian filter, a whitelist contact record and an anti-spamming plug-in as well
- Thunderbird supports POP and IMAP features and also consists of other tools such as LDAP address completion and Enigmail add support
- It supports both Mbox and Maildir formats across different Windows, Mac, IOS and Linux devices
Nyla’s Mail
Best Email Client For Mac Os Mojave
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Nyla is an open source and free desktop email client that is compatible with Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange, and IMAP accounts. Nyla works well on all Windows, IOS, Linux and Mac email client services and can accommodate multiple plug-ins and extensions as well. Nyla is a company known for offering programs suited to incorporate user-contributed extensions, and can effectively manage and monitor your emails, contacts, and newsfeed. In addition to that, users can also design and modify their plug-ins as per their requirement. An extensible web email client application built with Electron, React and Flux, there are many versions of the program as per the platform you will be using.
Top Features:
- Plug-ins lie at the heart of the program and boost the functionality of your app. You can check out the integrated plug-ins or create your own
- The interface of Nylas is also styled using CSS that you can easily modify or customize. Moreover, while you are at it, check out the extensive range of beautiful themes, layouts and designs as well
- The translator, quick reply option, emojis, phishing detectors, GitHub info bar and other indicator add on to the program’s functionality
Mailbird
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Very similar to the Sparrow email client designed for OS X, Mailbird is a program specially created to support Windows 7, 8 and ten versions. A popular application among both professionals and amateurs, it has also been awarded the best Windows email client in the year 2015. The platform is nothing like other standard email managers such as Thunderbird and Outlook. For starters, Mailbird is faster, greater and accurate than its peers. Secondly, the simple yet robust functionality of the open source app is pretty user-friendly and easy to operate. The latest version of the program 2.0 has additional features such as email snooze, video conferencing and speed radar.
Top Features:
- The sleek and minimalistic interface offers a unified inbox to look after your multiple email accounts
- Lightning fast filtering, indexing and other integrations such as DropBox, EverNote and Google Docs for better performance
- Syncs seamlessly with POP and IMAP services that support a maximum of 3 email accounts
- The latest version includes the quick snooze, video meetings preview option and speed radar
eM Client
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eM Client is a fully featured program designed to manage your emails and marking calendars and keeping your contact list up-to-date. Developed and launched in the year 2006, the program is perhaps the most user-friendly apps in our list. However, your system needs to have Microsoft.NET framework pre-installed for the application to run. Considered to be among the fastest email clients for Windows, eM Client focuses on two customer groups and offers plans accordingly. The pro plan is intended for commercial purposes while the free version is better suited for inexperienced users and supports just two mail accounts. Gmail, IceWrap and the Apple Server are among the few platforms that are compatible with the program.
Top Features:
- The latest eM Client 5.0 version includes the GData protocol that allows seamless syncs and backup options
- The multi-lingual app can be translated into 12 languages for already pre-installed in Windows 8 version
- If the POP and IMAP servers are integrated with your mail accounts, you can configure the features as per your liking quickly
- The program is excellent for touch-screen devices
- Microsoft Exchange is partially compatible with the app
The Bat!
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The Bat! Is among the top email clients built for Windows to safeguard your correspondence with the third parties? From sending and receiving your emails to managing your contacts and establishing secure encryptions The Bat! is extremely sensitive to user needs. The end-to-end encryption (E2EE) technique also allows you to store the content over the cloud. You can even personalize your emails as the program blocks certain malicious software and extensions downloadable on the web. Created by Ritlabs SRL, the application has two main versions namely Professional and Home. The Pro version is more portable and efficient of the two, especially the Bat Voyager.
Top Features:
- Unlimited memory and access to countless email accounts, it even supports the POP3, IMAP servers and even the Microsoft Exchange platforms
- All files are protected with an internal PGP implementation and Open SSL-based encryption. The platform supports HTML 4.0 and CSS 2.0 versions, i.e., you do not require coding skills or professional expertise to customize the platform
- The integrated IDN support, along with the old sorting and filtering function only increases the productivity
Opera Email Client
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Opera Mail is a public email and news customer service developed by Opera for Windows devices. The application has been linked with the Opera web browser ever since version 2 to 12, it was only in 2013 when Opera Mail was separated from its browser. The updated 2.0 version of the app has extra features such as text support, inline spell checking, spam filtering, contact manager and POP3 and IMAP integrations. The program uses a single database that keeps tabs on every email sent or received and establishes access points for better data tracking techniques.
Best Gmail Client For Mac Os
Top Features:
- The program accounts for faster, hassle-free operation helping the users save time with features like auto-sorts, filtering, and rich text support
- Auto-sorts and easy indexing of mailing lists and attachments. Opera Mail even uses the Bayesian filtering to get the job done
- The IRC client though integrated into the mail component of the program allows multiple servers, transfers, and available customization through CSS
- Opera Mail also displays the text in HTML and uses Presto layout engine to do the same
Windows Live Mail
Best Email Client For Mac Os And Ios
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Windows Live Mail is one of the most popular email clients, it is a free open source desktop program specially designed for Microsoft users. Also known as Elroy, the program was formerly known as simply Window Mail when users on Vista. Similar to other Microsoft apps such as Outlook and Office Suite, the program is suited for both offices and home use. The calendar, manager, mail filter and reminder are the standard features of the program that account for a robust yet reliable operation.
Top Features:
Best Gmail Client Mac Os X
- The Windows Live Mail is a multi-user platform and offers an extensive ribbon that can be configured as per requirement
- Provides you with an ability to edit the HTML coding and segregate the data in different folders and mailboxes
- Supports DeltaSync and Web DAV HTTP-based protocols. Also, you can now perform full index searches in case the Windows search fails
- The live spell checker, contacts sync, and RSS feed help you finish the tasks faster
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Email clients collect and arrange all your contacts in one place, allowing you to focus on more pressing matters of the business. Good email clients have been a boon for e-communications. And if you want to create a website the you should definitely check our list of 15 best free website builders.