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Mozilla Thunderbird or Mac Mail?

Mozilla Thunberbird of Mac Mail?

  • Thunderbird

    Votes: 28 19.0%

  • Mac Mail

    Votes: 119 81.0%
  • Total voters
    147
M

Mr.PS

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Which on do you use and why? I use Thunderbird because it's what I've used on Windows. I just moved over my profile folder with all of my settings and filters. I'm debating on going with Mac mail since it's native to OSX.

Let's hear your opinions.
 
Mr.PS said:
Mac mail seem'd inviting as it was a native mac app.
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...and currently has the highest vote, although the overall numbers are tiny. I use Mail.app myself as it works well and syncs with .mac, as does Safari, iCal, and Address Book. Keeps everything nice and tidy.
 
Thunderbird.

For some reason Mac Mail did not want to connect through SMTP. Still haven't figured out why, as Thunderbird simply connected. I used it under Windows (after Pegasus quit maintenance), so nothing changed for me. When I have time I will play around with Mac Mail to see why it won't connect as I think Mac Mail would be a better choice with Time Machine (single mail messages vs. one big mail slot that changes all the time).
 
Bobbi Flekman said:
Thunderbird.

For some reason Mac Mail did not want to connect through SMTP. Still haven't figured out why, as Thunderbird simply connected. I used it under Windows (after Pegasus quit maintenance), so nothing changed for me. When I have time I will play around with Mac Mail to see why it won't connect as I think Mac Mail would be a better choice with Time Machine (single mail messages vs. one big mail slot that changes all the time).
Click to expand...

I had that same issue with TLS SMTP in OSX Mail. 🙁
 
hey, i'm new here. i was just googling for stuff on switching from Thunderbird to Mail.

I always wished Thunderbird would sync with iCal or Address Book. Now with the Leopard's new Mail, I figured I'd give it a shot, especially since it looks like there's zero plans to do this. (yeah, there's plaxo. and i use icalx. but these workarounds suck.)

It's just been a day with Mail, but it feels really weird. I'm using it with an Tuffmail IMAP acct. It hasn't operated weird yet, like Staton said about Gmail. At first had it set up with a free .mac trial too, but it defaulted to having multiple accounts dump into one inbox, and one sent folder. Then the two accounts were in the same subfolder underneath. Really weird, so I ended up disabling the .mac.

I'd like to hear more, esp. from these voters who pumped up the Mail numbers.
 
stet said:
hey, i'm new here. i was just googling for stuff on switching from Thunderbird to Mail.

I always wished Thunderbird would sync with iCal or Address Book. Now with the Leopard's new Mail, I figured I'd give it a shot, especially since it looks like there's zero plans to do this. (yeah, there's plaxo. and i use icalx. but these workarounds suck.)

It's just been a day with Mail, but it feels really weird. I'm using it with an Tuffmail IMAP acct. It hasn't operated weird yet, like Staton said about Gmail. At first had it set up with a free .mac trial too, but it defaulted to having multiple accounts dump into one inbox, and one sent folder. Then the two accounts were in the same subfolder underneath. Really weird, so I ended up disabling the .mac.

I'd like to hear more, esp. from these voters who pumped up the Mail numbers.
Click to expand...

Mail.app has to be setup to work with IMAP. Simply adding an IMAP account is not enough. Once you have added the IMAP account, you then need to designate which server folders handle which functions, as in trash -> deleted items, sent -> sent items, etc. I don't remember the specifics as I am at work on a Windows machine, but I can post more details later if interested.
 
ifonline said:
Mail.app has to be setup to work with IMAP. Simply adding an IMAP account is not enough. Once you have added the IMAP account, you then need to designate which server folders handle which functions, as in trash -> deleted items, sent -> sent items, etc. I don't remember the specifics as I am at work on a Windows machine, but I can post more details later if interested.
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and that supposed to be simple? Its folder organization is confusing and unfriendly.

Thunderbird also offers colorful tags, more powerful filters. and different panel layout. Always stable (while mail.app sometimes just got "stuck" and stop receiving emails..)
 
clevin said:
and that supposed to be simple? Its folder organization is confusing and unfriendly.

Thunderbird also offers colorful tags, more powerful filters. and different panel layout. Always stable (while mail.app sometimes just got "stuck" and stop receiving emails..)
Click to expand...

I didn't find it difficult to setup, and with .mac, all my computers are setup the same, so it really wasn't a bad deal at all. Thunderbird is a nice program, and I used it on Windows, but I find Mail.app suits me better. Besides, it has colorful tags (both text and background options) and filters (that I have no idea how the compare to Thunderbird as I don't use them). The different layout is one of the things I like about Mail.app.

But hey, that's not meant to be a minus for Thunderbird as it is a good program. It's just not for me.
 
Mail was nice for a while, and it has a smaller memory footprint, but in the end I got sick of it crashing every 2 hours.

Go with Thunderbird.
 
using Mail currently, works alright. might have to just give thunderbird a go though just to see what its all about. 😛
 
I would try Thunderbird but since i already have my mail set up in Apple Mail I just don't feel like bothering. I don't know how much of a pain it would be but i figure if Apple Mail ain't broke (for me) then don't fix it.
 
prostuff1 said:
I would try Thunderbird but since i already have my mail set up in Apple Mail I just don't feel like bothering. I don't know how much of a pain it would be but i figure if Apple Mail ain't broke (for me) then don't fix it.
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I agree. And Apple Mail is setup with my Address Book and from what I understand, Thunderbird doesn't work with Address Book.

That means, in order to use Thuderbird, I have to keep a second set of contacts for email as I am using iSync for my cell phone contacts and am using a Birthday widget as well.

La di da... Apple Mail will have to work for me.
 
ifonline said:
What doesn't it handle properly? I am using IMAP and everything appears to work just fine.



I don't believe so.
Click to expand...

it doesn't. the only real workaround is to use Plaxo as a go-between, which means giving all your contact's details to that company and letting it spam them, with your name delightfully attached so they can pinpoint the blame.

You also can't publish your iCal directly to Thunderbird's calendar extension, Lightning.

i'm starting to think Mail.app is worth it to have all these things synced so easily. I use iSync with my phone too, and with Thunderbird in the mix, there's always a gap somewhere.
 
Ever since upgrading to Leopard, Mail has been very buggy and doesn't play nice with my IMAP server. I've been using Thunderbird lately and it's much more stable. I don't do much with address book or iCal auto-syncs, so it's not much of a problem for me.
 
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