Unibox - A New Take on the OS X Mail Client

[miknos]

Originally Posted by philr5150

I'm asking this question out of genuine interest, I don't want to start a flame war or anything </disclaimer>

I work as an Email admin for a moderately large company, so I do understand email and the technologies involved. I'm interested to know why, for people who use email clients, why you like using clients rather than the web-based front ends or services. Is it because via the browser you miss key/important features? Work in areas with poor connectivity? Need offline functionality? Does the front end web interface just plain suck?

Again, NOT wanting to start arguments or a "this is better than that" thing - just very interested in how or why people use actual mail clients.

-Multiple accounts in one client might be the first thing.
-To work OFFLINE (work on a plane) and with a decent SEARCH.
-Just leave the client open for notifications (I use gmail notifier).
-One familiar UI for all used services (gmail, aol, hotmail, etc). Even better would be to change the CSS.

[vjl323]

Originally Posted by brichardson

If you want to win over the hearts of many mac users (make that many COMPUTER users) - make an email app that is fully compliant with the latest specs for SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols. That includes all extensions, such as encrypted email, MIME compliant, etc. Give me a client that allows me to design beautiful HTML5 emails and store them as templates. Let me pull in content from various places, (yes, even from Social Networking sites). Make sure it works with web based email as well as possible. Add the proper handling of RSS feeds. Add the ability to script the client, and integrate it with the rest of the OS as much as possible. Support calendaring, note taking, and tasks.

In short, make it an EMAIL app... once you do that, if you still want to add social networking to it, then knock yourselves out.

You might want to look at PostBox - it's not perfect, but it is very, very, VERY close, and nearly all your punch list above is taken care of. They have a free trial on their site too. http://postbox-inc.com/index.php [a direct, non-affiliate link - just a happy customer, who paid more than $10 for each license - they've lowered the price to $10, and in my book, it's a no-brainer - I've been very happy since pre-version 1 from a few years ago].

[verniesgarden]

Originally Posted by philr5150

I'm asking this question out of genuine interest, I don't want to start a flame war or anything </disclaimer>

I work as an Email admin for a moderately large company, so I do understand email and the technologies involved. I'm interested to know why, for people who use email clients, why you like using clients rather than the web-based front ends or services. Is it because via the browser you miss key/important features? Work in areas with poor connectivity? Need offline functionality? Does the front end web interface just plain suck?

Again, NOT wanting to start arguments or a "this is better than that" thing - just very interested in how or why people use actual mail clients.

I think for me, it's I tend to just be adverse to browser based applications. I'm not sure if it's do to the stigma of webapps just being slow and clunky.

another reason I feel stand alone apps still stand strong is for those of us that have multiple emails from multiple sources like having one unified station to check our email. look it as having a post office box and a home address, it becomes a hassle to pick up your mail from multiple locations.

just my 2 cents.

[jmbill]

Looks good. But then again, almost anything is going to be better than the buggy, crashy, memory-sucking, synced mess that is mail.app!

I'd gladly hand over $50 - $100 in exchange for a quality crafted email application that works reliably and has a decent GUI. Mac users deserve a lot better.

[philr5150]

Originally Posted by verniesgarden

another reason I feel stand alone apps still stand strong is for those of us that have multiple emails from multiple sources like having one unified station to check our email. look it as having a post office box and a home address, it becomes a hassle to pick up your mail from multiple locations.

Yes, would totally agree with that. One place for all accounts does make things easier. I really haven't used a standalone client for personal email in over 3 years but I am trying really hard to give Mail an attempt at proving useful. Not new to computers but new to Mac, it's taking a bit of getting used to the way things are done on OS X... but I'm trying :-)

[pubwvj]

The problem is these are a dime a dozen and they don't last. I want a tool that works, that does the job, that lasts. I don't want to relearn it frequently. I just want to do my stuff.

So any new tool is at a tremendous disadvantage. It has to be a lot better and I have to have confidence it will be there in ten years and preferably longer.

[D.T.]

Originally Posted by philr5150

I'm asking this question out of genuine interest, I don't want to start a flame war or anything </disclaimer>

I'd say my main reason is a centralized, standardized email solution for many different email sources, with common behaviors like "smart boxes", tagging, etc. I haven't messed around much with the new outlook.com interface, but every web based email client seemed to be lacking or two key features I needed.

I also like some of the interoperability from a desktop client, like creating calendar items or contacts (I know some web clients do this across their own services like Google apps, but I use my machine as the "hub" to sync to all my other devices). The other day I made a reminder by dragging an email into the Reminders app, and it kept a link to the original source email (could be done by referencing a URL, but was quick and seamless).

I kind of dig on Mail.app, it's almost everything I need in terms of managing emails (rules, tagging, smart boxes).

The one feature I miss from Outlook is the ability to schedule an email for delivery*. There are some scripts that do this using automator but they're a little clunky.





* reason for this available upon request

[Le Big Mac]

Originally Posted by nutmac

You can configure Hotmail via Exchange ActiveSync (Arstechnica: Windows Live Hotmail gets Exchange ActiveSync), and use Exchange clients such as Outlook or OS X Mail.

Yet, oddly, the new outlook.com email appears not to support IMAP.

[taojones]

i would pay anything for an app that would keep spammers completely out and truly deliver only mail from people in my address book or who have my address exactly right
amen

taojones

[arn]

Originally Posted by taojones

i would pay anything for an app that would keep spammers completely out and truly deliver only mail from people in my address book or who have my address exactly right
amen

taojones

there are Challenge/Response systems that will whitelist real people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challen...spam_filtering

arn

[verniesgarden]

Originally Posted by taojones

i would pay anything for an app that would keep spammers completely out and truly deliver only mail from people in my address book or who have my address exactly right
amen

taojones

you can kind of hack mails new VIP to do this, just add every one to it and make a mail rule ot put everyone else to trash, not the most elegant way, but works.

[bradhs]

I also need true hotmail support and found an amazing app called mBox. It basically manages communications between Hotmail and Mac Mail. To Mac Mail is just looks like IMAP. Crazy and amazing!!

http://fluentfactory.com/mboxmail-for-mac/

Oh, first time I installed it it took up a crap load of memory and CPU. After it grabs and syncs all the data it will return to normal after a reboot.

Originally Posted by Rudy69

Support Hotmail (properly, not through POP3) and I will buy it..... even if it cost $49

[phpmaven]

Originally Posted by taojones

i would pay anything for an app that would keep spammers completely out and truly deliver only mail from people in my address book or who have my address exactly right
amen

taojones

How are you getting email from people who don't have your address "exactly right"?

[rufwork]

Originally Posted by Rudy69

Support Hotmail (properly, not through POP3) and I will buy it..... even if it cost $49

Hotmail doesn't support IMAP, and Exchange isn't exactly an open standard. If you're stuck on Hotmail, even with the very impressive Outlook.com overhaul, you're going to be limited to a pretty small set of clients if you won't take POP3.

Thunderbird has a couple of plugins that try to do Exchange, but are buggy, and Evolution (Exchange compatible client on Linux) has issues too.

I think someone could do a great stand-alone client for hotmail, but it'd have to do its own cloud support.

[albusseverus]

I have few complaints about Mail, other than what I consider bugs - claiming POP email password is wrong for a time-out, showing every saved draft in gmail.

I don't need it to do fancy rules, just need it to work, well.

I tried Sparrow and just couldn't see the point. It left too much out for work situations. Maybe for social emails it was fine… and that's what appears to be happening here - 'social' blended with email. If you're new, and social is how you communicate, I guess that's fine.

I always envisaged social as separate Tabs in Mail - one for Skype, one for Twitter, one for Chat/Messages, RSS, Facebook if you must, all those things. SEPARATE, because they all have purposes, but different purposes, that I need to keep WELL away from each other.

Somebody finds a good filing system that covers these disparate message types, and cloud syncs it, and still allows me to partition the streams - I'm in. But shoving it all into one In Box, that's nasty.

[cvaldes]

Originally Posted by philr5150

I'm interested to know why, for people who use email clients, why you like using clients rather than the web-based front ends or services.

Again, NOT wanting to start arguments or a "this is better than that" thing - just very interested in how or why people use actual mail clients.

Well, security for one. Standalone mail clients have fewer exploits than web browsers.

Speed is another. Having my iPhone check one IMAP account is pretty quick. The Mail app is pretty lightweight compared to a web browser; the interface is very fast and doesn't include junky ads, unlike webmail.

At home, my Mac has four accounts configured. Yes, I could have the other three accounts forward to my primary account, but I don't want to do that. Two of the other accounts are used for junk mail. I don't want these accounts forwarding messages. The third is a legacy account that rarely has any traffic. Sadly, that service provider's junk mail filters aren't very good, so I tend to get more spam in that inbox, again something I don't want forwarded along.

Yes, I could fire up four webmail instances in a tabbed browser, but it would be slower than just firing up the Mail app on my Mac. And using the standalone mail application, how many news items, photos, ads, do I need to look at before I open my first e-mail message? None. Nada. Zilch. Plus, I'm not waiting for UI elements or "rich media" to download.

Also, with more mail providers, you get more webmail interfaces. It's pretty tiresome going from one webmail to another, the buttons are never in the same place, etc., especially if a banner ad squeaks by, etc.

With a standalone mail client, the user interface remains constant, regardless of the e-mail hosting provider: Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, GMX, whatever. I don't have to hunt around for constantly changing UI buttons. Heck, even different web browsers render the same webmail site differently. And some browsers aren't even supported. You can't use iCab on AOL Phoenix, you're forced to use a legacy webmail interface.

And worse, the same webmail provider may have multiple GUIs. Yahoo Mail can be accessed via a variety of My Yahoo! widgets. Worse, the full-blown webmail has at least three interfaces: Classic Yahoo! Mail, new Yahoo! Mail (was Beta), and there's a tablet-oriented Yahoo! webmail that's totally different from the previous two.

And let's not even bother to discuss the topic of webmail keyboard shortcuts...

Note that the iOS Mail app will run in the background, using pretty minimal resources. At home, if I am not actively reading e-mail, I will often have the Mail.app off. That's right: nothing to bother me. No notifications, no dock badge, etc. Yeah, I can hear incoming message notifications on my phone, but often I'll ignore them.

One thing for sure, the iOS Mail app makes it easy to quickly scan through your e-mail with one hand, usually with just my thumb.

Another idiosyncrasy of the iOS Mail app that I love is the fact that I don't know how many junk messages I have unless I deliberately go inside the folder. One less distraction. On my iPhone, it's even better as I typically am just looking at the Inbox. Unread messages in other folders? I won't see them, unless I back out and look at the Mailboxes view.

Another issue is integration with Contacts and Calendar. If I get an e-mail from a new address for an existing contact, it's pretty easy for me to associate it with that contact, particularly on my iPhone. It's far clunkier trying to do this on webmail. Contact management is atrocious if you are using more than one webmail interface. Webmail address book UIs vary a lot more than the webmail UIs.

For me, life is far easier thinking of webmail providers as dumb pipes. I don't really care about Gmail/Yahoo! Mail/AOL/whoever's interface. I just need your IMAP server for incoming mail/message storage (and spam filtering) and your SMTP server for outgoing mail.

The main benefit I can see from my webmail providers is filtering. You set it up, then get on with your life. Incoming messages get routed to certain folders.

[ArtOfWarfare]

This sounds really interesting. I definitely like the ideas. I'll need a free demo to decide whether they're actually good ideas or not, though.

I have a few questions regarding multiple accounts... what if you receive emails that are from the same organization, and as far as you're concerned it's all heading the same way, but technically it's from different employees? For example, I receive a butt ton of US election emails from a variety of candidates. The Romney ones in particular are sent from a lot of different people. They're all interesting, but I don't want them to be spread out as from ten different people... it's all from Romney himself for all I care.

Also, what about my having multiple email addresses? I have one that friends and family use, one that classmates use, and one that coworkers use... but some of my coworkers or classmates are also friends, so sometimes conversations take place across my multiple accounts. How well will those be integrated?

[SiriusExcelsior]

Originally Posted by cvaldes

Well, security for one.
Speed is another.
At home, my Mac has four accounts configured.
Yes, I could fire up four webmail instances in a tabbed browser, but it would be slower than just firing up the Mail app on my Mac.
Plus, I'm not waiting for UI elements or "rich media" to download.
With a standalone mail client, the user interface remains constant, regardless of the e-mail hosting provider.
And let's not even bother to discuss the topic of webmail keyboard shortcuts...
Another issue is integration with Contacts and Calendar.
For me, life is far easier thinking of webmail providers as dumb pipes. I just need your IMAP server for incoming mail/message storage and your SMTP server for outgoing mail.
The main benefit I can see from my webmail providers is filtering. You set it up, then get on with your life. Incoming messages get routed to certain folders.

Great points there, and I also use Mail.app for many of those reasons (some of which I hadn't realised until you pointed it out )

A few more points I'd like to add is that:

1. Searching for mail is much faster. I don't have to care which account the email was sent to/from, nor am I at the mercy of transient internet slowdowns.
2. I can access all my mail without internet*. Perhaps not a problem in many countries, but in certain backward, isolated countries coughNZcough, that's a major plus.
3. No size/service restrictions. Mailbox size isn't a big issue anymore, but remember when everyone used Hotmail because they offered an oh-so-generous 3MB ? My first email account was with Excite (Xtra); their email service went under a couple of years afterwards, so I lost all my emails (including my first ever emails! ). Even now, MobileMe (aka iCloud) would occasionally be "undergoing maintenance". Doesn't affect me anymore.

(* "free" public internet at cafes, etc don't count. Email is one thing I'd never use on a network I don't fully trust.)

[cvaldes]

Originally Posted by SiriusExcelsior

A few more points I'd like to add is that:

• Searching for mail is much faster. I don't have to care which account the email was sent to/from, nor am I at the mercy of transient internet slowdowns.

Actually, this is one of the pitfalls of Gmail. Google doesn't want you to delete e-mail, they want it to accumulate so they can analyze it for their ad clients.

However, searching through large amounts of mail doesn't scale well for humans because you end up wading through lots of search results. You need to delete old/irrelevant stuff. But Google doesn't want you to do that... They want you to keep that Amazon e-mail confirming shipment of Widget X way back in November 2008.

Google's search function scales well on a technical level. It doesn't scale well on a human consumption level. It's like going into a restaurant with a huge menu (hundreds of items). It'll take you longer to choose and chances are, you'll pick something that isn't the best. If you look at a restaurant menu with 4-6 items, you'll choose quickly and have a better chance of getting something that you like.

Unsurprisingly, Apple deliberately limits the number of SKUs of available products and they have the highest customer satisfaction and retention rates.

• No size/service restrictions. Mailbox size isn't a big issue anymore, but remember when everyone used Hotmail because they offered an oh-so-generous 3MB ? My first email account was with Excite (Xtra); their email service went under a couple of years afterwards, so I lost all my emails (including my first ever emails! ). Even now, MobileMe (aka iCloud) would occasionally be "undergoing maintenance". Doesn't affect me anymore.

Hotmail was cool before it was acquired by Microsoft. After the acquisition, the mailbox size decreased to the point where it was about 2MB and pretty much useless. Two messages with attachments could fill up your inbox. Most of their competitors were 5-10MB, but it was pretty horrific. Credit Google who actually started the trend to offer more e-mail space. After that, it was comical how these webmail providers were tripping over their own shoelaces trying to offer more storage space.

Oddly enough, Yahoo does not have any published quotas on mailbox storage. It's unlimited. Even Google won't claim that. Yahoo was an also-ran for many years in mail, but they quietly added IMAP support more recently.

Again, unlimited message inboxes aren't really a key advantage. You need to delete messages.

[Kar98]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

Hotmail? People still use that?

Hell yeah. Not for e-mail though. Free 25 GB SkyDrive = better than Dropbox and iCloud combined.

[cvaldes]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

Hotmail? People still use that?

Hell yeah.

Not for legitimate communications though. It's my junk mail inbox. You know, when you need to give an e-mail address to sign up for some contest or participate in an Internet forum. That's about the only time. I can easily go six months without logging into Hotmail and I certainly won't let my standalone mail client grab messages from the Hotmail servers.

It was funnier when Hotmail had a atrociously pathetic 2MB storage limit. Send your Hotmail account a 1.9MB attachment then have it bounce back messages.

For me, that's the real value of webmail: accessing certain mail accounts that are meant for junk and spam that I wouldn't want to normally access.

[MattInOz]

Originally Posted by philr5150

I'm asking this question out of genuine interest, I don't want to start a flame war or anything </disclaimer>

I work as an Email admin for a moderately large company, so I do understand email and the technologies involved. I'm interested to know why, for people who use email clients, why you like using clients rather than the web-based front ends or services. Is it because via the browser you miss key/important features? Work in areas with poor connectivity? Need offline functionality? Does the front end web interface just plain suck?

Again, NOT wanting to start arguments or a "this is better than that" thing - just very interested in how or why people use actual mail clients.

Well even the best HTML5 web Frontend is still not very good. Much better than days of old but still not a good enough for the compromise.

Then there is the trust issues, webservices are out of hands. So one day may break, shut down or get hacked. A local copy helps with all these things, and I can archive locally to reduce the exposed information or store for record keeping.

Rules and filtering on web front ends tend to be poor, yet with a real client I can use them to push non-urgent mail off to the background, or highlight mail that should have high level response. Plus if I filter stuff in to various box based on projects and the like I can still smart folder them together in ways that suit the task at hand which web clients don't like.

[green penguen]

it looks very interesting.. I would give it a try rather than using Mail

[Northgrove]

Seconding the Postbox suggestion.

I think this is the best mail app for Mac right now. A very "complete" application.

[coder12]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

Hotmail? People still use that?

I thought only teenage girls used that.