Spark the best [update: a good] email client for BOTH macOS & iOS

[jon08]

@SteveJobzniak Well, but still I use IMAP on my Gmail accounts.

Just tried Edison email - total mail count 677 - same as Airmail. So, the same crap as far as I'm concerned.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

So that confirms that 677 is the exact count delivered to external clients by Gmail's server. Airmail and Edison Mail are both correct. And Spark is wrong (a few are missing).

Well, interestingly you've proven that Spark has issues on Gmail too, not just on IMAP. Wow. Their client just gets harder and harder to recommend. I thought their code issue just affected certain 3rd party IMAP servers, because I had never noticed any issues with my Gmail account on it. But it seems like their message-listing bugs may affect any account regardless of provider.

By the way, there is a way to get Spark to see all emails in any folder. Use a proper email client (Apple Mail, Gmail, Edison, Airmail, etc), and select all emails. Mark them all as read, and mark them all as unread again. Then visit the folder in Spark again. It will then see all emails. What a pathetic email client...

 

[jagooch]

Spark is still a thing? I tried it last year and switched back to Airmail for the integration with other services. To be honest, Apple mail is probably good enough for most people.

 

[jon08]

I've switched back to Apple Mail and don't really regret it. It's a compromise you need to make but at the end of the day it seems to work seamlessly (no pun intended), which is what matters. I still wish Apple could add some of the features like:

- instant new mail notifications rather than fetch
- option to add more than attachments from the email *itself*, rather than having to select several photos first and then open them in Mail
- UNDO send mail
- TouchID unlock

I'll keep Spark installed as a "backup" email app in case some email might not get displayed properly (it happened once before that Apple Mail wouldn't render an email correctly, so all I could see was a bunch of signs rather than text with embedded pics, but when I opened that email in Spark or Airmail it displayed correctly). But until they add to Spark the features I've been requesting for ages I'll stay on Apple Mail.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@jon08 You could try what I'm trying: I have installed Edison Mail (https://mail.edison.tech/), but I use Apple Mail for everything. I just use Edison to get push notifications about the new emails so that I know they exist.

So far I only have it for the notifications and have not switched to actually using Edison for my emailing, but I may eventually do that. It's much more reliable than Spark, and faster too.

---

Edit: Here is what Edison does out of your list:

- Push notifications.
- I think it has the easy attachment handling you mention, but I don't know since I don't use it.
- Undo send emails. You have an undo button for any action.
- "Touch ID Protection - Keep your email accounts private and secure without sacrificing the convenience of quick access."
- Everything else a modern client needs like fast email search, snoozing, etc.

 

[jon08]

^Thanks, I'll see.

 

[redgreenski]

I've switched back to Apple Mail and don't really regret it. It's a compromise you need to make but at the end of the day it seems to work seamlessly (no pun intended), which is what matters. I still wish Apple could add some of the features

I went through the same process. But I uninstalled Spark mail due to their privacy policy. I reconfigured apple mail for the UI to be a little bit more clear and it works well.

 

[jon08]

I went through the same process. But I uninstalled Spark mail due to their privacy policy. I reconfigured apple mail for the UI to be a little bit more clear and it works well.

What about their policy?

 

[neil74]

What about their policy?

This.....
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5grsan/do_not_use_the_spark_email_client_by_readdle/

 

[nnoble]

If a 'reputable' company like Readdle do this then there is no hope. I use and depend upon all their major apps.

 

[jon08]

That's disappointing indeed....

 

[redgreenski]

What about their policy?

Same as most 3rd party email apps. They sell your private information to advertisers either directly or indirectly. I still use their other apps like scanner and PDF editor but with caution and with limited permissions.

 

[bwintx]

One problem with Edison Email is that, at least so far as I can tell so far, it can't show your "Sent" items in conversations from an Exchange account (as opposed to a GMail account, which does show "Sent" items). Workaround, anybody?

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@bwintx Try going into advanced account settings to look for the folder choices. See if Sent is mapped to Sent on the server. If you cannot find the option then it means Exchange is auto-detected and cannot be manually changed. If so, submit a bug report to them about the issue you are having with Sent items.

 

[bwintx]

@bwintx Try going into advanced account settings to look for the folder choices. See if Sent is mapped to Sent on the server. If you cannot find the option then it means Exchange is auto-detected and cannot be manually changed. If so, submit a bug report to them about the issue you are having with Sent items.

Guess that's the case. Checked both Edison Email and the Exchange account in iOS 11's "Accounts and Passwords" settings. But thanks!

EDIT the next day:
Submitted a bug report about it. We shall see.

Further EDIT the day after that:
Received a reply saying: "Thanks for your message, and our apologies for the confusion – threading is only available for Gmail accounts for now. We hope to expand threading to other accounts in the future, but until then we'll do our best to specify that this feature is limited to Gmail accounts with future updates."
Maybe, by the time Edison implements this, the version for macOS will be ready, too. Hey, one can hope.

 

[Wreckus]

I would love to switch to Airmail or Spark; however, it never shows all my folders that I have set up in Outlook.com (hotmail account). The only program that shows all folders is all the apple mail apps.

I will not go to the MS outlook app either.

 

[bwintx]

I would love to switch to Airmail or Spark; however, it never shows all my folders that I have set up in Outlook.com (hotmail account). The only program that shows all folders is all the apple mail apps.

I will not go to the MS outlook app either.

In Airmail, one of its tons of per-account settings is Sync Labels, although it's for only when you're on WiFi and on AC power (which, ironically enough, is the only way iOS 11 Apple Mail does Gmail push, but I digress...). Does that get you what you want?

 

[Wreckus]

In Airmail, one of its tons of per-account settings is Sync Labels, although it's for only when you're on WiFi and on AC power (which, ironically enough, is the only way iOS 11 Apple Mail does Gmail push, but I digress...). Does that get you what you want?

I’ll have to try that again later as it didn’t work last time.

 

[Wreckus]

Tried Airmail on IOS and it didn’t sync all my outlook/hotmail folders, even after I selected sync all folders and was plugged in and on wifi.

Is this an airmail/Spark limitation or an outlook.com limitation and its time to move to gmail or iCloud mail.

 

[bwintx]

Tried Airmail on IOS and it didn’t sync all my outlook/hotmail folders, even after I selected sync all folders and was plugged in and on wifi.

Is this an airmail/Spark limitation or an outlook.com limitation and its time to move to gmail or iCloud mail.

I have found Outlook folders can take quite a while -- days, in fact -- to finish syncing. Don't know about Hotmail because I don't use it. Of course, if you mean there's absolutely no syncing occurring, that's a totally different problem.

This may be of interest:
http://docs.airmailapp.com/airmail-for-mac/accounts/hotmail-or-live-account-airmail-for-macos

 

[Wreckus]

I have found Outlook folders can take quite a while -- days, in fact -- to finish syncing. Don't know about Hotmail because I don't use it. Of course, if you mean there's absolutely no syncing occurring, that's a totally different problem.

This may be of interest:
http://docs.airmailapp.com/airmail-for-mac/accounts/hotmail-or-live-account-airmail-for-macos

I may try that but I think I'll stick with apple mail.

One thing that I find amusing is that when I cleaned up/purged a bunch of folders in outlook.com and try spark email again, I get less folders than before. Think I went from maybe 20 to 7 main folders (there are subfolders as well) and I only saw I think 4 or 5 of my main folders (already deleted the app again). Which doesn't make sense.

 

[David Murray]

Spark is still a thing? I tried it last year and switched back to Airmail for the integration with other services. To be honest, Apple mail is probably good enough for most people.

It's been updated last week. Maybe it's time to give it a second chance

 

[bwintx]

It's been updated last week. Maybe it's time to give it a second chance

Not based on what @SteveJobzniak said earlier in this thread, apparently...
[doublepost=1508358195][/doublepost]

I may try that but I think I'll stick with apple mail.

One thing that I find amusing is that when I cleaned up/purged a bunch of folders in outlook.com and try spark email again, I get less folders than before. Think I went from maybe 20 to 7 main folders (there are subfolders as well) and I only saw I think 4 or 5 of my main folders (already deleted the app again). Which doesn't make sense.

I would dearly love to settle on both Apple's mail clients in both iOS and macOS, I really would, but: (a.) the whole p***ing contest with GMail push is a show-stopper for me; (b.) I don't plan to undo 12 years' worth of giving out my Gmail address to people and companies; and (c.) I'm not going through any of the methods I've seen regarding forwarding Gmail to my iCloud account or something like that.

I wish Apple would simply adopt the method used by Airmail, Edison Email, Spark, etc., and let its servers hold the mail and push it to its clients. (I have often heard it said Apple should just do like Microsoft did with Accompli, now Outlook for iOS, and buy one of the better third-party clients. Right now, that would be Edison Email if it had threading for anything other than Gmail. As I said earlier in this thread, Edison says that's TBD when that'll happen.) After all, I trust Apple's servers to hold my iCloud files; so I'd trust Apple's servers to hold my Gmail for push purposes. I understand Apple's position on this re mail privacy and all that, but I don't grasp the difference between holding one's files and holding one's mail. Maybe somebody can "explain it like I'm five," as they say on Reddit.

EDIT: My mistake. The third-party mail apps store your credentials, not your mail.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@bwintx Yep, I very recently verified that they still have the ridiculously serious IMAP bug. My post is a few pages back.

If they ever fix it I may come back. Maybe. Although it's pretty unlikely due to how I've (as a serious programmer) have seen how bad their codebase must be to take this long to fix a serious "missing IMAP emails randomly" issue that their engineers confirmed over half a year ago and were given a 24/7 test-account to use for fixing it. And yet it's still broken. That means their whole email syncing codebase is rigid and badly coded. It also explains why they've got problems with their undo-timer system (it can corrupt Spark's folder database if you press undo in various quick orders). I don't trust Spark at all. It's a mess. And it's so sluggish (the whole GUI is slow like syrup on iOS).

I love their other apps. Documents and Scanner Pro are amazing.

I am now much more interested in Edison with the way those guys are innovating. Edison is very clean and fast. Blazingly fast message searching. Seems to respond rapidly to bugs. And they're building everything they are around that app, so you know they care (unlike Readdle Spark).

Thank GOD they renamed it from "EasilyDo Mail". That was honestly a pretty ridiculous name and a big ick factor for me earlier.

Edison is the one I use now alongside Apple Mail. I do all email business in Apple Mail but I have Edison installed so that I get push notifications for everything. I'm probably going to move full-time to Edison eventually, because it's pretty damn nice every time I open it. I'd need to wait for the (in-progress) Mac client first before I'd be willing to break the working Apple Mail+Apple Mail combo I have going right now. I'm not in this life just to switch email clients every six months, hehe.

https://mail.edison.tech

https://twitter.com/Edison_apps/status/907318315730706433

https://twitter.com/Edison_apps/status/914926848496230400

 

[David Murray]

Not based on what @SteveJobzniak said earlier in this thread, apparently...
[doublepost=1508358195][/doublepost]

I would dearly love to settle on both Apple's mail clients in both iOS and macOS, I really would, but: (a.) the whole p***ing contest with GMail push is a show-stopper for me; (b.) I don't plan to undo 12 years' worth of giving out my Gmail address to people and companies; and (c.) I'm not going through any of the methods I've seen regarding forwarding Gmail to my iCloud account or something like that.

I wish Apple would simply adopt the method used by Airmail, Edison Email, Spark, etc., and let its servers hold the mail and push it to its clients. (I have often heard it said Apple should just do like Microsoft did with Accompli, now Outlook for iOS, and buy one of the better third-party clients. Right now, that would be Edison Email if it had threading for anything other than Gmail. As I said earlier in this thread, Edison says that's TBD when that'll happen.) After all, I trust Apple's servers to hold my iCloud files; so I'd trust Apple's servers to hold my Gmail for push purposes. I understand Apple's position on this re mail privacy and all that, but I don't grasp the difference between holding one's files and holding one's mail. Maybe somebody can "explain it like I'm five," as they say on Reddit.

EDIT: My mistake. The third-party mail apps store your credentials, not your mail.

Sorry, haven't read entire thread, but I've answered Wreckus's comment Spark has been updated, so maybe it's time to try it...or not