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Apple Mail vs. Gmail

mankar4

mankar4

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
are there any serious advantages in the Apple Mail client over using the web based gmail client? I really like gmail, but maybe i am missing some to-die-for feature in apple mail?
 
mankar4 said:
are there any serious advantages in the Apple Mail client over using the web based gmail client? I really like gmail, but maybe i am missing some to-die-for feature in apple mail?
Click to expand...

I love Mail.app, firstly its an app on my computer so its slightly more convenient than using the web based stuff.
Spotlight-like search from within the app.
You can use Adium for Gmail chat
Nice junk filtering
Rules, I get all my facebook notifications to not even appear in the inbox
Smart Folders
It's an Apple app 😀
All your stuff is stored locally so if gmail is down one day you can access all the old stuff you have.
 
Jasonbot said:
I love Mail.app, firstly its an app on my computer so its slightly more convenient than using the web based stuff.
Spotlight-like search from within the app.
You can use Adium for Gmail chat
Nice junk filtering
Rules, I get all my facebook notifications to not even appear in the inbox
Smart Folders
It's an Apple app 😀
All your stuff is stored locally so if gmail is down one day you can access all the old stuff you have.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

I also forgot that Adium can have multiple networks open at once, ie., MSN, Gmail, AOL. Now I'm having fun!!
 
Jasonbot said:
I love Mail.app, firstly its an app on my computer so its slightly more convenient than using the web based stuff.
Spotlight-like search from within the app.
You can use Adium for Gmail chat
Nice junk filtering
Rules, I get all my facebook notifications to not even appear in the inbox
Smart Folders
It's an Apple app 😀
All your stuff is stored locally so if gmail is down one day you can access all the old stuff you have.
Click to expand...

I like it being web based because then I can access the same exact thing from any computer, and who doesn't have a browser open almost all the time anyway.
You don't have to use mail.app to have adium do gmail...
Gmail already has amazing junk filtering.
Oh, and gmail will NOT be down for a day!

I'm not say mail.app is bad; I just think there is little reason to use it with gmail for my needs.
 
Craiger said:
I like it being web based because then I can access the same exact thing from any computer, and who doesn't have a browser open almost all the time anyway.
You don't have to use mail.app to have adium do gmail...
Gmail already has amazing junk filtering.
Oh, and gmail will NOT be down for a day!

I'm not say mail.app is bad; I just think there is little reason to use it with gmail for my needs.
Click to expand...

They're not mutually exclusive. Use Gmail through mail for all the features of Mail, and check it online when you are away from your home system.
 
I just love using it right in the OS rather than typing gmail.com in and entering my username and password. I have Mail set to check my account every minute so I'll always have my e-mail quickly. It works fantastically. 🙂
 
The advantage of using it through mail is not having to open up the browser and I that saves a lot of time when you have to check six email addresses 😉
So mail is the killer app for me
 
iMacBook said:
I just love using it right in the OS rather than typing gmail.com in and entering my username and password. I have Mail set to check my account every minute so I'll always have my e-mail quickly. It works fantastically. 🙂
Click to expand...

You could always use a bookmark and the save password function? Even though I'm FOR mail.app I thought I'd just point it out.
 
Jasonbot said:
You could always use a bookmark and the save password function? Even though I'm FOR mail.app I thought I'd just point it out.
Click to expand...

Just to be safe. I usually don't save passwords on very important web sites, Gmail being on of them. A random person can come by and type gmail.com and then ave instant access to my 8 e-mails. So, it provides security.



Quick question: Do anybody know how to make a mailbox then when mail is acquired from x@x.com, it is automatically sent to the trash?
 
iMacBook said:
Quick question: Do anybody know how to make a mailbox then when mail is acquired from x@x.com, it is automatically sent to the trash?
Click to expand...

Set up a rule:
picture1xr1.png
 
When I first started using Gmail (strictly speaking, Google Apps), I used it with mail.app because that's what I've always used. However, I quickly realised that the web client in Google gives you greater functionality such as labels acting as smart folders, google searching and filtering and threaded conversations. I've been using the web client exclusively for the last six months and find it much, much better than any traditional app for gmail. Maybe if they ever introduce IMAP support I'll try mail.app again but until then...
 
Wow. I use Mail.app all the time but I had no idea I could set up custom rules and stuff. Definitely going to be making a Facebook rule when I get home.
 
Saw this topic and I'm nervous to bring it back up but since its only been 8 days since last reply...

I currently use Gmail because I don't -trust- having my emails all on my computer. Windows right now. But maybe I should have an offline application. I thought about Thunderbird, but I'm wondering if the new Mac Mail will woo me over. It really didn't impress me in Jaguar (back when I had a working blueberry clamshell iBook, lol!)

I'd love to see people's pros and cons of using mail offline. I've currently got all my email addresses diverting to gmail, which is hella easy. But would I change it so that they all go to the offline mail client, or even just that one gmail account being redirected to the offline client? So many ideas.

And then there's the obvious drive space clutter. Its easy for me to go into gmail, search through my mail and click and delete large batches of email I really don't need. Gmail also groups all the messages in a conversation into one click so I don't need to go finding a whole bunch of individual messages.

I dunno. I just like gmail, over what windows offers anyways. Maybe they have an offline mail application of somekind themselves. But anyways pros and cons of having online/offline mail please? 🙂

😱
 
mikelong622 said:
Wow. I use Mail.app all the time but I had no idea I could set up custom rules and stuff. Definitely going to be making a Facebook rule when I get home.
Click to expand...

Within Facebook you can choose which e-mails are sent to you: Log into Facebook, click 'account' at the top right, then click 'Notifications' 🙂
 
I stopped using a local mail client years ago. I like the gmail interface and using it means my mail looks exactly the same where ever I go, for me this is more important than a few added features of a local client (whatever they are, gmail does everything I could want).
 
i used to just use gmail on the web, but lately i've been using mail, and syncing with my iPhone. love it
 
I use Mail to sync my multiple gmail accounts. The Spam filter is pretty decent, catches some of the stuff that gets past the gmail filter, and you can bounce suspicious messages back to the sender so they think it is a dead address.

Smart mailboxes are terrific, as is the integration that it has with the rest of the OS (especially in Leopard). I also like having a local backup of all my emails, just a redundancy thing. I just like having a separate email client on my local machine, have liked it that way for years. I like gmail and I use gmail when i am away from my system, but mail is just so stinking easy to use
 
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