Is the .Mac mail any good? Or should I stick with Gmail?

[-Josh-]

I have a Gmail account, but my new MB is shipping with a year subscription to .Mac. Should I use my Gmail with Mail in my Mac, or, is it worth using a specific .Mac email?

Thanks...

Josh

 

[swiftaw]

Now that Gmail allows IMAP access there really is no difference.

(I cannot stand POP servers, so IMAP access alone was worth it for me to get .Mac)

 

[cmaier]

Now that Gmail allows IMAP access there really is no difference.

(I cannot stand POP servers, so IMAP access alone was worth it for me to get .Mac)

gmail still works even if you decide to stop paying for .mac

 

[-Josh-]

gmail still works even if you decide to stop paying for .mac

Yeah i know. But I heard you can corrolate Mail and Gmail. When you first start it up, it asks for you Gmail, yahoo, or .Mac account.

At this point, should I.
Make a new email with .Mac.
or put my gmail one in there?

 

[cmaier]

Yeah i know. But I heard you can corrolate Mail and Gmail. When you first start it up, it asks for you Gmail, yahoo, or .Mac account.

At this point, should I.
Make a new email with .Mac.
or put my gmail one in there?

you can use multiple accounts, if you want.

if you already use gmail, might as well stick with it (but make sure you set it up for imap, not pop).

 

[Oirectine]

I use both in Mail.app set up as IMAP accounts, and they both act exactly the same, except Gmail has a lot of extra folders that you can't delete.

 

[djejrejk]

except Gmail has a lot of extra folders that you can't delete.

You can fix this, I did it last night. Mailbox > use this mailbox for > Junk/ Spam/ Trash/ etc*

 

[queshy]

stick with gmail...and it was the biggest joke setting up gmail with leopard. Literally, type in your username and password and that's it.

 

[byakuya]

I have to agree with most of the people here...
now that gmail has imap and is totally free with a great spamfilter and a huge storage this is the way to go...

 

[BossHogg]

If you don't mind me asking....what's the problem with using POP ? Less efficient ?

 

[byakuya]

If you don't mind me asking....what's the problem with using POP ? Less efficient ?

it's just the matter of how you use your account.
the big advantage imap offers is that it doesn't matter how you access your email account everything is synced.
let's say you use mail and occasionally access your account via browser also (during vacations when you don't have your macbook with you).
the inbox only shows email as unread that really hasn't been read by you yet.
if you use pop with apple mail all the emails that you haven't read via browser are marked unread...this can get annoying with time.

so yes imap actually is a whole lot more efficient than pop if you want to access you account via iphone, imac, macbook, browser etc.

hope i was able to clarify the difference a little.

 

[Cybergypsy]

Gmail all the way, mac mail use to me free

 

[Father Jack]

Many people hate to pay money for a .Mac account, but to me having an email address ending mac.com makes it worthwhile, especially when it really pis*es off my PC friends off ...

 

[mavherzog]

Many people hate to pay money for a .Mac account, but to me having an email address ending mac.com makes it worthwhile, especially when it really pis*es off my PC friends off ...

I keep my .Mac account around because I simply like the email address. I forward all my .Mac mail to my gmail account.

You can do this and add the account to your Gmail account (Settings -> Accounts). This allows you to send and receive mail from the GMail interface.

 

[BossHogg]

Ahhh ! Thanks for the clarification Byakuya ! Makes sense....I've been considering a .mac account....have to admit partially for the same reason Father Jack !

But I already use another free photosite for the family pics....and everyone knows my yahoo account (now I get that pop difference issue). Well...I'll keep doing some research on .mac.

 

[yoppie]

Yeah i know. But I heard you can corrolate Mail and Gmail. When you first start it up, it asks for you Gmail, yahoo, or .Mac account.

At this point, should I.
Make a new email with .Mac.
or put my gmail one in there?

Why not set them both up to be accessed by Mail? You can setup multiple accounts for Mail.

FYI: You can use Mail without .Mac

I use Mail to check my Gmail account all the time and I'm not a .Mac subscriber (though I would be if I had more than one Mac).

 

[paul.b.davis]

I just use .mac because of the e-mail PLUS the iDisk and one click web hosting with iWeb make it very worthwhile

I decided a while back that I was going to use as many Apple services as possible, simply because they are all so well integrated with OS X

 

[Akira1980]

I use my .mac for personal use. (Friends, etc) And I use my Gmail for everything else. (Amazon, Message Forums, Bank Accounts, etc) It works out well.

 

[Kaspers]

Indeed, I use my GMail also for forums, signups, etc..
For more personal stuff, like my job, and other important stuff, I use my dotMac. But I have to say that all my mail comes into my dotMac mailbox, because I've set up GMail to forward everything to dotMac.

I'm very happy with the whole dotMac stuff, It just works.
Prefs, mail, notes, bookmarks, keychains and more justs syncs between my iMac and Macbook Pro and its just a complete upgrade to my iPod Touch, without dotMac, the Touch experience would be much less..

But if you got only one mac, I'd say: just stick with gmail, you don't need more.

 

[netdog]

+1 for happy to be a .Mac member.

Syncing multiple machines. Back to my Mac feature. iDisk backup and storage. iLife .Mac galleries. Great IMAP email (a repository for several other accounts, including my gmail account).