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Odysee

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 13, 2007
257
100
Manchester, UK
Real bored of the regular mail client that comes with Mac OS - can anyone recommend a free App for Mail?
 
Real bored of the regular mail client that comes with Mac OS - can anyone recommend a free App for Mail?
Thunderbird (Mozilla) is free. I used it for over a decade (since it was introduced), on both Windows and OS X. Imported my mail and profile directly from Windows to the Mac. Just recently, I purchased Postbox, which is based on the Thunderbird code. In fact, I used the same configuration files (mail and profile) to set it up. Took all of 1 minute. I like Postbox, mostly. There are some features I have requested for the UI, but it is basically "like" TB, though the UI is more modern.
 
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If you don't rely on the search function (what is very buggy) in my suggestion. Airmail is very good and the beta is free, it also has an iOS version. But the sync seems not to work with the HockeyApp and TestFlight Beta from macOS to iOS.

https://rink.hockeyapp.net/apps/84be85c3331ee1d222fd7f0b59e41b04


There is also a HockeyApp Beta of the iOS version but it hasn't been updated for a while:

https://rink.hockeyapp.net/apps/8bb84c589bdca3de900bf7c8520c7d5f


Don't know how I got the TestFlight beta, I think I had to write an email to the developers.
 
Thunderbird (Mozilla) is free. I used it for over a decade (since it was introduced), on both Windows and OS X. Imported my mail and profile directly from Windows to the Mac. Just recently, I purchased Postbox, which is based on the Thunderbird code. In fact, I used the same configuration files (mail and profile) to set it up. Took all of 1 minute. I like Postbox, mostly. There are some features I have requested for the UI, but it is basically "like" TB, though the UI is more modern.

Think I'm going to go with Postbox.. I've seen it a few times but didn't really want to pay. Thanks for your recommendation!
 
Think I'm going to go with Postbox.. I've seen it a few times but didn't really want to pay. Thanks for your recommendation!
They now offer a lifetime license, which is great if they stay in business.

I might suggest that you set up your Mail and Profile folders away from the default (~Library/Application Support/Postbox. It makes it easier to back up your mail and profile separately, and especially easier to migrate the application settings to a new install. All you need to do to make this happen is edit the profiles.ini file in that same folder, and point it to your new profile folder. Mine looks like this:
Code:
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=Primary
IsRelative=0
Path=/Users/henry/AppSupport/Postbox/Profiles/Primary
Default=1

When you want to migrate the whole thing to a new machine or a new install, just run the app once (to create the default folders), and then edit the profiles.ini file to point to your new location. The next time you open Postbox, it will magically contain all your mail and settings. This also works with Thunderbird, which is how I migrated from Windows to the Mac with TB in just a minute, with everything intact.
 
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What is boring with Mail.app? I'm honestly curious because this is the single most important app to me and has kept me from switching to Windows and to Linux (on another machine for a different purpose) because of how damn well it works.

Nothing, no single mail app that I've ever tried, has worked nearly as well as Mail.app. Especially if you manage many different email accounts. IMO of course.

I spend a lot of time in email however and across ~5-6 accounts so my use cases may be different. On Windows I do use Postbox and there are some neat features, but I still long for Mail.app when I'm stuck using it.

If you are looking for some power extensions to do some neat workflow enhancements I might recommend checking out Mail Act-On, MailTags and some of the other products from the same team. I use Mail Act-On pretty heavily for one feature that Postbox does include (hotkeys for sorting/moving/copying mail).

https://smallcubed.com/index.html
 
I don't understand the need to switch from Apple's mail app. If it works well enough to be boring then it is not causing problems. Don't fix what isn't broken.
 
It does not support html signatures, they're all very generic..
Very few email apps support true HTML signatures. Most support RichText - which most people think is HTML, but it isn't.

That being said, Apple's Mail app supports both RichText and HTML signatures. RichText is easy and can be done right in the Mail app. HTML signatures are a bit of a process, but can be done. Here's a tutorial for HTML sigs (old, but still works).
 
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