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

[SteveJobzniak]

For me, the snoozing function of Spark has almost become indispensable in my workflow. I do wish that Apple Mail would implement some sort of similar feature.

I see. I never got into snoozing because I check most of my email on my desktop. That's why I was so excited that Spark came to desktop, so that I could start using Snooze on the phone and resuming on the desktop. I'm itching to get back to Spark and hope they get the IMAP bug fixed. I sent them videos with Apple Mail and Spark side by side, with Spark showing less emails and not fixing itself with restarts or refreshes. :-( They've told me they are looking at logs and trying to figure out what's wrong with Spark...

For now, I actually enjoy Apple Mail. It's a lot better than it gets credit for. It's just missing snoozing, a slight UI redesign and some better Gmail notification support to make it excellent.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Great news from Spark regarding the IMAP problems I described earlier (where Spark doesn't always show all messages on IMAP accounts):

Our developers have successfully reproduced the IMAP "folder contents" issue and will do their best to prepare a fix. It will be available in future updates.

I'll be going back to Spark as soon as that is fixed. Looking forward to it.

 

[Shackss]

How come Spark writes so much data? (144GB)

I've installed the app for a few days and this is the amount I get. I don't think this is normal and it's really weird. Anyone checked the disk written section after using Spark?

 

[nnoble]

With Spark, I thought I'd found 'the' email client, particularly coming from the Readdle developers. But after a couple of unexplained missing mails I returned to the stock app - Mail. It looks a bit tired and clunky but for me, it's reliable.

 

[Pyrotechnic]

I have just tried Spark for a few days and was quite impressed, however I too experienced not seeing all my emails within the folders (IMAP) and only came to light when I Wass searching fore a particular email which wasn't there. Hope the fix comes soon and I may return to it.

 

[jon08]

Great news from Spark regarding the IMAP problems I described earlier (where Spark doesn't always show all messages on IMAP accounts):

Our developers have successfully reproduced the IMAP "folder contents" issue and will do their best to prepare a fix. It will be available in future updates.

I'll be going back to Spark as soon as that is fixed. Looking forward to it.

So did they fix any of your reported issues in the latest update?

 

[SteveJobzniak]

So did they fix any of your reported issues in the latest update?

They have fixed about half of them. Unfortunately not yet the IMAP bug. So I am still using Apple Mail.

https://sparkmailapp.com/changelog

 

[jon08]

They have fixed about half of them. Unfortunately not yet the IMAP bug. So I am still using Apple Mail.

https://sparkmailapp.com/changelog

I see. Although the above changelog is for the MacOS version...

 

[SteveJobzniak]

I see. Although the above changelog is for the MacOS version...

They use the same engine, so fixing the IMAP issue in one will fix both.

 

[jon08]

They use the same engine, so fixing the IMAP issue in one will fix both.

I see. They still haven't added any new features, though, so it seems I won't be switching from Apple Mail for a while still.. at least on iOS that is.

 

[vbctv]

I reported it to them yesterday a major issue, when you delete emails on the iPhone or iPad they are still on your Mac & have to be deleted again. The problem just started with the last major update. If Airmail had the same push mail when not open on the Mac like Spark does I would go back but Apple Mail may be looking better again.

 

[lietsche]

I used Spark for months on IOS and since it came out on macOS. Was very happy. But:
Since a few days I cannot send mails anymore though my Gmail Accounts (both IOS and macOS) and somehow 6 months of my "Sent mail" have been "archived". And I am missing Sent mails completely and they got deleted everywhere thanks to the joy of IMAP. I don't know what happened there but this is extremely annoying. Support not able to help so far. Switched to Airmail for the moment. :/

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Apple Mail may be looking better again.

I am VERY happy with Apple Mail on Mac and iOS after tweaking it to get unified mailboxes and replacing the "archive" button with "delete" instead. There's a post earlier in this thread where I described the process.

I'm not switching back to Spark until the IMAP issue is totally fixed. And maybe not even then. Apple Mail is really speedy and efficient.

 

[DaveTheRave]

This is a great thread. Very informative. Question - does Spark allow Gmail to not download to my Mac (Airmail allows this). I'm looking for an app that lets me use Gmail but provides desktop style notifications. But I don't want my HD clogged up with gigs worth of downloaded email. Thanks.

 

[vbctv]

This is a great thread. Very informative. Question - does Spark allow Gmail to not download to my Mac (Airmail allows this). I'm looking for an app that lets me use Gmail but provides desktop style notifications. But I don't want my HD clogged up with gigs worth of downloaded email. Thanks.

I don't think Spark downloads any emails into your Mac at all. I believe they stay on the server. It's weird because I'll be honest their privacy policy isn't the best in the world because they claim to store the emails on their servers and push them to you.

 

[jon08]

I am VERY happy with Apple Mail on Mac and iOS after tweaking it to get unified mailboxes and replacing the "archive" button with "delete" instead. There's a post earlier in this thread where I described the process.

I'm not switching back to Spark until the IMAP issue is totally fixed. And maybe not even then. Apple Mail is really speedy and efficient.

I noticed that if I delete an email on iOS Mail app it won't appear in "Trash" on my Mac Mail app. Is what you mention above going to fix that?

 

[SteveJobzniak]

It's worth noting again: As I've said months ago, they were able to reproduce the IMAP bug via an email account I made for them, and they wanted me to let them keep the email account for testing until the IMAP bug (missing messages) in Spark is fixed. I last spoke to them about that a few weeks ago and they wanted to keep the account because they weren't done with it.

Well, today (or so) a new version of Spark is out, but no IMAP fix yet, at least not mentioned in the changelog... Sad, I'll keep using Apple Mail. But I am actually happy with Apple Mail, so I can wait...

https://sparkmailapp.com/changelog

Version 1.3.0.313

- Search field with new highlight and icons. You can now easily select search keywords with handy icons and see the the actual search query highlighted.

- Clickable attachments in the search results. Spark will display all attachments from the email thread in the search results, and if you click one of the files, the app will immediately open the necessary message, highlighting the attachment you just clicked.

- Improved search suggestions and hints.

- Lots of bug fixes, including that issue when the screenshot pasted from the Clipboard wasn’t sent.

 

[jon08]

It's worth noting again: They were able to reproduce the IMAP bug via an email account I made for them, and they wanted me to let them keep the email account for testing until the IMAP bug (missing messages) in Spark is fixed. I last spoke to them about that a few weeks ago and they wanted to keep the account because they weren't done with it.

Well, today (or so) a new version of Spark is out, but no IMAP fix yet, at least not mentioned in the changelog... Sad, I'll keep using Apple Mail. But I am actually happy with Apple Mail, so I can wait...

Honestly, it's taking them too damn long to implement some useful changes/new features IMO. I've given up on using Spark a while ago and been using Apple Mail now for months.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Honestly, it's taking them too damn long to implement some useful changes/new features IMO. I've given up on using Spark a while ago and been using Apple Mail now for months.

I agree. At the initial launch they worked like maniacs at Spark, doing almost daily releases to perfect it for people. Then it went to weekly, then almost to inactivity...

The IMAP bug is a showstopper. You literally cannot trust Spark to show all messages that are in IMAP server folders. Maybe they fixed that in 1.3, but I can't tell from the changelog above, and I don't care enough anymore to test Spark for long enough to know if it works now or not.

I've become so used to Apple Mail now (with the few tweaks I mentioned earlier in this thread). It is fast, slick, reliable and totally stable.

 

[Jeffois]

I haven't noticed missing messages. Is this intermittent? Does it only effect some users? Or have I missed it?

 

[SteveJobzniak]

I haven't noticed missing messages. Is this intermittent? Does it only effect some users? Or have I missed it?

It is intermittent and somewhat rare. Spark will not see some messages in your IMAP folders, no matter how many times you refresh or restart or how many new messages you get. They'll stay invisible.

You must then enter that folder with another client (such as Apple Mail) and edit the state of that invisible message (marking it read or unread again) to make Spark realize that the message exists. It's pathetic. And they were able to reproduce the bug months ago but I see no notes about having fixed it yet. And a few weeks ago I asked if they were done with the test-account I gave them but they were not done... sigh. Certainly makes me mistrust Spark's competence.

It's a really cool client. But missing messages is unacceptable.

 

[phloo]

Maybe change the title to "Spark - a good email client for BOTH..."

I really hope they will fix this issue.
Thunderbird is not the best client but Apple Mail had problems importing all mails (not from imap but those I moved to local folders)

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Maybe change the title to "Spark - a good email client for BOTH..."

I really hope they will fix this issue.
Thunderbird is not the best client but Apple Mail had problems importing all mails (not from imap but those I moved to local folders)

Yeah good point. I changed the title and edited the top of the 1st post. Until Spark fixes the IMAP issues, I cannot recommend it anymore.

 

[Jeffois]

It is intermittent and somewhat rare. Spark will not see some messages in your IMAP folders, no matter how many times you refresh or restart or how many new messages you get. They'll stay invisible.

You must then enter that folder with another client (such as Apple Mail) and edit the state of that invisible message (marking it read or unread again) to make Spark realize that the message exists. It's pathetic. And they were able to reproduce the bug months ago but I see no notes about having fixed it yet. And a few weeks ago I asked if they were done with the test-account I gave them but they were not done... sigh. Certainly makes me mistrust Spark's competence.

It's a really cool client. But missing messages is unacceptable.

I haven't seen the problem, but clearly, missing messages gets to the very heart of the point of an email client. Knowing this is happening to others is a real concern.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

I haven't seen the problem, but clearly, missing messages gets to the very heart of the point of an email client. Knowing this is happening to others is a real concern.

Yeah. And I think an even bigger concern is that I reported it to Readdle (Spark) months ago, and gave them a test email account, and their engineers used that test account and replied that they were able to reproduce the IMAP "missing emails" issue and wanted to keep the test account until they had made a fix.

That was months ago... So a few weeks ago I contacted them (sometime in June), asking if they are done with the account, and they said no and that they still need to keep their access to the test account I gave them.

Big wtf. How hard can this be to fix? It makes me think Spark may be over-engineered since it seems to be very hard to fix bugs in its architecture. Because this should really be something as simple as "Send IMAP Command: List All Emails", and then "Update local database to display all of those emails".

The only good news is that they're still tracking the bug internally and still have the test account... so at least it should get fixed someday. Maybe...

In the meantime, Apple Mail is great... And EasilyDo Mail is actually great as well and they're working on a Mac client. At this rate, I'll be looking at switching to EasilyDo when it's on Mac too.