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Sparrow is apparently dead with the Google buy out
I used it for a while but went back to Mail
I have no beef with Mail, but apparently some do (I don't know why, but I'm sure they will chime in)

I personally wouldn't pay for a product that has declared itself to be a dead end
 
It's not too late to try it. It's just never, ever, ever going to get any better than it already is. And when it stops working with OS X (who knows when that will be), they won't fix it.

Try it. If you prefer it for now, use it. Just know that eventually you won't be able to anymore.

And yeah, I wouldn't pay either. This one be the one instance where I wouldn't argue with piracy; they've abandoned us because Google made them rich. They stopped development on Sparrow, and wouldn't even open up the source code so other people could continue development. They just kept charging (without even a price reduction) for a dead product.
 
I prefer Sparrow. You can use it for free, the only thing is that it presents a little box on top of your Inbox with an add. It really doesn't bothers that much.

As far as Google buying Sparrow, I wouldn't be surprised if the new product they make with the Sparrow team ends up in the Mac as well, since Google is known for releasing their apps for the Mac and iOS and also considering that the user base of Sparrow use a Mac. It is also very likely to end up being free as well.

In the Sparrow page they also say that they will continue to provide support to Sparrow users.
 
After using Postbox and Sparrow I prefer Sparrow to be more clean and user friendly. Also in my opinion both are better than Apple Mail. :)

Sparrow is by far the most resource-light email app that I have come across, it also has a very clean and simple UI.

I tried the new Mail in ML, but Sparrow (at least IMO) is leaps and bounds better, but YMMV.

The Google take-over may change things eventually, however.
 
Personally my favorite is Thunderbird, it is lightweight, highly customizable and has no unified inbox. Mail always felt too limited to me I also don't like the separate calendar and address book.

Thunderbird really shines with a Google account. Then if you use the add-ons Lightning, Provider for Google Calendar and Google Contacts. You can keep your e-mail folders, address book and calendar in sync across all your computers, tablets and smartphones. Plus have a unified experience on Windows or Mac OS. Probably Linux too but I have not tried Thunderbird in Linux.
 
Maybe I'm just too old and set in my archaic email ways, but I tried Sparrow and I just don't get it. It seems to be lacking in so many features that I don't understand how people could be using it for anything more than just dealing with a few messages a day.
 
Maybe I'm just too old and set in my archaic email ways, but I tried Sparrow and I just don't get it. It seems to be lacking in so many features that I don't understand how people could be using it for anything more than just dealing with a few messages a day.

Like what exactly?
 
Sparrow 100times over for me. Favourite feature is having it only show in the menu bar, but basically its just nice and simple.
 
I love sparrow for it's basic features. I switched from Apple's Mail. I feel like sparrow gives a really good overview (whereas mail doesn't). Just your incoming mail, and the e-mail itself. That's what mail is about.
 
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I love sparrow for it's basic features. I switched from Apple's Mail. I feel like sparrow gives a really good overview (whereas mail doesn't). Just you're incoming mail, and the e-mail itself. That's what mail is about.

I second the above - and it's so easy to set up.
 
Like what exactly?

Well, it's been a while since I tried it, from what I can remember, all incoming mail is mingled together in the inbox and there weren't any filters. I think there were other things I didn't like but I can't remember what they were.
 
I have used sparrow since it was in beta form, and I still love it. I'll continue to use it until google kills it (really hope that doesn't happen). I found some encouragement that the company was still pushing out updates after the google buy out, but I think it's only a matter of time before google transitions the team to work on a dedicated gmail app and Sparrow is shut down.


The only other mail program that I know of that is called Postbox. I used this in the beta stage as well but liked Sparrow a little better. I haven't tried it again since because it now costs $10 but I would give it a look if you don't want to use apple mail.
 
Like what exactly?
My main gripe is the lack of undo. When I accidentally trash a file, I have to go to the Trash and retrieve it. There is an Undo under Edit but it is always greyed out. Plus it takes too many clicks tog et from the unified inbox to a specific folder in a specific account (or at least it seems cumbersome). However I still use it instead of apple mail because delete is actually delete instead of archive. Why can't apple mail give us a simple way to setup for gmail archive/delete?
 
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