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What mail app do you use?

W

WannaSwitch

macrumors member
Original poster
Hi, everyone, about-to-be new MacBook Pro user here (comes on Wednesday, so I'm ready to celebrate). I looked through the sticky post on apps at the top but didn't see anything specific to email programs so I thought I'd ask since I don't know a lot about Mac apps yet. I know it comes with Apple's Mail program, but I don't know the pros and cons of that app. Others I've seen have been Thunderbird, used an early version of that on Windows for maybe a week then backed out of it. Been using Outlook forever on both home and work systems, and I have my copy of Office 2008 for the Mac ready for when the Macbook Pro comes. I see "Entourage" has some email functionality, but not sure how it compares to Outlook, which I'm very familiar with.

What email program do you use, and why did you choose that over the other alternatives?
 
I use Apple's own Mail.app, because I love its simple yet powerful philosophy. Lots of people love Thunderbird, but some people stick with an MS product in Entourage.
 
clevin said:
Thunderbird. Free, compatible with more servers, and more functionalities.
Click to expand...
Can you explain a little, compatible with more servers and more functionalities? What exactly does it do that I can't get with Apple Mail or Entourage? Not meaning to sound like a disbeliever, just honestly don't know and it's always hard to compare "real" features from the product websites. I'm assuming they all do IMAP/POP3, I know Entourage has Exchange support but not sure that I'd be using that on this system. Calendar and Contacts is a must, ability to sync those with an iPhone would be a great plus, need strong filtering and rules, search (gotten spoiled with GMail), ability to hit multiple accounts or at least be able to address mail I send from multiple accounts (currently get all accounts through GMail, but need to be able to send from multiple accounts - I saw another post showing how to do that in Apple Mail).
 
Mail 2. Add letterbox (by Aaron Harnley) and MiniMail.

Thunderbird is more customizable but less Mac-like and hard to see it ever beating out Mail in the future.
 
UCLA-Bruin said:
Mail 2. Add letterbox (by Aaron Harnley) and MiniMail.

Thunderbird is more customizable but less Mac-like and hard to see it ever beating out Mail in the future.
Click to expand...

That actually brings up another point in selecting the email app. I'm switching from a Windows laptop to a Macbook Pro, I kind of want to get the "Mac experience". I just wasn't sure how limiting the built-in Mail application was, and if people felt the need to upgrade into a different application because of it, hence my post a few minutes ago asking what additional features Thunderbird gives (or Entourage, for that matter). Seems like the majority (so far) uses Apple Mail?
 
Mail.app at home and Entourage at work. They won't let me use Mail.app at work, and I can't find the information on my own to get it working. ):
 
I really like Mail.app It's simple and easy-to-use (duh, it's made by Apple). I do, however, still use the Gmail web interface.
 
What mail app do you use?

I'm at the same point of deciding on an email app, specifically Apple's Mail and something more robust. I'm not new to the Mac but I never used Mac's email program. I was a fan of Eudora for many, many years. I have a mailing list of about 1,500 names (subscribers to my Web site) that I contact once a month via email. Now that Eudora is gone I've been forced to look seriously at Mail for the first time. Is Leopard's Mail an equivalent for the last true version of Eudora?

Is coordinating the addresses in Address Book under a "group," or even broken up into several groups, going to work for 1500 contacts (and growing)?

Or should I go to something more heavy duty? I must admit, if I could get it to work in Mail, that would be the ideal. I think I like the "theory" of the Address Book/Mail hook-up but it has its critics (what doesn't).
 
WannaSwitch said:
Can you explain a little, compatible with more servers and more functionalities? What exactly does it do that I can't get with Apple Mail or Entourage? Not meaning to sound like a disbeliever, just honestly don't know and it's always hard to compare "real" features from the product websites. I'm assuming they all do IMAP/POP3, I know Entourage has Exchange support but not sure that I'd be using that on this system. Calendar and Contacts is a must, ability to sync those with an iPhone would be a great plus, need strong filtering and rules, search (gotten spoiled with GMail), ability to hit multiple accounts or at least be able to address mail I send from multiple accounts (currently get all accounts through GMail, but need to be able to send from multiple accounts - I saw another post showing how to do that in Apple Mail).
Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/424750/

previous discussion
 
I use Apple's Mail. I highly recommend that "switchers" give it a shot. Most will like it, some will not, but it's going to give you the most Apple-like experience (of course), so it's worth a test drive.
 
I'm a recent switcher from T-bird to Mail.app because of the storage format. Mail keeps the messages as single messages while Thunderbird keeps them in a big Mailbox. Everytime you get one new mail message the entire mailbox is Time Machined. I think that is a bit of overkill.

Try Mail and if you don't like it, switch to Thunderbird.
 
Mail, so that I can sync it with .Mac, and have access to all my mail at work on a PC through my web browser.
 
i usa mail is there a program you can download that will give you preview of new messages in an alert at the bttom of the screen like entourage does?
 
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