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Digital communications are always getting better, but it looks like email is here to stay. Most people check their mail every day, get dozens of new messages, and keep tens of thousands of old ones. Apple Mail is the first app that many Mac users use, and it’s a great one. The envelope icon is in the Dock from the first time you turn it on. It’s simple to set up and use, and it does almost everything we need. Why do things?
There are many excellent email apps in the Mac App Store if the Mail app that comes with your Mac lacks the features you require. These are our top selections after careful deliberation and testing. They are all compatible with the most recent operating system, MacOS Monterey, and work properly on your best Mac. Each one stands out due to a unique quality that makes it unique. Apple Mail, in contrast to other built-in mac apps like Safari and Notes, hasn’t seen any significant updates in a while.
The email app lacks a number of crucial features like “Scheduling” and “Smart inbox management” in addition to having a confusing user interface. Not to mention, its compatibility with outside productivity tools receives a failing grade. Anyone may be motivated to look for the best Apple Mail alternatives for Mac and iPhone by these drawbacks. These are the top third-party email clients for macOS and iOS to try out if you’ve decided to look outside of the built-in email client for better email management.
Best Apple Mail Alternatives
Microsoft Outlook
Two businessmen, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, founded Microsoft Outlook more than 20 years ago after working together to launch Hotmail.com, the first free web-based email service. Their business was a huge success, and a year later Microsoft bought it out. Following the acquisition of Hotmail.com, Microsoft rebranded the service under the names MSN Hotmail and Windows Live Hotmail before retiring the Hotmail name and relaunching the service under the name Outlook.com in 2012. Webmail services are offered by Outlook.com, along with extra tools like a calendar, to-do list, and contact management.
Many features of Microsoft Outlook include the capacity to send and receive emails just like a webmail client. Whether the sender or the recipient uses a webmail service is irrelevant. When an email address is valid, it will always go to the intended recipient. You can type your message in the box that appears when you click the New Message button to send a new email. If you’d like, you can add files, like videos and photos, to send to the intended recipient.
Once an email is complete, simply click the send button, and the recipient should receive it right away. Your individual email address with the Outlook.com domain is all that is required to receive emails. Anyone who has your email address is free to send you emails, which will show up in your Inbox. After receiving an email, you have three options: keep it, respond to it, or send it to the Deleted section for deletion.
Gmail
Gmail is a cloud-based service that helps companies streamline email communication throughout the company. It enables professionals to organize their inbox messages and move emails to new tabs using a drag-and-drop interface. Businesses can set an expiration date for messages and secure information by preventing unauthorized access using Gmail’s confidential mode. Managers have the option of setting up individual accounts for staff members and viewing the calendar of upcoming meetings. Additionally, it offers iOS and Android apps that let users manage multiple accounts and get automatic email notifications. With the help of an application programming interface (API), businesses can customize Gmail and integrate it with a variety of external systems. The product is free, and documentation serves as support.
Newton Mail
In recent years, Newton Mail has received a lot of attention, but not because of any positive or negative characteristics. In 2018, the well-known email software program’s original developer, CloudMagic, shut it down. A year later, Essential Products brought it back to life. In 2020, Newton Mail was shut down for the second time, only for its new owners Simform and SoFriendly to restart it. you can download this alternative from its official websites.
Newton Mail is here to stay, so we looked to see if it maintained its strength across all of its supported operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android phone. Apple silicon-based and Intel-based Newton models are now available for Mac users. The most basic functions of email apps, including the recently reviewed Canary Mail, are the same. The send/receive buttons and inbox are identical. The minimalist style of Newton is what sets it apart.
Here, the folder lists are hidden and there is no preview pane, so they are not visible. Instead, a list of black-on-white emails in chronological order will be displayed. These emails match the information in a particular folder. The top right corner also has two icons: one for searching, the other for sending a new email. Along the way, you’ll come across a variety of filter buttons, including Starred, Unread, and Recap. Nearly all other email clients share the first two features in some capacity. Emails marked with a star are the ones you need to access right away because they are the most important.
Postbox
With an outdated user interface, Postbox is one of the more established alternative email clients for Mac and Windows. A general UI overhaul has significantly increased Postbox’s usability, making it an excellent option. A fantastic rival to Mac email client Airmail, Postbox has a few more features. Thanks to features like “account groups,” which let you combine or separate personal and professional email accounts, the client is now more focused than ever on facilitating more effective email management.
The ability to manage individual emails on different tabs, as you would in a web browser, is another significant benefit of the tab support feature. Unread emails, reminders, subscriptions, and other items can be quickly viewed using real-time filters offered by a creative focus pane. Your works can be categorized using custom tags. Another excellent feature of Postbox is Pre-Made Responses, which lets you reuse text that you send frequently to save time. Use Postbox’s time tracker feature to see how long it takes to compose a message if you need to save time.
Airmail
Our constant management of work that is both personal and professional, as well as the extensive use of email services in our daily lives, can occasionally cause conflict. The need for constant communication between us and our peers cannot be overstated. You can always stay informed and in front of your group using the Airmail app. designed especially for Apple users. It without a doubt enhances your email experience.
It is in fact good given the variety of features it provides. Multiple email accounts can easily be added, and it is flexible in terms of email management. Users can customize Airmail to meet their unique needs. It is made to be a powerful mail client. Create custom actions and integrate your favorite apps to make it even more practical. Concentration is made easier by work organization.
Emails are therefore our main form of communication, whether at work or in college. Maintaining up-to-date information is essential, and Airmail makes it even simpler to do so. Take advantage of the airmail widget to stay informed. Emails should be protected with security features like Touch ID or Face ID to restrict access because of how important they are. To find and manage the messages that are important to you, sort through our mail. To make emailing simpler, collect as many templates as you can.
Canary Mail
An email client that prioritizes security is Canary Mail. In addition to supporting PGP end-to-end encryption, it also has a feature called SecureSend that enables you to send encrypted emails to anyone, regardless of the email service they use. PGP-based encryption for Canary is available, or more experienced users can roll their own private PGP keys. If the recipient does not have Canary, they must log in to a secure site in order to view the message. SecureSend, on the other hand, is as easy as flipping a switch when creating a new email. If you have encryption turned on in some way, nobody can read your message, not even your email provider.
Canary offers a range of privacy features in addition to productivity tools. Messages are automatically categorized into Social, Updates, Forums, Promotions, and email from people you know thanks to category support. Each email account’s notification sounds can also be changed. Canary goes far beyond its security roots thanks to a bevy of other helpful features. By clicking the thumbs-down icon at the top of the message, you can check the status of your emails, snooze incoming messages for later review, and unsubscribe from newsletters. All of your contacts’ profiles also come with an integrated calendar and, in some cases, social media links. Canary supports Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, Yahoo! Mail, and IMAP email accounts.
Thunderbird
Although Firefox is probably Mozilla’s most well-known product, Thunderbird, an email client, has been made by the company for many years. However, after the app’s development was ‘uncoupled’ from Firefox in 2016 it seemed for a while that the project would be abandoned. It was announced in 2020 that the project would be transferred to MZLA Technologies Corporation and development would continue with yearly releases. However, the user community has donated money and time since then. The fact that Thunderbird is open source makes it a rare bird on the Mac, so this is fantastic news.
For iCloud, as with all third-party email clients, you’ll need to create an app-specific password, but other POP3 and IMAP accounts will function just fine. Although Thunderbird has a somewhat retro design, it also has some contemporary features that make life simpler. One helpful feature is tags, which let you classify emails as Important, Personal, Work, ToDo, or Later. You can then view all of your tagged emails or just those that fall into a particular category. You can also add multiple Tags to an email by making your own, such as project-specific Tags. You might be wondering why Apple hasn’t integrated Tags into Mail if, like us, you use Tags in macOS to make it easier to find files that are related to projects. In Mail, tags are displayed as variously coloured flags.
Mailspring
The fact that Mailspring is the only open source programme on this list is just one of many reasons why people like it. With this efficient and practical email client, setting up multiple accounts is simple. Nearly all email services are supported by Mailspring, including Gmail, Office 365, Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, Fastmail, and others. Once your accounts are set up, you can quickly browse and search through your email backlog thanks to a local cache of messages. The extensive search feature allows for sender and date-based filtering. This is the only client I tested that searches nearly as quickly as Gmail. Plugins and unique themes are just two of the many customization options available.
You have a few options, including Gmail, Apple Mail, Outlook, and your own personal keyboard shortcuts. Additionally, you can create rules for actions like filtering emails based on keywords or sending emails from particular senders directly to a folder using the basic automation system. There are many positive aspects to this, especially the free version. Paying users receive read receipts, a sidebar with contact details and social media links, link tracking, and some quality of life improvements, but at $8 per month, it’s a steep price to pay. Since this is a new version of Nylas Mail, if you previously liked it, you should first try the free version.
eM Client
While the Mac version of eM client, which was first released in 2019, has since developed into a strong alternative to Mail, it has long been a free email client for Windows users. Unfortunately, no apps for iOS or iPadOS are available. The majority of the cleverer (and more useful) features are only available in the Pro tier, despite the fact that the base version is free. This costs $49.95/£44.95 at the time of writing, but that is a one-time fee for the licence on a single machine. You can test it out for free for 30 days to decide if it’s worth your money.
As mentioned in the Spark section above, we encountered the typical problem when setting up our iCloud account, but after that, we were good to go. If you wanted to pull in multiple email accounts, you would be better off using Mail or Spark because the free version of eM Client only allows you to pull in two. While you sort through your messages, eM Client is simple to use and attractive to look at thanks to its clear layout and variety of color schemes. IMAP, POP3, Exchange, and AirSync are just a few of the email providers that are supported. The app also gives you the option to encrypt your messages if you want higher levels of security.
As we already mentioned, the majority of the more sophisticated features, including snoozing emails, scheduling messages, translating text into foreign languages instantly, and the Watch for Reply tool that notifies you when a specific person responds, are all hidden away in the Pro tier. The Notes section connects them by enabling you to create detailed documents and share them via IceWarp, Microsoft365, or Exchange. The integrated calendar and reminders tools that connect with your Google and Apple accounts, among other things, are among the things you can use on the free version, which is a blessing. All of the appointments and events you’ve already added to your accounts are automatically added to the calendar, and you’ll also have access to your Contacts, complete with their cards.
Final Words
Email is still crucial despite all the new messaging services, project management tools, and chat-based ecosystems. One of my first steps when setting up a new Mac is to sign into iCloud (as well as email). An email address serves as a universal digital identifier because it is required to sign up for almost every service on the Internet. Many people still favor a desktop app to pull in multiple email addresses, use desktop plugins, and have a more native Mac experience despite the prevalence of web-based services like Gmail.