Love it or hate it, unless you choose to live a quiet, unconnected life, we all have to deal with email. For most of us, managing email, especially with multiple accounts from various providers, can be a real pain. Fortunately there is a handful of apps that are making great strides towards easing that pain. Take a look below at some of the mail apps for Mac to help you keep your inbox under control.
Best Mail Apps for Mac: macOS High Sierra Edition
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Microsoft Outlook isn't the only email client on the block. Check out our top picks for the best desktop email clients available for Windows and Mac OS X. The default email client in Mac OS X is the simply named “Mail” app, and it’s a pretty good mail application, but what if you’d rather use something else, like ThunderBird, Sparrow, pine, or a browser and web mail client like Gmail?
If we missed any of your favorites, please let us know in the comments so we can give them a try!
Editor’s Note: this list is a constantly evolving as new apps are released or as old apps are updated. Today, we’re looking at a handful of apps that work well with Apple’s new macOS High Sierra.
Price: Free
Named one of the best of Mac by Apple itself in 2016, Spark is still one of the most popular, user-friendly, and best overall email clients for Mac. With a focus on keeping you inbox free of chaos, Spark lets you organize everything into easy to find (and hide) categories and subsections. You can schedule emails, set selective alerts, and search through your mailboxes easily. Convenience and a sleek look are the name of the game with Spark.
Price: $9.99
AirMail 3, whose iOS counterpart made our list of 5 Best Mail Apps for iPhone/iPad, is a long-running contender in the email management landscape. Though it has been around for a while, the app developers have done an excellent job of keeping it fresh, clean and powerful. The iOS and Mac versions of AirMail provide a uniform experience with its folders and labeling system and overall design of the app. Many of the features you would come to expect from an email client are included, but there are also some that are unique. An example would be the minimal view which is perfect for users like me who are in their email all day. With the minimal view, your inbox is displayed as a one-column timeline like you would see in something like the Mac Twitter app. Some users are frustrated with the complications they have when trying to move emails into different folders (the drag and drop apparently isn't as easy as proposed). However, it seems that for users who need some help, AirMail's superior customer support is available via web chat. Way to go, Mark and Sarah!
Price: Free
Polymail is easy to use and has a beautiful interface, making it one of the best mail apps for Mac. It offers numerous features to make your life easier, like snoozing emails to read them later, scheduling emails to automatically be sent later. You also get unlimited per-recipient email tracking, to keep you in the know about when and by whom your messages are read. Works with Mac and iOS, and the fact that it's free doesn't hurt.
Price: Free
Hey, who says the stock mail app can't make the list? Especially since it was specifically designed to take advantage of macOS High Sierra, Apple Mail is one of the best mail apps for Mac users. If you've been a Mac user for any amount of time, you're likely familiar with the core functionality, but there are some new features to take note of. Tabs are now used more widely throughout macOS Sierra, and Mail is no exception. With the addition of tabs, you can have all of your inboxes from different accounts open at once and just flip back and forth — pretty convenient. I should say, though, that many users, myself included, aren't thrilled with how convoluted the process is to get additional tabs. There is no simple + to be found. Hopefully Apple will address this in an update. Besides tabs, you'll also find full support for Siri, so you can compose new messages, read emails, set reminders, find specific emails and more via voice command. If Apple Mail becomes your preferred app, this is incredibly handy.
Price: $5.99
For day-to-day email, Inbox by Gmail has become my go-to. Ever since its release in 2014, I have favored the quick management of email messages to Inbox's bigger brother Gmail. Boxy is a standalone email client for Inbox that brings the service outside of your browser and adds a bit more customization and features, making it one of the best mail apps for Mac. Once you're inside the app, you'll immediately notice the familiar design that looks almost exactly like Inbox. However, if you want to switch things up, you have multiple themes to choose from as well as the option for different font sizes. As you'd expect, you will find all of the features of Inbox by Gmail that you've grown to love such as the inbox bundles, the ability to snooze emails, pin messages and more. The app isn't perfect though. Many users find the file attachment process slightly frustrating. With the omission of a browse-for-file option, you're required to attach your files by dragging and dropping. Sometimes, if your desktop or Finder windows are covered, that requires some fishing and cuts down on your efficiency.
Price: $19.99
Canary is a simple and easy-to-use email app that promises efficiency and security. Every email you send will have end-to-end encryption, so you never have to worry about privacy or security. That will always happen automatically, so you never need to double check that you've enabled encryption. With natural language search, smart filters, algorithmic bulk cleaner, and intelligent typography enhancements, Canary focuses on keeping things organized and easy to find. At $19.99, it's definitely worth it, and it easily earns a spot on this list.
Price: Free
Inky is the only Mac email app on this that isn't available from the App store, but it is still worthy of its place here. It seems like every other day, there is a major news headline that deals with someone's account being hacked or a security breach at large corporations. If this has motivated you to seek out more online security, Inky is definitely something you should check out. Every email sent through the Inky client is encrypted end-to-end, so the contents of your email cannot be read by anyone else besides the intended recipient. Additionally, you can send digitally-signed emails with Inky, so the person on the other end can be sure the email came from you. Outside of the security features, Inky comes with other features that help manage your email. You'll find built-in mailboxes similar to what Inbox offers to automatically group incoming messages, and you can also tag new emails for later sorting.
Price: $49.99/year
Newton Mail, like AirMail, found itself on our list of the 5 Best Mail Apps for iPhone/iPad and also reigns supreme as one of the best mail apps for Mac. Just like what you'll find in the iOS counterpart, Newton Mail for Mac comes with a handful of what it calls superchargers to help you master your inbox. Some of the more notable superchargers include read receipts, handoff functionality so you can start an email on iPhone, then finish on your Mac, and the ability to connect your inbox to major productivity services like Evernote, OneNote, Pocket, Trello, and more. Newton Mail has a beautiful interface that honestly makes email a tiny bit more enjoyable. But I have to break it to you: if you want to commit to using Newton Mail as your daily driver, prepare yourself for the $49.99 per year subscription fee. This is among the most expensive email clients, so soak up that free 14-day trial!
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Bonus picks
Price: Free
What Boxy is to Inbox, Kiwi is to Gmail. Kiwi is an email client for Gmail that allows you to use the email service as a native app. With Kiwi, you'll find a familiar, nearly identical experience to what you get with Google's flagship email service, but you'll get a few additional features that you might find handy. Probably the most convenient feature is the global shortcuts that allow you to start a new email from anywhere at anytime. If you're like me, and have windows open on top of other windows at all time, a quick keyboard shortcut can save a lot of time. Another feature that lends itself to convenience and productivity, is the dropdown manager from the macOS menu bar. Clicking on the Kiwi icon in the menu bar, drops down a list of all of your inboxes so you can jump directly to the messages you need, or compose a new message from the appropriate inbox. And it's currently free.
Price: $129.99
Microsoft Outlook finds itself a spot in our bonus picks because it really is more than just an email client. Outlook still holds a place near and dear to the hearts of businesses large and small because it offers a complete suite of productivity tools in one place. Whether you love or hate the experience, it's hard to deny the handiness of having full access to your calendar, tasks and notes all within the same app. The Microsoft Outlook app was recently updated to bring a more friendly, modern design. This update was welcome, to say the least, but it didn't quite solve the issue of the app being quite overwhelming with the number of icons, menus and tabs you will find scattered throughout. If you're an average user who is looking for a way to better manage your own inbox, the $129.99 price tag is hard to justify, but for businesses, this tool, or suite of tools, really, is something to consider. And check out your other options with the full office suite.
We all have to deal with email in some way or another. The question is, what app is going to make your experience a little bit easier/more productive? Will you prioritize encryption and opt for Canary, or go with a simplistic, modern experience like AirMail? Or will you stick with something more tried and true, but maybe a little less pretty like Microsoft Outlook?
What would you say are the mail apps for Mac? Let us know in the comments below!
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Every Mac comes with a free email application, appropriately named Mail. Using the native Mail application is fine for most people, especially for those who only use iCloud, but things get trickier when you’re dealing with multiple email accounts.
For Gmail users in particular, more thorough solutions are available, many which are free. Here’s a look at five Mail alternatives and why they might work for you.
AirMail ($10)
Marketed as being a “lighting-fast email client for Mac,” AirMail is also the most beautiful application on the list. Offering Split Screen support for OS X El Capitan, the application looks and feels like it’s an Apple creation. It also features some options not available on the native Mac application, which consistently makes AirMail one of the best overall apps for OS XThe Best Mac Apps to Install on Your MacBook or iMacThe Best Mac Apps to Install on Your MacBook or iMacLooking for the best apps for your MacBook or iMac? Here's our comprehensive list of the best apps for macOS.Read More.
Chief among this is the ability to compose in Markdown or HTML. As you type on the left, the result is shown on the right side of the screen. Being able to view the formats side-by-side means you can make sure to remove broken links or weird-looking text before sending.
In AirMail, received messages may be organized by task. You can mark each email as To Do, Memo, or Done. The first are for items that require some action or a follow-up. A Memo is for items you need to memorize or store for later, and you can mark completed emails as Done. You can also Snooze messages, allowing you to move them to the side for viewing at a later time or date.
The application offers support for Google, iCloud, Exchange, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, IMAP, and POP. It also works with many third-party integrations, including Dropbox, Google Drive, OmniFocus, Things, and many more.
AirMail is available in the Mac App Store. You can also download a beta version for free from the developer’s website. An AirMail for iPhone app is coming soon.
Mail Pilot 2 ($20)
Like AirMail, Mail Pilot 2 turns mail into a to-do list, allowing you to focus on what’s most important. Unique to Mail Pilot 2 is a relatively new feature called Dash.
With Dash, your daily life is summarized on a dashboard to help you become more productive. It includes the number of messages that you have received in the past 24 hours, plus those that are completed, set aside, due, and late. Dash also summarizes the average time it takes for you to reply to emails and more. Another handy feature provides links to files that you’ve recently sent or received, which is very nice.
The application supports all standard IMAP accounts, including Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Rackspace, Outlook.com, and Google Apps. Mail Pilot 2 is available in the Mac App Store. A $9.99 iOS version is available from the App Store.
Do you want to learn more about Mail Pilot? Be sure to take a look at our original reviewTask-Oriented Email App Mail Pilot Arrives On Mac OS XTask-Oriented Email App Mail Pilot Arrives On Mac OS XLike the mobile version of the app, Mail Pilot for Mac is very useful for managing important email like a to-do list.Read More.
Gmail Email Client For Mac
Postbox ($10)
Postbox is one of the oldest email clientsPostbox: An Alternative Email Client For MacPostbox: An Alternative Email Client For MacPostbox is an email management application for Windows and Mac powered by the Mozilla platform.Read More on our list, but it’s also a very stable product. Postbox’s goal is to remove some of the chaos associated with mail, by offering robust tools to make the process more efficient.
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One of Postbox’s nicest features is the ability to group messages by topic. This allows you to break work into smaller, more manageable chunks. Grouping by subject is particularly useful when you have more than one email account. Postbox also enables you to create Pre-Made Responses, which you can reuse as often as needed.
Postbox works with most email providers including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and iCloud. It also supports POP3, IMAP, and SMTP protocols. It is available from the Postbox website. A 30-day free trial is also available, so you can try before you buy.
CloudMagic (free)
This mail client only recently arrived on OS X after finding success on iOS and AndroidTask-Oriented Email App Mail Pilot Arrives On Mac OS XTask-Oriented Email App Mail Pilot Arrives On Mac OS XLike the mobile version of the app, Mail Pilot for Mac is very useful for managing important email like a to-do list.Read More. Dubbed “simple, beautiful & blazing fast” by its creators, the application features a transparent user interface, free of fancy buttons or slides.
This approach works well, especially if you have to go through a lot of emails each day or have multiple accounts. We especially like the application’s shortcut buttons, which allow you to move quickly to the next or previous email.
CloudMagic offers support for Gmail, Exchange, Google Apps, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, and all IMAP accounts. It’s available in the Mac App Store. CloudMagic for iOS and CloudMagic for Android are also available. Both are free.
Nylas N1 (free)
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Two of most popular third-party mail clients in recent years were Sparrow and Mailbox. After each was purchased by Google and Dropbox respectively, both were eventually shutdown, leaving millions of users in the lurch. By contrast, Nylas N1 is open-source and published on GitHub, meaning it will never be bought and axed.
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Nylas N1 is the closest thing you’ll see to a next-generation mail program. It features a clean user interface, supports Gmail keyboard shortcuts, and best of all, because it is open-source, has a community to back it up. However, because it’s so new, you may run into some problems, at least in the short-run. For example, N1 doesn’t currently offer a unified inbox and the formatting isn’t quite right.
Email Clients For Mac 2017
Why is N1 on our list? Because it’s been designed for easy modification. Best of all, it can run on multiple platforms including OS X, Windows, and Linux. Better still — it’s free. N1 is compatible with many providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, and more. Currently, there is no N1 app for iOS.
You’ve Got Mail Options
If you’re happy with Apple’s default email client, keep it. For those looking for different ways to organize your mail or rather use something that plays nicer with Gmail, consider one of our alternatives. The most feature-rich solutions on the list are AirMail and Mail Pilot 2. The ones most likely to push mail into new areas in the next year are CloudMagic and Nylas N1. Looking for a reliable, stable solution? Consider Postmate.
Are you looking for more ways to customize your email experience on a Mac? Check out these hidden El Capitan features you probably don’t know about11 Hidden OS X El Capitan Features You Might Not Know About11 Hidden OS X El Capitan Features You Might Not Know AboutThink you've found all the new features in El Capitan? Think again! There is a bounty of handy features that haven't gotten a lot of press.Read More, or take your email writing to the next level with these tools5 Tools That Can Help You Write Better Emails5 Tools That Can Help You Write Better EmailsEveryone is still trying to solve the email problem. So, let's also talk about the most basic habit of all – the art of writing better emails. With the help of some cool tools.Read More.
Which email client for Mac do you use? Let us know in the comments below.
Explore more about: Apple Mail, Desktop Email Client, OS X El Capitan.
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Hi! The article's great, although I think you should have put free email clients first.I would also like to suggest Hiri (www.hiri.com), an email client that helps you master the art of email. It's an innovation like no other client, and as a standalone app for Windows, OS X, and Linux, Hiri works perfectly!It's also free for personal use!
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Nylas N1 is not free anymore despite marketing shit they spread
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CloudMagic costs $19.99 to download. What do you people think 'free' means?The answer is not 'approximately twenty dollars,' despite what you may have heard.
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I really like Spark but for the love of god I wish they would go ahead and release a mac version already!!! Their iPhone and iPad version is good but I'm struggling to find an email client for the mac until further notice....
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Jessica, I hope you may have found out that there is now a Mac version for Spark. It only supports IMAP though. I'm using Spark for iCloud since Apple Mail has become a complete hot mess on the computer (still works on iOS) and Apple Mail for my POP email accounts.
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Does Pegasus Mail work on a Mac?
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I might be wrong about this but CloudMagic keeps your user credentials in the cloud on their servers.Can anyone confirm this either way please?
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Yes they do.
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Airmail is a disaster as of March 2016. Unstable and unfit for purpose.
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Whats wrong with Airmail as of March 2016?
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I agree. It seems to be more and more unstable. I had really high hopes for AirMail, but I'm out!
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Airmail works perfectly fine. Still the best OSX email client. I wonder what issues you had with it.
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The search is awful... and doesn´t have an undo send option.
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No MailMate mentioned? Really?
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I second this, it is quite good...
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Thunderbird ain't bad but its getting old. Anyone know which other client supports multiple identities (besides Postbox that is)?
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For those using gmail with one of these native apps, what are you finding that missing compared to the gmail website client? I've tried various real clients over the years but gmails's search is awesome as is and haven't really found something lacking from the web client.
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Have you tried http://mailplaneapp.com? Its a wrapper but pretty good if you're running OSX.
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Came to say the same thing as Peter, above. Cloudmagic is twenty dollars!
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What about Mozilla Thunderbird. It's also free and good.
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+1
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+1
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Airmail is absolutely the best OS X mail client out there. I am also beta testing Airmail's iOS app and that is going to beat the pants off everything else.
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Cloudmagic is nice, bit it's not free.