Email is, in many ways, the hub of modern life. Finding the best email app for your needs is key to a having a more manageable and productive digital experience, whether you're communicating with friends or restoring forgotten passwords. With Google's recent announcement that it will pull the plug on Inbox by Gmail in March 2019, and both Newton and Astro meeting their makers even sooner, you may be in the market for a replacement.
The best email apps help you manage the most important aspects of your digital life without making them more complicated. Some let you turn your inbox into a to-do list. Others are deeply customizable, giving you greater control. What makes the best email apps different from one another, and which one is right for you?
The Mail application that ships with macOS and OS X is solid, feature-rich and spam-eliminating software that is also an easy-to-use email client. Optimized to work on the Mac, the Mail app is trouble free and full featured. Discuss email privately. Invite teammates to discuss specific email and threads. Ask questions, get answers, and keep everyone in the loop. The new Spark feels like the first product that may finally solve email communication and assignments for the MacStories team. Learn how to setup eMClient with Office 365 step by step Open the account settings via Menu > Tools > Accounts. Click the '+' button to open the New Account window. Moving Mobile Email to Office 365. I am frequently asked to recommend the best mobile client to use with Office 365. Usually, the question is what email client to use because it is in the context. Enter the email address associated with Office for Mac and click Next. If you have multiple Mac licenses associated with the same Microsoft account, it's best to start with an Office 365 subscription. A one-time-use license can not be deactivated. If you don’t have an Office 365 subscription, start by using the license at the top of the.
For this list of the best email apps, we only considered email clients, leaving out email services and email assistant apps. An email client is a piece of software you install on your computer or mobile device to access email, even if that email is hosted by another service. An example is the Mail app that comes pre-installed on iOS devices. By way of the Mail app, you can access a Gmail account and a Yahoo Mail account. Gmail and Yahoo Mail in this case would be email services, which we did not consider for this list of the best email apps. Client apps almost always let you access multiple email accounts, giving you the option to see all your messages in one consolidate view.
We also homed in on email apps for personal use, which nixed from consideration a few apps that tend to be more prominent in the business world, such as Microsoft Outlook (desktop app) and IBM Notes. They both have their place among email aficionados but tend to be more well suited for organizations than individuals.
As mentioned, we did not consider email assistant apps, or services that work within your existing email to make it better in some targeted way. An example is SaneBox, a service that works inside your existing email service to automatically sorts incoming messages (among other things). Another example is Boomerang, which adds new features and tools to Gmail and Outlook that help improve your writing and help you remember when to follow-up on messages. Both these apps are highly capable, but they aren't clients and so they weren't considered for this list.
There can be some confusion about email clients and services, however, because some apps cover both ground. Gmail, for instance, is not just an email service but also has a mobile email client app by the same name. The Gmail mobile app lets you read and reply to messages from not only your Gmail account, but also your Yahoo Mail address, Microsoft Office 365 account, and others.
In addition to being email clients, the apps in this list meet other criteria, such as being in a state of full release. In other words, no beta products allowed. (Don't worry. We have an eye on some of the more interesting email apps in the works, such as Pigeon and Superhuman. But we can't accurately assess them until they're fully released.) Ease of use played a major role in our decision-making, as did stability. We also looked for apps that had at least one standout feature or reason for choosing it, which is listed in the 'best for' line in each app's description below. Finally, if you're in search of an app with a specific feature in mind, see the comparison table at the end of this article.
When it comes to email apps, there's no reason you can't choose several to use for different purposes. You might have one app you adore installed on your personal computer, something else for work email, and yet another on your phone. Which ones you choose will depend on how you like to interact with your email and what you do with it. Whatever the case, the best email apps have you covered.
Best email app for customizing your inbox
Airmail started out as a simple email app, but over time, it grew with features, and today it's one of the most powerful email client apps available. Customizable notifications make sure you only get alerts when you receive emails from your most important contacts. Swipe gestures are also customizable. Airmail can help you write faster, with built-in templates for your most-used responses. And, it works with your favorite productivity apps, including Fantastical, Evernote, OmniFocus, Dropbox, and others.
Price: $4.99, $9.99
Best email app for categorizing messages automatically
Edison Mail is a mobile email client app designed to give you assistance with sorting and organizing your email. It can automatically sort incoming messages into appropriate groups, such as messages that contain tracking numbers for shipping, those pertaining to subscriptions, and receipts. An undo-send button gives the app universal appeal, and option to turn off read receipts make Edison even more valuable to people to like to be in control of their email. Don't confuse this app with the Edison Assistant (formerly called EasilyDo or Smart Assistant by EasilyDo), as the latter is does more to help you organize your life beyond email alone.
Price: free
Best email app for merging email, calendar, contacts, tasks
If you're looking for a powerhouse of an email app for Windows, eM Client is a great option. It not only combines email, calendar, contacts, and tasks in one place, but also supports touch interfaces. While the price for a Pro account may sound a little steep, eM Client offers some functionality that's rarely found in other email apps, such as language translation. That's reason enough to choose eM Client if you frequently send and receive messages in multiple languages and aren't fluent in all of them.
Price: free; $49.95 for Pro
Best email app for team collaboration
Front app lets teams manage a single inbox collaboratively. With Front, you connect shared inboxes, such as catchall addresses like contact@company.com, and then anyone with access can answer or assign messages for other people on the team to answer. Front also lets you connect social media accounts, which teams may also tend to collaboratively.
Price: from $15/month per person, minimum 2 people
Best email app for searching and organizing messages
While Gmail is the gold standard among webmail services, its mobile app is surprisingly light on features. But that's not the deciding factor on whether to choose the Gmail app for your phone. The real selling point of this app is how fast and capable it is at searching even the most bloated inboxes. When you use it with a Gmail account (or two; it supports multiple Gmail addresses), you get the same great options for automatically sorting mail into tabs that the service creates for you: Primary, Social, and Updates. With limitless ways to sort mail with filters and labels and exceptional spam filtering, Gmail makes it a breeze to see your most important messages quickly.
Price: free
Best email app for keeping email simple
Mail and Calendar by Microsoft is a Windows desktop app that keeps email simple. Formerly called Outlook Express, this app covers the basics of email without adding excessive features. It offers threaded email conversations, notifications, and flags to mark your most important messages, along with Outlook-style calendar integration. It's also touch-enabled. If you're a Windows users who prefers to not be distracted by added features, it's a good option.
Price: free
Best email app for annotating images, signing documents
The Mail app that comes preinstalled on iOS devices and most Macs may seem like a basic email client, but its simplicity belies the powerful tools under the hood. With its Markup tools, you can add annotations to images and sign documents right from your inbox. You can also use Apple's Mail Drop feature (the same one that works with iCloud) to send extremely large attachments without it eating into your allotted email storage space. Best bittorrent client for mac reddit.
Price: included with Mac and iOS devices
Best email app for increasing productivity with integrations
Mailbird is a Windows email app with a contemporary design. You can personalize your inbox with custom layouts and sidebar themes. It also includes integration options with popular productivity apps, such as Asana, Todoist, Slack, and others. While rich with features, such as the ability to snooze messages until later and automated scrolling for speed readers, some advanced capabilities are restricted to higher tiers of service. For example, an undo send option is only available to Mailbird Business subscribers.
Price: free limited version, $12/year for Pro, $59 for lifetime Pro, $20/month per person for Business
Best email app for composing in markdown
Well suited for those who love plain text and keyboard shortcuts, MailMate lets you jump through your inbox without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. It also supports Markdown formatting and unique views, such as the ability to surface all messages that are similar to the message you're currently viewing. MailMate is perhaps the best Mac email app for power users who value plain text over features such as snooze and undo send.
Price: $49.99
Best email app for viewing a focused inbox
While the Outlook desktop app is as powerful as it is bloated with features, the Outlook Mobile app offers quite a different experience. When you use it with a Microsoft email account, you can take advantage of its Focused Inbox view, which automatically finds emails that are likely to be important to you and filters out other distracting messages, keeping them in a tab called Other. The Outlook mobile app also has customizable swipe gestures for deleting, archiving, marking as read, flagging, moving, and snoozing messages (the snooze function is actually called 'schedule,' but it would be snooze in any other app).
Price: free
Best email app for collaborating with a sales team
Polymail's strong suit is that you can use it collaboratively, especially among sales teams. Create email templates, for example, and you can share them with everyone on a team. For groups that use Salesforce, you can connect the two apps and get information you need from Salesforce while writing messages. Teams can also track email stats together to see how much time everyone spends in their inboxes, or how likely each person is to get a reply. Another great feature is Polymail's ability to watch and report back when recipients open your messages, and who among them downloads attachments you send. You'll also notice in the chart below that Polymail is packed with features, everything from the ability to snooze a message until later to an undo send button.
Price: free; paid plans from $13/month
Best email app for organizing multiple inboxes
Since its inception as a spin-off of Mozilla's Thunderbird, Postbox has grown into a powerful app, rich with options for keeping your mail organized. A tabbed interface lets you keep multiple messages open at once. Tags and folders help you categorize and sort mail. Another stellar capability is how Postbox can display a contact info sidebar, letting you dig into the detail about the sender. There's a lot to explore in this powerful and well designed app.
Price: $40
Best email app for cutting down time spent in email
Every email doesn't need a lengthy reply. Sometimes a thumbs-up or crying face is all you need. With Spark, that's all you have to send, and in the end, that saves you time. After you read an email, tap Quick Reply to send an instant emoji response and archive the message in one step. Spark also saves you time in how it handles calendar invitations. Instead of a standard invite email, Spark shows you a preview of the event in your calendar with Accept and Reject options. This app has a wealth of other features, too, such as undo send, snooze, reminders, and more.
Price: free
Best email app for making email more like messaging
If you prefer text messaging or team chat to email, Spike (formerly Hop) is worth a try. This email client for Android and iOS devices turns message threads into chat-like conversations, so your emails look less like a verbose expanse of text and more like what you see in iMessage or WhatsApp, with GIFs, voice memos, one-tap image sharing, and everything else you'd expect in a chat app. And similar to team chat apps, Spike lets you create channels for organizing conversations around a certain topic. Spike works best when you use it to message with other people who are also using it, too.
Price: free
Best email app for working in tabs
BitTorrent’s official client for Mac is a great option and offers some nice features. It is light on system, absolutely free and downloads at normal speeds. There are no ads in this app and one can stream torrents directly from the app. BitTorrent is compatible with Windows, Mac and Android. Torrent clients enable you to download torrent files or use torrent magnet links. Each is used to download and share files over the internet; and each Mac BitTorrent client offers something different. Torrent client for macbook. Download the official µTorrent® (uTorrent) torrent client for Windows, Mac, Android or Linux-- uTorrent is the #1 bittorrent download client on desktops worldwide.
From the makers of Firefox comes an email application that copies one of the best features of web browsers: tabs. Thunderbird isn't the only email client to use a tabbed interface, but it is one of the best. When you quit the app, Thunderbird saves your open tabs and reloads them the next time you launch it. An extensive collection of add-ons let you expand what Thunderbird can do.
Price: free
Originally published 2 June 2015 by Paula DuPont; updated in 2017 and 2018 with new apps and current information. Zapier senior writer and editor Matthew Guay contributed to this article.
With smartphones and tablets now essential parts of your life, mobile email apps have evolved, each offering their own approach to the task of managing your inbox. But not all email helpers are created equal. From general purpose email app replacements to ones offering customization options, and AI smart assistance, here are the 15 email apps you might want to take for a spin.
Microsoft acquired the excellent mobile email app Accompli in 2014, extensively reworking and rebranding it into the mobile version of Microsoft Outlook (Android, iOS). The resulting Outlook mobile app is a mobile productivity powerhouse, bringing your email, attachments, contacts and calendars into easy reach. Outlook's built-in analytic engine automatically surfaces important email (across multiple accounts) based on your communications, and quick swipe controls allow you to easily triage your email. It's a great mobile email app, and works with Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and iCloud email accounts. Microsoft is looking to enhance the Outlook mobile app, with a variety of new features planned to roll out in the near future.
Google's Gmail (Android, iOS) comes default on most Android devices, and if you're already a heavy user of the search titan's web mail service, this may very well do everything you need. The Gmail app supports multiple accounts and notifications, while also offering particularly handy tools for organizing your emails. Automatic filters can sort out social notifications and spam mail, and users can get really get down to the nitty-gritty, setting rules for tagging incoming mail by sender and automatically shunting them into folders. In addition to Gmail, the app also supports a variety of IMAP and POP email accounts and Exchange. Google is continually adding features and improvements to the mobile apps, such as an Undo Send feature, customizable priority notifications, and the option to turn off the conversation view mode.
Dispatch treats your inbox as a to-do list. The app features quick, aggressive sorting options to quickly get your mail into archives or sent to a variety of other apps. Users can archive emails into Evernote, send links to Pocket or create linked events with Fantastical. It's fast, but not perfect. While Dispatch supports most IMAP services, it doesn't support POP email. It's a powerful tool for users that turn their emails into task items, sharing email content to a variety of apps and services.
ProtonMail (Android, iOS) offers its users a free, end-to-end encrypted email solution designed to make sure that nobody but you and your intended recipients can decrypt and read your messages. The service uses open source implementations of AES, RSA, and OpenPGP to help maximize security and privacy, and the app has the additional advantage of being ad-free. While anyone can sign up for a free ProtonMail account and email address, premium tiers offer more organizational features and cloud storage.
Tutanota (Android, iOS) offers encrypted mobile and webmail clients for users looking for a little bit of extra security in their emails. The service uses AES 128 and RSA 2048 systems in its end-to-end encryption, with optional two-factor authentication as an additional layer. Free users can create their own Tutanota email address, complete with 1GB of encrypted storage. Users looking for a little bit more can subscribe to premium tiers that allow for custom domains, expanded search, and inbox rules, as well as the option for unlimited storage. If you’re already dependent on your existing webmail or email provider, though, Tutanota’s probably not for you.
Nine is an Android email app that's a bit more tightly focused than other generic email clients, as it's built around security and support for Exchange's Active Sync. Nine supports Exchange, Office 365, Hotmail, Outlook, and Google Apps accounts. It also features Active Sync, so you connect straight to your mail server, rather than having any of your data stored or indexed through any cloud or third-party server. Previously an Android exclusive, Nine has since launched an iOS version of the app. The app includes Android Wear support, widgets, an unread mail badge on select launchers, and other features. While the app isn't free, users can try it for free during a 14-day free trial.
Airmail is a powerhouse email client on OS X that has since made the jump to iPhones and iPads, delivering a rich set of features as well as interface elements designed with the latest version of iOS in mind. The app provides support for Gmail, Exchange EWS, IMAP and POP3 systems, with gesture controls, single or threaded message views, labels, filtered search and more, all synced between your Mac and iPhone. Airmail also plays well with other services, supporting document import from OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox and letting you open links in many different browsers; it also features “send to” support for apps and services such as Trello, Evernote, and Pocket.
Edison Mail (Android, iOS) is an all-in one mobile email app that supports a variety of email providers while also bundling in a handy smart assistant and numerous helpful email management features. The app features configurable swipe controls, auto-sorting of email by categories, and a handy bulk unsubscribe feature to help you get off spammy mailing lists. Real-time travel notifications immediately inform you of any travel-related messages such as flight delays or gate changes, and the package-racking system makes a search for tracking codes a thing of the past. Edison's app supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Exchange, Outlook, Office 365, Hotmail, AOL, and IMAP accounts.
Since its acquisition by VMware Airwatch, Boxer (Android, iOS) has grown into an all-in-one mobile email app, combining email, calendar and contacts into a single experience, while maintaining Boxer's fast, gesture-powered interface. Swipes allow you to quickly throw mail into archives, trash, or spam, while menus provide more options like starring mails, adding labels, marking a message as read, and more. Corporate users get more utility out of the app with VMware's Workspace ONE platform for managing access, security features, mobile workflows and app integrations.
Missive (Android, iOS) is designed for small businesses and teams that have to work with a shared email account and email collaboration. Tools such as a built-in chat, shared labels, task assignment, filter rules and collaborative drafting mean you can share the workload and make sure everyone is on the same page as far as tasks are concerned. Users can create canned responses, schedule messages, and share content to other apps. The free tier offers a 15-day history limit and 3-team member limit for collaboration, with premium subscriptions removing history limits and adding app integrations and other productivity features.
Where other clients are packed to the gills with features, Triage instead focuses on ruthlessly reducing your unread emails down to zero with a simple, distraction-free interface that depends on flicks. The app displays the contents of your inbox as a stack of cards. Flick a card up, and the app will archive, delete, or mark the message as read; flick down, and the message is kept in your inbox for later action. You can also tap on a card to view its contents as well as compose a short reply or forward. Triage's brutal minimalism means it probably won't be your main email workstation, but it's a great email assistant for clearing out your inbox. The app supports Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and most IMAP email services, and supports multiple accounts.
Formerly known as Hop, Spike (Android, iOS) takes a more conversational approach to emails, displaying your emails in a chat format with messenger-like flourishes such as GIFs, voice notes, location sharing, calls, and drawing tools. The idea is to give your mail client a more natural conversation feel. In addition to the chat-style emails, Spike offers automatic inbox sorting, a unified inbox for your email accounts, calendars, read receipts, attachment previews, and bulk actions. Spike features compatibility with Gmail, Outlook, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, and IMAP email accounts.
If you're looking for an open-source Android mail client, then K-9 Mail is an old (and somewhat old-fashioned) favorite, with support for IMAP, POP3, and WebDAV accounts and features including a unified inbox, multiple account support, attachments and themes. The app also supports OpenPGP encryption through the OpenKeychain addon. Interface-wise, K-9 does feel dated, but the low-frills approach is also an advantage if you're in the market for a distraction-free and feature-packed email app.
TypeApp (Android, iOS) is a slick mobile email app that features clean design and support for a wide variety of email protocols and services such as Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Exchange and Yandex, as well as IMAP and POP3. The app supports an unlimited number of mail accounts with quick switching and customizable push notifications for each account. There's also a neat 'cluster' feature that intelligently bundles together related emails for viewing and batch actions. The app comes with numerous features, such as quick filters, configurable swipe controls, mobile printing, and Android Wear support, all wrapped up in a neat Material design package.
Spark is a nimble email app available on iOS that intelligently sorts incoming emails into quick categories, such as personal, notifications, and newsletters for easy sorting. Gesture controls let you quickly sort through your mail, and users can pin important messages, create one button quick replies, or snooze them for later attention. The app includes integration with a variety of apps and services, and emails can be saved as PDFs for reference. A calendar widget lets you quickly view and respond to invitations, and an Apple Watch app gives you quick access to important messages and notifications. The app supports iCloud, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Exchange, and other popular email providers.