Email clients come in all shapes and sizes, but when it comes to the options available on the Mac, we feel that Airmail is the best email client for most people. It’s easy to use, supports a number of different email providers, has a solid search function, and more.
But between the ability to use Thunderbird or similar email clients for fully-encrypted messages and the storage of your content in a country as secure about data as Switzerland, the sacrifice in security for the features Kolab offers might be one of the best tradeoffs in email today. Available for Windows, Mac, Linux. Back in 2016, Nylas Mail hit the scene and looked as if it’d be the desktop email client to put all other desktop email clients to shame.
Platform: macOS
Price: $9.99
Download Page
Airmail’s biggest strength is the variety of ways you can customize it. Part of that comes from the fact that Airmail is updated pretty frequently, which means that not only does it regularly get new features, it’s also always up to date with the most modern iterations of macOS. Over the course of its life, those updates have added in features like snoozing, VIP mailbox, and plenty of other modern email features.
Advertisement
The ways that you can customize Airmail are pretty in-depth. You can alter what’s on your sidebar, what emails you’re notified about, how emails are displayed, how long a “snooze” is, how gestures work, where you save files, and tons more. Airmail also integrates with a bunch of third-party services, so if you use one of the supported to-do apps or notes apps as part of your email workflow then it’s pretty easy to integrate that into Airmail.
Airmail is basically a power-user email app for people who don’t want to go “full power-user” with something like Outlook. It’s great for the niche of people who need an advanced email client on their Mac and who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty customizing it.
Advertisement
At $10, Airmail is a bit of an investment and while it’s well worth the cost if you use all is features, not everyone needs a ton of features to begin with. While Airmail is very customizable, it’s not great out of the box, which means you’ll want to spend a 10-15 minutes playing around with various settings, options, and other things to tweak it to suit your needs. If you use email a lot for work, this isn’t a huge deal, but if you’re a casual user who just want to send and receive some mail then Airmail is overkill.
Advertisement
Apple Mail is probably the most obvious competition here. The packed-in email client is.. fine. It works on a fundamental level, but since it’s only updated when Apple updates its entire operating system, it’s pretty devoid of modern features. If you just check and reply to emails, it does the job though.
Advertisement
Spark(Free) is easily the best alternative to Airmail for people who don’t need as many of the advanced features that come packed into it. Spark has a lot of the modern razzle-dazzle of Airmail without the clutter. It has smart inbox sorting, iCloud syncing with the free mobile app, email snoozing, and quick replies. The free part might seem like its main strength, but it gives me pause because it’s unclear what the business model is, and therefore hard to tell what will happen to the app in the future. We’ve seen far too many abandoned email apps over the years to trust any free app moving forward, even if it is run by a company with a whole productivity suite. Still, it’s a great alternative to Airmail and free to check out if you’re curious.
Postbox ($40) is another great competitor. Like Airmail, Postbox excels in search options and additional powerful features you won’t find in most other mail clients. For example, you get message summary mode, sorting by type/subject of email (called the Focus Pane), add-ons, easy archiving of messages, and more. It’s a little clunky to actually use though, and Postbox doesn’t feel as at home in macOS as Airmail does. While you can check out a trial of Postbox for free, it’s a tough sell at $40 unless you really enjoy it.
Advertisement
Lifehacker’s App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
Advertisement
Do you struggle to keep on top of your emails? Hundreds of unread and disorganized messages giving you a headache? Opera Mail could be the solution.
Download here:Opera Mail
Developer:Opera Software
Operating system: Windows, Mac, Linux
Version: 1
Opera Mail is a free email client originally bundled with the Opera web browser, but now in development as a standalone project. It’s a great tool for keeping multiple email accounts organized, avoiding the need to open multiple browser tabs. It also stores an offline backup of your messages so you don’t need to worry about accidentally deleting the email about that critical job interview, or the order confirmation from that misguided 2am eBay purchase.
If you already use an email client, there’s a wizard that makes it easy to import your messages and contacts. This tool sounds good in principle, and it supports Mozilla Thunderbird, but unfortunately most of the other clients listed are quite outdated, including Netscape and the geriatric Eudora.
This is reflective of Opera Mail as a whole – it’s a very well made, smart email client, but needs a thorough refresh to bring it up to date.
Advanced select (For experienced players) If there is a particular world that you want to use, choose it by clicking on its name. Old school runescape client for mac. Quick select (Recommended) This will choose the best world for you based on available space and your location. There are currently 114,147 people playing!
Upon launching Opera Mail for the first time, you’ll be given three choices: email, newsgroups (yes, really) and import email.
Setting up an email account isn’t quite as straightforward as it is in eM Client or MailBird Free, but it’s still fairly easy. Enter your name and email address, then your login name and password. The incoming and outgoing server names will be populated automatically (usually corrently), and you can choose whether to leave the messages on the server if you delete them. There's also the option to use a secure connection – something that’s missing from most clients.
Further options become available once the account is set up, including a very useful low-bandwidth mode that doesn’t load attachments – ideal if you’re using your smartphone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and don’t want it to chew through your whole data allowance.
Incoming messages are aggregated in a central inbox, and individual account folders are listed below. Opera Mail’s three-pane default layout is very clear (accounts and folders on the left, messages received in the middle, and currently open message on the right), and the labelling system is much more useful than Gmail’s system of simply starring emails for attention.
We really like Opera Mail – it’s just a shame it’s starting to feel a little unloved. With a little modernization, it could easily stand alongside the slick eM Client and Mailbird.