Question for Mac users ... what email client?

[Joe]

The old chestnut, but what email client do Mac users (OSX) here on FutureQuest use? I have to migrate away from Outlook Express and am leaning towards Eudora. Any opinions, suggestions and experiences (good and bad) would be much appreciated.

Joe

[MichaelC]

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of practical experience (I've stuck with Eudora 4.2 since 1999, and probably will as long as POP3 protocol remains the same and I have one machine running OS9), but based on what I've heard you might want to look at Mailsmith (http://www.mailsmith.com/).

It's from the same people who bring us BBEdit (and the free BBEdit Lite, for which they get my undying gratitude).

Also, here's a comparison of several packages by Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/2002/10/features/email/).

I'm presuming you don't use a Hotmail account, which would create a real headache switching from an MS product (due to their never-ending quest to ensure their products work only with each other).

MC

[Joe]

Thanks for the reply Michael. These are the only 'cons' the MacWorld comparison chart came up with for Eudora:

Ugly interface; mediocre filters; poor HTML rendering.

I can live with the poor HTML rendering and even with the ugly interface, but do you do much filtering and if so have you found Eudora's filtering features mediocre? I also like the price of Eudora better than Mailsmith and the fact that it has a spell checker.

[GregJ]

Hello Joe,

I use Eudora on the PC, and I find it's filtering to be very nice. It has the ability to match on about anything and you can even use regular expressions to get some of the more odd matches to work.

-g

[Marbledog]

Joe,

I have avoided using Apple's mail programs like the plague until X.2. When I finally upgraded to system X.2 I decided to try the mail program that came with it - I'd been using Eudora for a long time, but they were way to slow to upgrade.

I have been really happy with the new Mac mail program. Good, intuitive filtering, you can set up multiple mailboxes and program mail to automatically be delivered to each one, multiple account management, good address book. On and on. I'm really happy with it and recommend you give it a try.

[Dunx]

When I got my iBook I just started using the inbuilt Mail program. It seems to work pretty well, although I don't trust the junk filter yet. The one thing I miss is a proper threaded view of messages.

[Marbledog]

It will highlight the threads at least - and then you can organize it by subject.

[Dunx]

Originally posted by Marbledog:
It will highlight the threads at least - and then you can organize it by subject. True enough. I was wanting something more like a collapsible thread view, like you get in news readers.

[sheila]

Well, guess I will suggest Mulberry.

I am using it on a PC, but is also available for Mac and Unix platforms. I haven't tried using it for filtering, but it does do a threaded view.

http://cyrusoft.com/

[Joe]

Thanks for all the replies. I downloaded Eudora and it really is ugly isn't it. In this day of skins, you'd think they could do something about that.

Laurie like you I haven't liked Apple's contribution to this field before, but I'll try it. In fact my migration to OSX will only be complete when I get this email problem sorted out and I want to make my next email software my last one ... for a very long time anyway.Dunx I've read the junk filter is worth treating with caution. Sheila, this is what the MacWorld review had to say on the con side about Mulberry for the Mac Cluttered and confusing interface; no inline spelling checker; poor HTML support; can't display graphics. That isn't much worse than the cons for most of the programs, so maybe I'll give that a go as well.

Here are a couple of question for Eudora and other users. I noticed that when you send an email from a different personality in Eudora, in the message headers you will still see your dominant email address (albeit it says unverified) even if the return path is an email address that is totally unconnected to the actual dominant personality's SMTP and POP server. Eudora does this by putting the user name and SMTP server information together. I am going to be changing ISPs soon and in an attempt to avoid SPAM at my one and only real email address I don't want anyone to know that address. OE, I'm pretty sure, doesn't show the real address - although I am aware that it wouldn't take a genius to derive the information from the headers, but I'm willing to live with that. It is the automated email harvesters (if they do in fact go into headers) that I am concerned about.

So the questions are do other email clients work just like Eudora i.e. look hard enough and you'll see the real email address put together for you and do the bots go into headers or am I worrying too much?

Joe

[Randall]

Originally posted by Joe:
Here are a couple of question for Eudora and other users. I noticed that when you send an email from a different personality in Eudora, in the message headers you will still see your dominant email address (albeit it says unverified) even if the return path is an email address that is totally unconnected to the actual dominant personality's SMTP and POP server. On the Mac this can be supressed with the Kill X-Sender plugin (http://www.gildea.com/eudora/Kill-Eudora-X-Sender.sit), or so I'm told.

On the PC you use an awkward DOS program called Edit-X (http://www.geocities.com/edit_x/) to patch one of the DLLs. I can confirm that it works, but it's a bit ugly.

The thing that frustrates me most about Eudora is the way headers are displayed. No formatting, too many irrelevant headers and they aren't sorted for consistency of presentation. All of which slows me down trying to make sense of it. :mad:

Randall

[sheila]

Sheila, this is what the MacWorld review had to say on the con side about Mulberry for the Mac Cluttered and confusing interface; no inline spelling checker; poor HTML support; can't display graphics.
I would agree that the interface is not exactly intuitive. Cluttered, even. (Assuming the PC and Mac interfaces are similar.)

The HTML support on the PC is pretty good, I thought. It displays very well. One of the things I like about it, is I can toggle easily between Raw source, HTML, plain text, and "formatted" displays, for reading mail.

Images are not displayed within Mulberry. However, double-clicking on an image attachment will launch it in the default viewer on the PC.

I'm surprised about the spelling checker complaints. The PC version seems to have a very configurable one, although I don't personally use it.

Anyhow, just thought I'd toss it out there. I've heard many more favorable remarks about Eudora than about Mulberry.

:dunno:

[jeep]

Joe,

I've been through this same process myself. It's a tough one, as for most people their email client is the most important and personal software they use. They probably only use their web browser more...

Here are IMHO the serious contenders (there are other commercial & free options but I have excluded them due to major failings, poor support, lack of commitment to Mac etc):

EUDORA:
I've used this fellow for about 7 years, it's powerful and flexible. However the weight of history hangs heavily indeed. It's dog ugly, tempermental and not really that suited to OSX. Also future development is clouded, Eudora is a minor thing for Qualcomm and Mac development is basically done by one guy. The esoteric preferences and approach to many features can make it very frustrating for power users.

APPLE MAIL:
It can't get more OSXified than this. It's more stable these days and quite powerful. But it still has some odd problems and isn't nearly configurable enough for a serious email user. Appropriate for light users only.

ENTOURAGE:
Well it is Microsoft but it isn't all that bad. If you have all the Office apps and you want to integrate them with Entourage scheduling etc then this could be a good way to go. However the way it stores email can be problematic for reliability and backup. Also filtering and configurability aren't all that they could be. But it looks good.

MAILSMITH:
This is the one I went with in the end. It isn't perfect but here's what it does: Incredibly powerful filtering, deals with the volume of email I need to, clearly designed configuration, excellent editing, scriptable (as are others in the list but IMHO this is the easiest to actually script for), secure & solid (no HTML display - thank God!) and fantastic attachment (enclosure) support. There are some failings though - MailSmith needs a fast computer and even then it can be sluggish when filtering (I would recommend a 500Mhz G4 at least), IMAP is not supported (there are work-arounds), it isn't all pretty like Apple Mail or Entourage.

There's my thoughts. Do what you will with them!

All the best,
Jason

[Joe]

Jason,

Thanks very much for the detailed reply. If nothing else you have convinced me to ditch Eudora. The $99 price tag of Mailsmith makes me want to give Apple's Mail a try. If it doesn't go well, I'll try Mailsmith. I can't believe I'm having this much trouble finding what I like. %)

Randall, it appears as if Apple's Mail behaves the way I want it to so I shouldn't need to use that plug-in. Thanks for posting it though.

Thanks again for all your help.

Joe

[jeep]

Joe,

The $99 price tag indicates that Mailsmith is for serious email users and not the average home user. But do note that if you have Eudora Pro, BBEdit or Claris Emailer registered the price is reduced to $79.

Good luck!

Jason

[Joe]

Jason,

I wouldn't hesitate to pay $99 if I thought a particular software was exactly what I needed. If Apple's Mail doesn't fit the bill Mailsmith will be next on my list. Thanks again.

Joe

[Marbledog]

FWIW, I certainly consider myself a "serious" e-mail user - in terms of volume and diversity and etc etc - and this Apple Mail program has been working for me quite well. Takes some tweaking for sure, but it's tweakable. The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is that setting up separate accounts is more cumbersome than it was with Eudora. But not too bad.

[Joe]

Laurie,

As you've been using Apple Mail for a while, how do you set up a filter for sent mail? I have, for example, got a mailbox for incoming mail from family. If I set up another mailbox within that, say called 'family sent', how do I redirect any mail sent to family to go there? I found one filter option of 'any recipient', but that didn't seem to work. Outlook Express used to have separate rules for Incoming and Outgoing mail. Is the 'any recipient' the way to go (i.e. I just got something wrong when I tried it) or is there some other way to set this up?

Joe

[Marbledog]

In the "Rules" section, make a rule (or add to existing one) to identify the message you've sent. I'm assuming you've been working with this already. For incoming messages, the messages will automatically be redirected to the mailbox you identify. But for sent messages, it takes an extra step. Mine all go in the "sent" box. Then, you can select the messages in the "sent" box and in the "Messages" menu, choose the last option - "apply rules to selection."

I hope this makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't make sense or doesn't work.

[Joe]

I think I understand what are you are saying, but (and it's a BIG but) is that a one time deal i.e. Mail knows from there on that any sent message to that address should go the mailbox specified, or (and please don't let it be this :( ) do I have to do apply the rule manually everytime?

[Marbledog]

I agree - it is a big "but" - you have to apply the rules for sent manually. But you can select all of the messages in the sent box and apply them all at once. This is the biggest problem I've encountered too, actually. The filtering and such for received messages is nearly flawless as far as I'm concerned, but they need to do the same for the sent mail.

[Joe]

Originally posted by Marbledog:
But you can select all of the messages in the sent box and apply them all at once.

Ahh! now that makes it a little bit better. At least you don't have to do it one at a time. Now I just need to find the graphic which makes it clear if the email is still on the server or has been deleted server side. :$

[Marbledog]

I remember that from eudora - not sure this has it -

I'm going to send them some feedback on the "sent" filtering because this program is on its way to being a pretty good one. Not that it'll do any good, of course!

[Joe]

Laurie send me the email address you are going to send your feedback to and I'll send one along as well.

[Joe]

You know what appears to be one really stooopid bug in the filtering system is that there is no scroll bar on the edit rules screen. So the number of filters you are allowed against any one mailbox is limited by the size of your screen. After that you just can't see the boxes to put your rules in. :QTbars:

[Dunx]

Apologies for turning this into the "How to make Apple Mail work properly" forum, but... I have a question that's been bugging me too.

When I was using Linux on my laptop, I had a .sig file generator. It regenerated my .sig randomly each time I logged in, and then my mail program would append that file onto mye messages.

Can I do the same thing in Apple Mail? The sig config only seems to let you setup static text sigs.

Thanks.

[jeep]

There are programs and AppleScripts out there (or you can make your own of course) which randomise the text file which the mail program reads from. But the only do this everytime you startup or something similar - not every email.

Dunno if that helps?

Jason

[Dunx]

Originally posted by jeep:
There are programs and AppleScripts out there (or you can make your own of course) which randomise the text file which the mail program reads from. But the only do this everytime you startup or something similar - not every email.
That's what I'm after - if I know it's scriptable then I should be able to find what I need.

Thanks.

[Joe]

I've just found this thread (http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@80.rfBoaIJng3k.40@.f02c2ff) on Apple's own discussion forums. I think most features that are found in the more complete email clients have been mentioned by people in that thread. Assuming Apple's code writers read their own forums, the next version of Mail should be worth waiting for. How long? Well that's another matter.

Joe

[jeep]

Note that there's no guarantee that Apple will incorporate those features. They walk a fine line between discouraging their development partners and providing built-in functionality.

AFAIK Mail is never going to compete with the more 'complete' offerings for business users. They might make a 'Pro' version they charge for however... this would be consistent with their activities of the past year or so...

Because we never know what Apple are up to it's always hard to judge but one thing I know for sure is to never hold my breath for features which they haven't explicitly promised!

All the best,
Jason