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besson3c · Apr 28, 2009, 09:15 AM

What do you mean it doesn't feature a secure portal? The login on me.com is SSL protected.

besson3c · Apr 28, 2009, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

besson3c is correct - there are many, many things wrong with Mail, but most people just don't get to experience them (or don't notice them even when they do) and therefore think that all is great in Mail-land. However, I bet there are many of you who have had drafts or deleted messages that have the persistence of a cockroach, or mails that continue to stay in your Drafts mailbox even though they are also now in your Sent mailbox because, you know, you sent them. Then there are the UI annoyances like not being able to select headers when trying to copy and paste from Mail to another source, the utterly useless error messages you get when a server isn't available or is down, "Smart" mailboxes that don't update their message counts until you view them thus making them "Dumb", the inability to assign a delay to the message read status in split pane view so you can't take a quick peek without getting the message marked as read, etc., etc.

There is a lot to like about Mail in terms of UI as well, but that doesn't detract from the issues it also has.

Btw besson3c, it was TBird 2 that I experienced many bugs with, mostly with the UI. I gave up on it back then and haven't bothered trying version 3 because of the bad experience it gave me. That, and I just can't stand the lack of a proper Mac UI in the Mozilla apps. They eventually drive me up the wall as much as using MS Office does.

Btw, anyone recommending using POP over IMAP... no thank you. Not when you use e-mail from multiple sources (that is, more than one machine or even more than one account on the same machine) and for multiple accounts.

TBird 2 is ancient and has languished for a while now. TBird 3 is actually quite nice, I'd give it or Postbox a quick shot just for fun. I'm curious to see what your impressions are...

It is an improvement, at least

cwkmacuser · Apr 28, 2009, 09:47 AM

Postbox is a great program. I used mail years ago, but I would always get confused as to what account was what. With Postbox it's easy to tell. Also, tabs (like in Firefox) make it easy to have several folders or messages open at once. It's nice. Just download it and give it a shot!

cwkmacuser · Apr 28, 2009, 09:49 AM

Mac has a webmail service?

besson3c · Apr 28, 2009, 10:07 AM

TBird 3 also has the tabs, FWIW....

JKT · Apr 28, 2009, 10:13 AM

MobileMe has a webmail interface.

dpicardi · Apr 28, 2009, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

There are well over 100,000 messages in all of my accounts

Hence the reason he's clinically insane!

besson3c · Apr 28, 2009, 10:51 AM

You don't know the half of it, dpicardi!

Most of that mail is either archived stuff from one of my jobs or Teen Wolf related.

turtle777 · Apr 28, 2009, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yeah... Postbox looks killer, but when the sentiment of so many is that their free email client is "good enough" (witness this thread), I really have a hard time seeing how this app will be a big financial success?

I would be even willing to pay for a good IMAP client.

In general, it just seems that desktop clients are on their way out, since many people now exclusively read email on the web.

Me, personally, I would hate that. I need a offline client.

-t

besson3c · Apr 28, 2009, 11:49 AM

I might be willing to pay for Postbox myself, we'll see...

I agree, I can't imagine myself getting along with a web-based email client, although in theory you could design one to mimic a Desktop application even down to key bindings. It would have to compete for resources with other web pages though, which makes me skeptical that it would ever match the performance of a Desktop app which runs as its own process.

Maybe that Google Gears stuff is supposed to change this though? I've been meaning to learn more about Gears.

cwkmacuser · Apr 28, 2009, 07:01 PM

I would not want to pay for it.

ophiochos · Apr 28, 2009, 08:22 PM

no-one using Mailsmith except me? Couldn't live without it.

cwkmacuser · Apr 28, 2009, 09:03 PM

I've never heard of that one. Can you give us some screenshots?

wingdo · Apr 30, 2009, 04:21 PM

You include Opera (!!!) but not Entourage?

cwkmacuser · Apr 30, 2009, 07:22 PM

Sorry, didn't think to include enterouge.

turtle777 · Apr 30, 2009, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

Sorry, didn't think to include enterouge.

It's spelled Entaruoge.

-t

besson3c · Apr 30, 2009, 09:52 PM

No way José, it's Ontoruoauge.

cwkmacuser · Apr 30, 2009, 10:22 PM

Oh, who cares. It's just a mac forum!

turtle777 · May 1, 2009, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

Oh, who cares. It's just a mac forum!

It's spelled MAC.

-t

cwkmacuser · May 1, 2009, 09:34 AM

dn15 · May 1, 2009, 02:40 PM

Thanks to IMAP I am able to bounce between Mail, Thunderbird 3 betas, and the Gmail web interface. There are things I like about all of them, but things that bug me about all of them.

I am giving more serious consideration to Thunderbird since version 3 is able to read from the Mac OS X Address Book, which syncs to MobileMe, and hence my iPhone. That said, I do a lot of my mail on my iPhone so my desktop mail choice is only part of the equation.

I just gave Postbox a try and it seems like they've done a really nice job sprucing up Thunderbird. I'm not sure I like the way that you have to click on a given account first to see all its folders. But maybe there's a way that can be changed via a setting somewhere that I haven't seen yet. But without the ability to do that, I can't drag messages between different accounts, which is really handy in case I need to move a message from my home sent box to my work sent box, for example.

cwkmacuser · May 1, 2009, 02:47 PM

The problem with using GMail in a POP or IMAP client is if you send from GMail, your sent messages go into your inbox in the mail client. However, there is a very simple solution:

Send from the client only!
Then everything ends up where it belongs.

graxspoo · May 1, 2009, 04:45 PM

Was a long-time Eudora user, and held out as long as I could. Sad to see it fade into the past.

I'm more or less happy with Mail. The one feature from Eudora that I really miss is the ability to create compound searches, like "Find all messages from '[email protected]' that contain the word 'dog'"... The only way I can do something like this in Mail is to create a "smart mailbox" with one search criteria, and then further search within it with another criteria... but its clunky, and I have to delete the temporary mailbox when I'm done.

besson3c · May 1, 2009, 04:48 PM

graxspoo: if that's a deal breaker for you you ought to check out Postbox then... It's search capabilities far surpass OS X Mail's, including support for multiple criteria.

cwkmacuser · May 1, 2009, 04:55 PM

Yep, pretty nice!

dn15 · May 3, 2009, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

The problem with using GMail in a POP or IMAP client is if you send from GMail, your sent messages go into your inbox in the mail client.

Not the case with IMAP...

cwkmacuser · May 3, 2009, 02:22 PM

Really? Added advantage! The only one I can see with IMAP as a matter of fact.

thevelourfog · May 8, 2009, 02:09 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

What do you mean it doesn't feature a secure portal? The login on me.com is SSL protected.

My bad on that front... yes, me.com does have a secure logon--although it took .mac a while to provide one. But once you're logged on, its not encrypted anymore. I like having the option to keep my web sessions completely SSL protected. Gmail rocks!

besson3c · May 8, 2009, 09:02 AM

Originally Posted by thevelourfog

My bad on that front... yes, me.com does have a secure logon--although it took .mac a while to provide one. But once you're logged on, its not encrypted anymore. I like having the option to keep my web sessions completely SSL protected. Gmail rocks!

That's not a big deal, that just encrypts the network stream between the current page and form processing page before passed off to the SMTP server, but not the message itself. Once it leaves the SMTP server it is not SSL encrypted unless both sending and receiving servers offer SSL (many don't). This is where PGP comes in if you really want to encrypt your message contents. It is far more likely that your message will be read in transit on port 25, which is yet another reason not to use a remote server you can't control in this manner for dealing with confidential data without using PGP.

cwk MacBook · May 8, 2009, 09:58 AM

Is it OK if I vote on this with this handle?

turtle777 · May 8, 2009, 11:23 AM

WTF ? Yet another cwk handle ?

-t

besson3c · May 8, 2009, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by cwk MacBook

Is it OK if I vote on this with this handle?

Welcome to MacNN forums newcomer, welcome to our happy family! Be sure to read the rules to not upset others and get yourself into trouble, and have fun! Also, just so you know, I'm top dog around here just so you know what the pecking order is like. I may not be a mod, but I'm the best there is here.

Cold Warrior · May 8, 2009, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by cwk MacBook

Is it OK if I vote on this with this handle?

That handle isn't going to be posting anymore, let alone voting.

cwkmacuser · May 8, 2009, 07:36 PM

OK, now I'm confused. I was told by OreoCookie that multiple nicks were OK if they it is clear they are the same person, my two obviously are. This is not a sockpuppet, as it is not being used for deception. I don't see what the problem is.

"Distruptive sockpuppeting"?

I think the official rule on multiple handles needs to be published. I was told by Oreo that they are OK, as well as many members who do it.

May 8, 2009, 08:14 PM

I use Fastmail/Webmail. Been using it for about 5 years.

I prefer webmail, because I hate the thought of having to download my mail onto my hard drive to read it... if it's spam or other junk, then it can stay on the web server. Plus, I don't have to worry about an email/software client having problems, or having incompatibilities, i.e., in case I need to go back to an older version (I had that happen to me in Apple's Mail and I lost many personal messages because of it). Especially for dial-up users, the webmail is way faster.

If I need to save any mail, then I transcribe it all manually to RTF documents and keep it organized in my own hierarchy of folders in the Finder, some of which go 20 folders deep.

Chongo · May 8, 2009, 08:50 PM

apple mail

Veltliner · 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

To add to that, the competitor apps in this space are all significantly worse too. There just isn't a viable alternative to use instead. The two biggest competitors, Thunderbird and Entourage, are non-Mac like UIs to such an extent that it makes them unbearable to use. Thunderbird is also horrendously buggy in my experience - moreso (and much more noticeably so too) than Mail, which is quite damning really.

Thunderbird is the worst application I ever tried. It couldn't even send a single mail out.

Whenever I hit the "send" button, it started choking on something, gave you the hangman's rope of death (that twirling thingy that plays creative progress bar), and I had to quit to get back to work.

I erased this worst piece of junk.

Apple Mail is intuitive to use, even though I've got a problem with saving sent mail at the moment.

I'm currently digging into smtp mail applications that are integrated in cPanel.

This seems to be the most reliable thing - once you learn how to use it.

Drakino · May 8, 2009, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Sorry to be brash, but switching OS X accounts to switch email identities is a retarded, non-solution. I realize that you're trying to be helpful in pointing this out, I don't mean to put you on the defensive, but this is really the furthest thing from a solution I can think of. Every other email client on the face of this Earth seems to support multiple identities. That OS X Mail doesn't speaks to Apple's inability to conceive of well-designed IMAP clients...

Actually, it does, though it's not really documented anywhere. Hover over e-mail address in the account setup, and it provides the tooltip to explain that you can put in multiple comma separated addresses. When you do, you get a new option when composing mail to switch who the message is from. This also syncs to the iPhone, even though the iPhone doesn't allow a comma to be entered manually.

My main reason for using Mail is Smart Folders. I like the possibility of having a message in multiple folders without having to copy it everywhere.

My biggest annoyance with Mail is font handling. I try to make Mail look similar to Outlook if I use it at work, just to avoid disrupting threads too much. But it enjoys dumping down to plain text, or not setting a font in the message if I didn't manually change some part of the message.

I looked at Entourage once under the 2004 version and stopped using it for 2 reasons. Single file mail database (horrible for Time Machine or other backup methods), and the inability to change the icons on the toolbar. 2008 might be better, but I'm not going to pay to find out.

besson3c · May 9, 2009, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by Veltliner

Thunderbird is the worst application I ever tried. It couldn't even send a single mail out.

Whenever I hit the "send" button, it started choking on something, gave you the hangman's rope of death (that twirling thingy that plays creative progress bar), and I had to quit to get back to work.

I erased this worst piece of junk.

Apple Mail is intuitive to use, even though I've got a problem with saving sent mail at the moment.

I'm currently digging into smtp mail applications that are integrated in cPanel.

This seems to be the most reliable thing - once you learn how to use it.

I'm thoroughly confused by all of this.

cPanel is just a web application that provides an interface to configuring several hosting services and account related into. It is not a mail system. I have no clue what you mean by this.

As far as Thunderbird goes, you may have encountered some sort of bug, but at the end of the day it is a mail client like any other that needs to be configured correctly to work with your SMTP server. Concluding that Thunderbird is incapable to send mail to my SMTP server would be my last resort conclusion.

besson3c · May 9, 2009, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by Drakino

Actually, it does, though it's not really documented anywhere. Hover over e-mail address in the account setup, and it provides the tooltip to explain that you can put in multiple comma separated addresses. When you do, you get a new option when composing mail to switch who the message is from. This also syncs to the iPhone, even though the iPhone doesn't allow a comma to be entered manually.

I'm aware of the ability to provide multiple comma separated email addresses, but not only is that unintuitive, it is still half baked. A true multiple identity system (which I've needed) also allows you to insert alternative signatures, from address full names, PGP keys, etc.

My main reason for using Mail is Smart Folders. I like the possibility of having a message in multiple folders without having to copy it everywhere.

I find that the searches I conduct are usually different. Therefore, I prefer smart, robust, and fast search capability using multiple criteria than I do this capability. Postbox seems to be the best in class in this regard.

My biggest annoyance with Mail is font handling. I try to make Mail look similar to Outlook if I use it at work, just to avoid disrupting threads too much. But it enjoys dumping down to plain text, or not setting a font in the message if I didn't manually change some part of the message.

I blame Outlook on that. Outlook's HTML is pretty incomprehensible to non-MS clients, and even remaining in MS world looking at the code I'm surprised any client can make sense of it. It's hideous.

I looked at Entourage once under the 2004 version and stopped using it for 2 reasons. Single file mail database (horrible for Time Machine or other backup methods), and the inability to change the icons on the toolbar. 2008 might be better, but I'm not going to pay to find out.

Entourage's lack of proper Exchange support after all of these years - it's main selling point, as far as I'm concerned, gives me no faith in the client at all even leaving aside all of the horror stories I've heard and the silliness of a single flat file database mailbox cache/format.

pcryan5 · May 9, 2009, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

Never seen it before.

FWIW - Some companies treat the default message in Entourage / Outlook / etc as a template to customize. For example we replace the default message with an (semi) useful one that has info for new hires (Phone numbers, web links, etc)

turtle777 · May 10, 2009, 02:15 AM

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

"Distruptive sockpuppeting"?

Mods

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser

I think the official rule on multiple handles needs to be published. I was told by Oreo that they are OK, as well as many members who do it.

I think the only thing that needs to happen is you to STOP spamming the forums with new nicks.

-t

Rumor · May 10, 2009, 02:59 AM

Originally Posted by dn15

Thanks to IMAP I am able to bounce between Mail, Thunderbird 3 betas, and the Gmail web interface. There are things I like about all of them, but things that bug me about all of them.

I am giving more serious consideration to Thunderbird since version 3 is able to read from the Mac OS X Address Book, which syncs to MobileMe, and hence my iPhone. That said, I do a lot of my mail on my iPhone so my desktop mail choice is only part of the equation.

I just gave Postbox a try and it seems like they've done a really nice job sprucing up Thunderbird. I'm not sure I like the way that you have to click on a given account first to see all its folders. But maybe there's a way that can be changed via a setting somewhere that I haven't seen yet. But without the ability to do that, I can't drag messages between different accounts, which is really handy in case I need to move a message from my home sent box to my work sent box, for example.

Is Thunderbird 3 able to sync mail accounts with an iPhone as well?

zerock · May 10, 2009, 03:29 AM

I use Apple Mail for my personal emails. and Entourage for my Work emails

all2ofme · May 10, 2009, 09:09 AM

1) Gmail hosted mail, using the web interface.

2) Mail.app - I used to use this exclusively (with IMAP), but I'm weaning myself off it and purely onto the above.

3) Thunderbird - for POP-based backup of #1. I use this instead of Mail.app because of its more standardised mailbox format.

Hal Itosis · May 10, 2009, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by all2ofme

3) Thunderbird - for POP-based backup of #1. I use this instead of Mail.app because of its more standardised mailbox format.

I'll say it again: anyone who likes Thunderbird (and its other derivatives) should try Postbox. Unless 'themes' is a major factor in their choice of email client, they will probably switch over the same day (for its superior search features alone).

Cold Warrior · May 10, 2009, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

Is Thunderbird 3 able to sync mail accounts with an iPhone as well?

Not that I've seen. However, a large IMAP mailbox (like Gmail) means you can keep your email on the server w/ IMAP and it is in effect always synced regardless of client (TB3, Mail, Postbox) or platform (computer, iPhone).

Cold Warrior · May 10, 2009, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis

I'll say it again: anyone who likes Thunderbird (and its other derivatives) should try Postbox. Unless 'themes' is a major factor in their choice of email client, they will probably switch over the same day (for its superior search features alone).

I like Postbox but the last time I tried it, I got the Mail/Thunderbird-style reply headers ('On x-date y-wrote:'). To me those are crude and unprofessional. I know there are arguments against it, but I just have an emotional reaction to it and really need Outlook-style reply headers. A Thunderbird extension gives me that, and if Postbox does it, I'll relook the app.

besson3c · May 10, 2009, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Mods

I think the only thing that needs to happen is you to STOP spamming the forums with new nicks.

-t

Again, turtle, lighten up and be nice for a change! No harm is being done, and this guy is a kid. Relax.

besson3c · May 10, 2009, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by all2ofme

1) Gmail hosted mail, using the web interface.

2) Mail.app - I used to use this exclusively (with IMAP), but I'm weaning myself off it and purely onto the above.

3) Thunderbird - for POP-based backup of #1. I use this instead of Mail.app because of its more standardised mailbox format.

Just to be constructive, there is nothing more standard in terms of mailbox formats than IMAP. Why wrestle with importing/exporting Mail within your client when this is such a sure bet with using IMAP?