Better Email Program for Mac?

September 13, 2018 8:52 AM

Search on Mail.app seems completely broken for me, and the posted fixes I've found don't work. Google, as far as I can tell, does not offer a desktop app, only an iOS app. What is your favorite program for reading Google mail on your Mac?
posted by musofire to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

I've been using Airmail for a couple of years, and have no complaints. It's simple and fast.
posted by salt grass at 9:01 AM on September 13, 2018

A web browser works fine.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:08 AM on September 13, 2018

Chrome and mail.google.com work great for me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:10 AM on September 13, 2018

I like Pine/Alpine, it’s been widely loved for 26 years.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:24 AM on September 13, 2018

Seconding Airmail. It works great. Search is great. Makes it easy to deal with multiple accounts. Love it. The only annoying thing is that I have to go back into the browser to set up filters which could just be a limitation that Google has set up.
posted by bleep at 9:28 AM on September 13, 2018

I have used Kiwi for Gmail happily for many years now.
posted by special-k at 9:30 AM on September 13, 2018

Wow - Kiwi for Gmail is awesome. I was totally unaware of this prior to today. The Pro version is currently free too.
posted by COD at 10:05 AM on September 13, 2018

I currently use Epichrome to create a separate instance of Chrome, but I might give Kiwi a shot.
posted by mkb at 10:54 AM on September 13, 2018

I use Chrome's Application Mode to give me a separate GMail window that doesn't look like the normal Chrome browser. I use Windows but Chrome on Mac OS X supports application mode.
posted by mmascolino at 10:54 AM on September 13, 2018

I use Airmail as well on Mac and iPhone. It's ok. I don't use nearly all the features like Snooze or To Do. Sometimes seems a little poky/non-responsive compared to Apple's apps. One of the articles I used in my search was this one. Aside from Kiwi, they also mention MailPlane as an alternative if you like the Gmail interface.
posted by troyer at 11:51 AM on September 13, 2018

The secret to "fixing" search is to highlight the mailbox that has the emails missing from results, then going to the top menu and choosing Mailbox -> Rebuild. Rebuild is at the very bottom.

This should cause whatever emails are missing from the search database to start showing up.
posted by sideshow at 12:20 PM on September 13, 2018

Given that I regularly find search in Mail.app to be among its greatest features, I wonder what's going on with your install that is breaking it.

Try the rebuild option Troyer mentions, if you haven't.
posted by uberchet at 12:52 PM on September 13, 2018

I just stuck with Thunderbird when it separated from Mozilla and it's been fine for years now. Of course, I'm not a power user or anything, just a single channel user so YMMV.
posted by MovableBookLady at 1:08 PM on September 13, 2018

I'm satisfied with Spark.
posted by Baphomet's Prime at 2:53 PM on September 13, 2018

I've been using Thunderbird forever, and it's very useful.
posted by NumberSix at 8:44 PM on September 13, 2018

I use Postbox for the Mac. It's pretty specialized but does exactly what I want:

1. works very well with Gmail
2. downloads and keeps a local copy of your recent mail in all your folders, so you can work on processing your email even away from internet service
3. is very savvy about keyboard shortcuts, and can even duplicate the Gmail keyboard shortcuts for seamless eMail sorting between Google web experience and the Postbox experience
4. has more traditional Mac window and file based operations, creating new "files" (messages) and such
5. pretty good search, though Gmail's web-based search is better.
6. I think it's based on Thunderbird.

It can handle multiple mail accounts as well.
posted by sol at 10:15 PM on September 13, 2018