Best Email Client on the Mac with support for GMail and Google Calendar
July 18, 2017 4:42 AM Subscribe
What is the best email client on the Mac that has seamless support for GMail and Google Calendar?
Our company has switched to Google Apps for Business and I am having a hard time with getting my email and calendar sorted. I tried the built-in email app and calendar, but there are many limitations, such as support for Signatures, HTML emails etc.
Absolutely essential:
1. IMAP supported Email client
2. Seamless 2-way Google Calendar support (this is really important, since we have lots of meetings internally as well as with customers that are on the calendar)
3. Support for HTML mails - I should be able to copy content, tables etc from Word/Excel and paste directly into the message
4. HTML signatures - I use different ones based on the recipients
5. Pleasant UI
6. Some tagging or organization
7. Advanced search
I have tried:
1. Outlook (the client I use), but Outlook for Mac is still way behind Windows and is buggy. I have the latest version and Insider fast build as well
2. Thunderbird - almost good, but not very good to use (bad UI, tables etc not well-supported)
Other email clients don't have good integration with Google Calendar
Ideally, the email client would be as good as Outlook on Windows. Due to work policies, I am stuck on using a Mac for now.
Our company has switched to Google Apps for Business and I am having a hard time with getting my email and calendar sorted. I tried the built-in email app and calendar, but there are many limitations, such as support for Signatures, HTML emails etc.
Absolutely essential:
1. IMAP supported Email client
2. Seamless 2-way Google Calendar support (this is really important, since we have lots of meetings internally as well as with customers that are on the calendar)
3. Support for HTML mails - I should be able to copy content, tables etc from Word/Excel and paste directly into the message
4. HTML signatures - I use different ones based on the recipients
5. Pleasant UI
6. Some tagging or organization
7. Advanced search
I have tried:
1. Outlook (the client I use), but Outlook for Mac is still way behind Windows and is buggy. I have the latest version and Insider fast build as well
2. Thunderbird - almost good, but not very good to use (bad UI, tables etc not well-supported)
Other email clients don't have good integration with Google Calendar
Ideally, the email client would be as good as Outlook on Windows. Due to work policies, I am stuck on using a Mac for now.
Unclear whether adding a Calendar client also ok. I use Airmail and Fantastical. The combo ain't cheap but it's what comes closest to the web interfaces for putting work and personal stuff in the same place.
posted by supercres at 6:04 AM on July 18, 2017
posted by supercres at 6:04 AM on July 18, 2017
Response by poster: @COD: Disappointed to hear that. The web browser email client is so limited for our needs. For example, adding a column in a table in the email sent to me is so complex.
@supercres: I can check that. I am assuming that meeting invites to my email get added directly to the Calendar due to the Airmail-Fantastical integration.
posted by theobserver at 6:15 AM on July 18, 2017
@supercres: I can check that. I am assuming that meeting invites to my email get added directly to the Calendar due to the Airmail-Fantastical integration.
posted by theobserver at 6:15 AM on July 18, 2017
TBH I don't know if it's the integration, but whenever I get an emailed invite, it shows up in my Fantastical "inbox" to accept/maybe/decline. Or I can click on "accept" in the message in Airmail.
posted by supercres at 6:23 AM on July 18, 2017
posted by supercres at 6:23 AM on July 18, 2017
Best answer: Not entirely clear to me what's "bad" about the Tbird UI, but as a long-time user I can tell you that the search functionality in Tbird blows Outlook out of the water. I use both (Tbird on my Mac, Outlook on the Windows client I am forced to use for work) and I just despise every minute I am forced to use Outlook. The interface is a mess, functionality is limited for arbitrary reasons in different sections of the program (e.g. when matches to a name are ambiguous, I get a pop-up listing potentials but I can't sort by columns? Why not??)
You might want to rethink the UI issues and decide if it will really work for you or not. The ONLY two drawbacks to Tbird on Mac that I can see as a potential no-go are that (a) the address book integration isn't there - it will SEE your system addresses, but can't WRITE to the address book, and (b) it isn't seen by the OS as a valid client, so you can't send files from other programs (e.g. "send as email attachment" in Word or etc. won't show Tbird as an option - but you can always compose a message and drag the attachment in manually).
Caveat: This is based on about a decade of using Tbird as my main Mac email client... and close to 20 years of using Tbird and the old Netscape suite email that was the original basis of Tbird's UI. So it's highly likely that whatever UI issue you had is something I am so used to that I didn't even register it as a problem.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:04 AM on July 18, 2017
You might want to rethink the UI issues and decide if it will really work for you or not. The ONLY two drawbacks to Tbird on Mac that I can see as a potential no-go are that (a) the address book integration isn't there - it will SEE your system addresses, but can't WRITE to the address book, and (b) it isn't seen by the OS as a valid client, so you can't send files from other programs (e.g. "send as email attachment" in Word or etc. won't show Tbird as an option - but you can always compose a message and drag the attachment in manually).
Caveat: This is based on about a decade of using Tbird as my main Mac email client... and close to 20 years of using Tbird and the old Netscape suite email that was the original basis of Tbird's UI. So it's highly likely that whatever UI issue you had is something I am so used to that I didn't even register it as a problem.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:04 AM on July 18, 2017
Oooh additional caveat: Setting up calendar is not entirely intuitive, but once set up it works seamlessly. You can easily set up a Gmail account using the standard wizard, but that does NOT automatically add calendar function for that account - you have to set that up separately as a calendar (manually add calendar using "https://apidata.googleusercontent.com/caldav/v2/[gmail user name]/events" as the calendar address)
posted by caution live frogs at 9:25 AM on July 18, 2017
posted by caution live frogs at 9:25 AM on July 18, 2017
Best answer: > I am assuming that meeting invites to my email get added directly to the Calendar due to the Airmail-Fantastical integration.
I don't know what "Airmail-Fantastical" is, but automatically having invites added to your Google Calendar is a feature of Google Calendar. You can turn it on or off, but I always kept it on. It's in your settings here. You have three options: 1) Automatically add them, 2) don't automatically add them, or 3) add them but only send you reminders/notifications if you responded yes or maybe.
>I tried the built-in email app and calendar, but there are many limitations, such as support for Signatures
I'm confused by this. You can add signatures in Gmail in your settings here. Unless you mean it's not working with a third-party app? But the web interface of Gmail is really the way to go. I understand the desire to sometimes have your email as its own separate thing, so I personally would have a dedicated browser window for Gmail. i.e. I would do all my work in Firefox, but I'd leave Gmail open in Chrome, or vice versa. Safari is another option for you.
Maybe you can look around at your options and familiarize yourself with Gmail and Google Calendar a bit more? I've been using Gmail + Google Calendar for years and I find they work really great together, and are far easier to organize than Outlook. I understand you may not be used to it, but I think they probably do everything you need and the web browser is the way to go here.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:52 AM on July 18, 2017
I don't know what "Airmail-Fantastical" is, but automatically having invites added to your Google Calendar is a feature of Google Calendar. You can turn it on or off, but I always kept it on. It's in your settings here. You have three options: 1) Automatically add them, 2) don't automatically add them, or 3) add them but only send you reminders/notifications if you responded yes or maybe.
>I tried the built-in email app and calendar, but there are many limitations, such as support for Signatures
I'm confused by this. You can add signatures in Gmail in your settings here. Unless you mean it's not working with a third-party app? But the web interface of Gmail is really the way to go. I understand the desire to sometimes have your email as its own separate thing, so I personally would have a dedicated browser window for Gmail. i.e. I would do all my work in Firefox, but I'd leave Gmail open in Chrome, or vice versa. Safari is another option for you.
Maybe you can look around at your options and familiarize yourself with Gmail and Google Calendar a bit more? I've been using Gmail + Google Calendar for years and I find they work really great together, and are far easier to organize than Outlook. I understand you may not be used to it, but I think they probably do everything you need and the web browser is the way to go here.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:52 AM on July 18, 2017
Response by poster: @caution live frogs: I used TBird for about 2-3 months, but there are some limitations (I don't remember all of them now!) such as
- A frequent popup about an email/meeting (with buttons for Discard my changes/submit my changes anyway) that doesn't go away
- Font for new email not being remembered by TBird
- Color scheme used is not to my liking, but there are no themes/add-ons in active development
@AppleTurnover: >You can add signatures in Gmail in your settings here
I have 3 signatures I use depending on the email context and recipients. Most email clients allow the user to select the signture
I use GMail exclusively for my personal email and am pretty familiar with the interface. I have been using Outlook with exchange on Windows for a long time, so maybe I am conditioned to have an email client.
Looks like either I live with the web browser version or cajole them into giving me a Windows laptop!
posted by theobserver at 10:54 PM on July 18, 2017
- A frequent popup about an email/meeting (with buttons for Discard my changes/submit my changes anyway) that doesn't go away
- Font for new email not being remembered by TBird
- Color scheme used is not to my liking, but there are no themes/add-ons in active development
@AppleTurnover: >You can add signatures in Gmail in your settings here
I have 3 signatures I use depending on the email context and recipients. Most email clients allow the user to select the signture
I use GMail exclusively for my personal email and am pretty familiar with the interface. I have been using Outlook with exchange on Windows for a long time, so maybe I am conditioned to have an email client.
Looks like either I live with the web browser version or cajole them into giving me a Windows laptop!
posted by theobserver at 10:54 PM on July 18, 2017
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posted by COD at 5:38 AM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]