Get Canary Mail

Oh, and it’s free for small teams and personal use, too. The best Mac email app for an organized inbox: Edison Mail. Some email apps simply move spam messages and newsletters into a separate folder. Apple Mail, also known simply as the Mail app, is the default email client on macOS.

Having an email client installed on your Mac can make a huge difference for your productivity. After all, your web browser is a portal to distraction, and any time you boot up Chrome or Safari to check on your inbox you’re in danger of losing at least 10–15 minutes to reading the news, browsing Facebook, or going down a “wiki-spiral.”

That said, not every email client is built the same. While macOS comes with the Apple Mail app by default, it might not necessarily be the best fit for your needs.

Get a bundle of best email clients

With Setapp on your Mac, you get access to the list of best email tools. Experiment with all of them flexibly — until you find the one.

Best Email Apps For Mac 2020

So what’s the best email app for Mac then? Depends on what you do. You might be a power user, comfortable with running macros to make the most out of your email experience, or you might just want something that works out of the box without having to fuss with settings. Security could be your top priority if you work with sensitive materials, or you might just need to easily manage multiple accounts.

Whatever the case, there are a few things to keep in mind when evaluating all email clients: How fast is the setup process? How easy is it to use? Is it secure? What are the sorting options for your inbox? Is it nice to look at?

Let’s sift through some top email apps using this questioning framework.

Apple Mail: Best email client for Mac by default

What makes Apple products great is also what limits them: because Apple needs to make apps that are so easy to use that anyone can use them, much of what they produce is quite basic in functionality. Which is fine — just make sure you know what you’re getting with the Apple Mail app.

You definitely get clean, user-friendly design that’s in line with all the other Apple software. In addition, you get outstanding integration with macOS and iOS, including the use of the Notification Center and the ability to send emails via the Share function in other apps.

Although adding multiple email providers, including iCloud and Gmail, is easy — there have been some bug reports around using Microsoft accounts, such as Hotmail or Live. Maybe the old Apple and Microsoft feud is not over yet?

In step with the times, Apple Mail app makes it effortless to add emoji to your emails from the shortcut bar right in the composing email window.

Honestly, for most people, the Apple Mail app will absolutely be enough. However, if you’re the kind of person who has a lot going on in their inbox, there are not too many ways to filter through all the messages quickly and pin down important conversations, or simply delete unwanted mail.

What’s great:

• Clean design

• Easy-to-use Mac mail

• Fantastic Mac and iOS integration

Not so great:

• A history of bugs with Microsoft accounts

• Lacking high-powered organizational tools

Mozilla Thunderbird: Best free email client for Mac power users

Perhaps most widely known for their web browser, Firefox, Mozilla’s other major product is their email client, Thunderbird. Hailed as the best free email app on the market at various points throughout its long history, where does Thunderbird stand in 2020?

Unfortunately, Thunderbird’s design shows its age. Blocky and utilitarian, it’s quite a bit uglier than most modern email clients. But look below the surface and you’ll discover some very handy features.

For one, you have the option of tagging emails as they come in. Just add tags like Personal, Work, and ToDo and suddenly conversations become much easier to find later on. Even better, create your own tags to make the classification system as specific as you need it to be.

Thunderbird features an integrated calendar and chat client, both of which are indispensable for work, and boasts great privacy features — like not automatically displaying images (hence stopping pixel trackers) when you open emails (can be changed in Preferences).

Overall, Thunderbird has some powerful value propositions, but is also a bit ugly and unintuitive. So, if the looks don’t bother you, give it a try. Otherwise, you’re better off using another option.

What’s great:

• Tagging is powerful and helps you organize your emails quickly

• Precise search

Not so great:

• Not the prettiest interface

• Unintuitive user experience. It takes time to figure out Thunderbird’s best features.

Kiwi for Gmail: Best Gmail app for Mac

If you don’t use Gmail, you can skip this one: Kiwi isn’t for you.

But for all other Gmail for Mac users, Kiwi for Gmail is an excellent Mac mail option. A desktop app with the look and feel of your browser email inbox, Kiwi features the ability to combine multiple accounts and filter your inbox with Focus to organize correspondence by date, importance, attachments, and more.

In many ways, Kiwi is Gmail’s missing ingredient, making the best free email provider online also the premier Gmail app for Mac. What’s even more exciting is that Kiwi lets you run G Suite apps like Google Docs and Sheets outside of your browser. Being able to leave Chrome or Safari behind and get some focused work done alone makes Kiwi worth the install.

What’s great:

• Kiwi makes Gmail better
• Combine multiple Gmail accounts
• Focused work outside the browser with Google Docs

Not so great:

• Doesn’t support non-Gmail accounts

Spark: Best Mac email client for a clean inbox

A relatively new email client for Mac, Spark is based on an intriguing premise: What if your inbox was able to sort itself out based on your priorities but without your input?

Spark’s Smart Inbox algorithms are able to instantly identify whether an email is personal, work-related, or just a newsletter you signed up for years ago because it gave you a coupon but have since completely forgotten about. This kind of artificial intelligence works so well that Apple gave Spark an Editor’s Choice Award a few years ago.

In its quest for widespread adoption, Spark doubles down on usability, offering quick, one-click replies with generated text based on how you typically respond to emails and powerful automatic functions to clean up your inbox in seconds. Besides, the app is beautifully designed and very easy to use.

Of course, for Spark to have all of these powerful features, complete access to the content of your emails is required — which might raise some privacy-minded eyebrows. However, a lot of people would be happy to offer that in return for ease of use. So, if this notion doesn’t bother you, Spark might well be the best free email app for Mac.

What’s great:

• Clean design
• Smart Inbox organizes your unread emails

• Could be the most professional email client for Mac

• The only non-Apple email client with the Apple seal of approval

• “Send later” feature lets you schedule emails

• Frequent updates

Not so great:

• Requires more of your data than other email clients

Canary Mail: Best security in an email client for Mac

New to the Mac email client game, Canary Mail’s outstanding list of features still makes it a worthy contender.

Canary Mail prioritizes security and privacy, providing every email you send with end-to-end encryption, so that if your data is ever intercepted it can’t be read. Even better, you don’t have to change any settings to do this — everything is set up right out of the box.

Add to that a fantastic design and some excellent filtering options, such as natural language search, smart tags, algorithmic bulk cleaner, and intelligent typography enhancements, and Canary Mail might well be the best email app for Mac, period.

What’s great:

• Great design
• Smart filters
• Intelligent typography
• Automatic end-to-end encryption
• Available to all email providers
• Algorithmic bulk cleaner

Unibox: Most innovative email client for Mac

The most exciting thing about Unibox is how it fundamentally changes the way you see your inbox. Instead of organizing everything by date received or subject, Unibox structures every conversation around contacts. That way your inbox resembles your text messages or messaging app, making everything intuitive and easy to navigate.

The developers of Unibox worked hard on making their email client for Mac the easiest to use on the market — and it shows. The design is stunning and you can easily respond to any email in the same window, get previews of attachments right there, and just scroll to remind yourself of all the conversations you’ve had with that person.

What’s great:

• Email like messages
• Intuitive and easy-to-use design
• Works with all major email providers

Best of all, Canary Mail and Unibox are both available for a free seven-day trial through Setapp, a subscription platform with over 150 top Mac apps chosen to make your day more productive and fun. Now can’t you wait to go back to emails already?

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Read on

Sign Up

Apple and Microsoft go toe-to-toe on several fronts like Word processing apps. However, Apple aims to offer a solid email experience with the Mail app on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. That's why you can't help but look at a viable alternative from Microsoft's camp - Outlook for Mac.

Recently, Microsoft revealed the brand-new look for Outlook for Mac, which is available through the Fast Insider group. That coupled with a bunch of other software integration in the Outlook for Mac app makes it a viable rival to the Apple Mail app.

In this post, we shall compare Outlook Mail for Mac to the default Apple Mail app. The comparison will be based on UI, Email Organization, Compose Mail, features, and apps integration. Let’s get started.

Cross-Platform Availability

I know cross-platform availability doesn’t matter much in an Email app. But I’m mentioning here so that you can expect a seamless experience on every platform. Apple Mail is only available on iOS, macOS, and iPadOS.

On the other hand, Microsoft Outlook is accessible on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Web.

Download Microsoft Outlook for Mac

Also on Guiding Tech

Top 5 Apple Mail Alternatives for iPhone

Read More

User Interface and Customization

Microsoft's plans to redesign the interface of Outlook for Mac is much needed to keep it in line with other platforms. There's a catch when it comes to trying out the new Outlook for Mac. You'll have to install it along with other Office apps through an ISO installer.

When you open Outlook for Mac, you'll notice the Compose (New Message) button and Search bar at the top. On the left sidebar, you'll find your email accounts and other folders. It is impressive how Microsoft uses a column layout style and adds the calendar integration to the extreme right. You won’t have a hard time navigating the new look.

You can change the default fonts for new mail, reply mail from the Outlook settings.

Apple Mail looks quite vanilla compared to the Outlook. The default interface shows the Email as well as folders on the left sidebar, messages list in the center, and mail view on the right. Interestingly, Apple Mail offers several customization options.

Go to Mail > Preferences > Fonts & Colors. From there, you can change the message list font, message font, and even fixed-width font. Apple Mail also allows you to change the list view preview from the default 2 lines to 3 lines or more.

Compose Mail

Apple Mail offers a bunch of editing options when you compose a mail. While writing a mail, you can change the font type, size, color, play with bold, italic options, and even add a bullet or number list.

I like how the Mail app lets you add the picture or scanned documents directly from the connected iPhone.

Outlook’s compose menu toolbar is richer than Apple Mail. It lets you highlight the words. You can even add tables and signature. Guess what? Outlook for Mac also supports templates. Yes, you can create ready-to-use templates with images and text. You can save them for later use. While composing an email, just tap on the three-dot menu above and select view templates and add a relevant one in the mail.

Such templates can be when you are composing emails related to specific subjects like marketing surveys, inquiries, and so on. Just create a master template with necessary text for each type or topic of emails you use often.

Also on Guiding Tech

Top 7 Useful macOS Apps to Optimize Your Mac

Read More

Additional Features

If you like flagging emails, the Apple Mail offers a couple of options for neater organization. For instance, you can assign an orange flag for Bank mails and green flag to all finance mails. Most mail apps only support the normal flag (Red color) option.

From the flagged mail section, you can quickly jump to the exact mail that you are looking for. Apple Mail also supports Rules. You can select Mail > Preferences > Rules and create personalized email rules for you. I have created a rule to archive all the emails that come with Coronavirus in the subject.

We can only hope that Apple integrates services such as Reminders, Calendar, and Notes in the Mail app. It would be easy to set reminders for an email or create an event for the Mail app meeting.

Outlook for Mac app also supports to Rules options. I would highly recommend you to set some of the effective rules to organize emails like a pro. The app comes with Calendar, Sticky Notes, and Microsoft To-Do integration.

It works like a charm. If you are using Outlook as your mail provider and if you flag an email in it, the mail automatically gets saved into the Flagged mail section in the Microsoft To-Do app.

Email Export and Third-Party Integration

Apple allows you to export any mail as a PDF file menu. Open any mail and go to File > Export as PDF, and it will create a PDF file from the selected mail. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t offer any third-party app integration.

Microsoft offers a dedicated third-party app store. You can tap on the three-dot menu and go to Get add-ins from a dedicated store in Outlook.

For example, I use OneNote and Trello extensions in Outlook to directly send the selected mail to the OneNote or Trello.

Also on Guiding Tech

#macos

Click here to see our macos articles page

Use Mail Like a Pro on Mac

The comparison above gives you a clear view of the Apple Mail and Outlook’s strength and weaknesses. Apple Mail wins with the simple UI, mail organization, and iPhone integration. However, several folks complain that it is sluggish and buggy. Also, it doesn't translate to a pleasant performance on iOS either. Outlook for Mac brings a breath of fresh air with Microsoft apps integration, richer compose menu, and third-party add-ins. Hopefully, the Outlook for iOS also gets a facelift soon. As of now, I’m sticking with Microsoft’s offering. What about you? Sound off in the comments section below.

Next up:Recently got a new Mac? Read the post below find the best Mac apps to stay organized.

The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read Next7 Best Mac Apps to Stay OrganizedAlso See#macos #email

Did You Know

Email existed even before the world wide web.

Free Email Apps For Mac

More in Mac

Email Free For Mac Computers

Top 4 Ways to Fix Mac Desktop Icons Missing or Not Showing