Mac email client?
 

Hi,
Just received a new macbook. What email program do you suggest? I am currently using ms outlook on windows and will want to convert the pst file somehow to whatever program I use on the mac. I haven't yet acquired ms office for the mac, but expect that I will.
Mike

You ave to convert the pst file in a standard mbox file which can be importet by almost every Emailclient like Applemail, Thunderbird for Mac or Microsoft Entourage (Outlook for Mac). There is a small program available which will convert your pst files in the mbox format and your addressbook so you can import it Outlook2Mac. There is also a PST Import tool from Microsoft which your probably will find somewher here Mactopia.

Another way is if you use an IMAP or MAPI account where your mails are stored on a server instaed on your local PC/Mac. You only have to create your Email account on your Mac and conncet to the server.

I have 2 accounts: Home and Work. Both IMAP. I just set up the account and told Mac Mail (new machine) to download everything. Took a while, but I have access to email from any system this way, including my phone and via a web client, if needed.

Try this out:

http://www.weirdkid.com/products/emailchemy/index.html

Mail.app the client provided as part of OS X is very good. I miss it when I am not using a Mac.

Agreed. I've tried others (Entourage, Thunderbird), but have always come back. It handles IMAP mail better than any other I've used.

how can that be? You must be smoking that Apple sauce again. :eek:

Please let us know how it's better than any other imap mail client you've ever used.

I'm not dissing Mail.app. It's what I would have suggested also.

-David

Outlook freezes and just acts badly when using multiple IMAP accounts, in my experience forcing me to wait until it comes back to continue typing emails, etc. I've NEVER had that problem with my Mac mail client.

I like how everything's working together when using the Mail program. You can see who's on your iChat, and sync your accounts with an iPod.

I guess I was wondering more how it was better than t-bird, which you mentioned. t-bird is a great imap client.

-David

I use Entourage on my multiple Macs, synching through Plaxo (via Address Book and iCal), and an iPhone synching through iTunes. Works flawlessly 99% of the time. I also really like the fact that all of my contacts are backed up securely online, accessible to me from anywhere with an Internet connection.

It is functional, but on the Mac there's absolutely no advantage I can find over the native client. And there are advantages (including the ones mentioned above) for Mac mail, IMO.

A voice from the past: Eudora :)

searching for the best email client
 

I presently have Mailsmith, but it just crashed and I lost all of my files. It appears this has to do more w/ my hard drive than Mailsmith itself. But I’m now reconsidering what kind of email client would be best, esp. since I’m about to upgrade to a new powerbook and Leopard. The most important emails features for me include:

-Searching (critically important)
-Filtering (I had about 12 mailboxes for one account)
-Stability (crashing and losing email is disastrous)
-Security (wish I could improve it, but it seems elusive)
-Capacity (for storing lots of email)

Powermail looks like it has amazing search tools, but I’ve read that it’s lacking good security.

Thunderbird has a new feature that enables one to look at the viewing history, just like a web browser. That looks appealing, but I don’t know much more about it beyond that feature (and I've heard negative things about it).

I’ve heard positive things about the Mailsmith’s beta, but have advised not to use it for important email since it’s still being beta tested. It’s unfortunate since they’ve been testing it for almost two years now.

I have no idea which email client offers the best security. I have PGP but haven’t even really used it since it’s hard to find others who have it and use it. I wish I could find a better solution for security, esp. when I travel.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Still searching for that perfect Mac email client, indeed...

Thanks!

You not even considering the one that comes with the OS?

I used Eudora on the Mac for over 10 years. There are still unique features on it that I miss which no other client has. (Like option-clicking a sender within a mail list to instantly cluster all messages in the box from that sender.) Now I use webmail, or Thunderbird when I need to push old mail around with IMAP.

I use Entourage....

One thing I like with Entourage is that it will PROPERLY use Outlook Web Access as the conduit to connect to Exchange Server. So I don't need to run VPN to sync up and my IT guys don't have to open up IMAP ports. Apple Mail works a little more smoother but isn't usable if you have to work with Exchange Rules and/or Exchange Calendars.

It's fine, but not versatile and advanced enough -- esp. w/ filters, searching options, etc.

I also vote for Apple's Mail.app. I have been using it without too many issues against different kinds of mail servers for many years.

I would caution against Entourage, as the code is buggy and it can be a resource hog.

When I see proper Exchange Support (using Exchange Protocol) in Snow Leopard then the built in mail app will be more useable. Until then there are gaping holes for Exchange support and it's flaky when using Exchange servers across IMAP.

See: Apple's marketing bullet for this at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

If the support was good today they wouldn't need to highlight this as a major upgrade for Snow Leopard.

I think Apple is referring there more to calendar and address book support with Exchange rather than just email.

If full Exchange support is important to you, then I would have to agree that, unfortunately, Entourage is the only real option at the moment.

What about Powermail? Or Thunderbird? Or even Mailsmith's 2.2 beta version...?

Any thoughts...?

I've tried them all. I found each one of them to either be clunky, non-intuitive, or completely unaesthetically pleasing (which is part of the equation).

I do not need full Exchange support at the moment, so maybe that's part of it. But I use IMAP and find the searching to be more than adequate for my needs.

If you update an address book entry in Entourage on Mac #1, then sync Entourage to Apple's Address Book, then, using Plaxo to synch Apple's Address Book 'up' to Plaxo, then synch 'down' from Plaxo to Apple's Address Book on Mac #2, how do you synch Apple's Address Book back into Entourage on Mac #2?

I tried Apple Mail, and found it worked well. I used O2M ($10 and well worth it) to transfer my windows MSOultlook .pst to .mbox. The only thing missing for me was that when you open a mail message in a separate window, there is no way to navigate to next or previous messages.

I installed Entourage and found it also lacked my favored method of navigation--and it seems to be a much messier interface. so back to Apple mail.

After a few days, I am getting pretty used to using 2 finger scrolling to scroll through the email and 3 finger scrolling to advance to the next mail.

I would still like it if I could navigate from message to message when viewing the mail message in a nice large window.

It's all completely 100% automated.

In Entourage, open Preferences and click the tab for "Sync Services." Then, check the boxes to synchronize contacts and events/tasks with Address Book and iCal.

That way, you can make changes ANYWHERE....any Mac in Entourage, any Mac in iCal or Address Book, on the web by logging into Plaxo...ANYWHERE.

And the data will be pushed automatically! It's really awesome!


Here are a couple of examples:

1) I edit a contact or event in Entourage on Mac #1.
2) Sync Services syncs the change to iCal or Address Book.
3) Plaxo uploads the change to its servers.
4) Plaxo pushes the change down to iCal or Address Book on Mac #2.
5) Sync Services on Mac #2 syncs the change to Entourage.



1) I edit a contact or event in Plaxo on the web.
2) Plaxo pushes the change down to iCal or Address book on BOTH Macs.
3) Sync Services on BOTH Macs syncs the change over to Entourage.

Entourage does not provide full Exchange support today. It is pretty good for mail, but the other features of an Exchange environment are not well supported.

Can you be more specific on what futures are not well supported?

Like ? If you want Outlook, install VM Ware Fusion and run Outlook in Unity... You will get Outlook windowed running on top of other Mac apps.

n.b. - I'm not a heavy Entourage user at all but these are the issues I ran in to integrating a MacBook Air into a client's Exchange environment. There's a decent chance I got some things wrong, but this was how they worked when I was setting them up.

GAL lookups in Entourage are actually LDAP queries against the AD server, not lookups against the GAL. If you're not inside the corporate network you have no lookups available.

No free/busy search against other users' calendars. Sure, this is an advanced feature, but it is a very useful one when scheduling meetings.

Public Folder support is limited. Maybe a big deal and maybe not, but not available.

I found this web page with some additional missing features, including:
# cannot edit server-based global distribution lists
# cannot access nor edit personal distribution lists stored on the server
# voting buttons are not supported
# cannot edit server-based rules
# cannot sync tasks and notes with the server
# cannot easily request delivery and read receipts

I actually had a client deploy VMware Fusion and Outlook to support their large Mac install base when they migrated to an Exchange server platform.

These are both problems when using the OWA access method. If you are using the web URL's to connect then NEITHER of these above items are available. Which BTW: Unless I'm going nuts, Outlook doesn't even allow you to connect via the OWA URL's on Windows Office Outlook.

However if you connect to the server directly or via VPN and NOT via OWA then both of these above items work.

For those who don't know about the OWA access method for Entourage, you need OWA for your company to be available from the Internet

Under Edit Account, Server Information, Exchange Server enter the URL: http://webmail.yourcompanyname.com/exchange
(WILL VARY, but make sure the /exchange is on the end - this URL will be the one you see once you are logged into OWA)

You *CAN* access Public Folders and Calendar from this method as well under Edit Account, Advanced Settings, Public Folder Settings, Public Folder Server:
webmail.yourcompanyname.com/public
(ENSURE NO http:// is in front of this - this URL will be the same as the above one, minus the http:// (or https:// and will have a /public at the end instead of a /exchange )

I'm moving from PCs to Mac. I've been really, really happy with Firefox and Thunderbird.

Should I stick with Thunderbird? V3 will integrate with Address Book and iCal, so I hear. I'm reluctant to move to Apple Mail when I've been so happy with Thunderbird all this time. But I can also see some advantages to Apple Mail...chiefly in integration with Spotlight, iCal, Address book, etc.

Thunderbird is pretty good and I don't think you'll regret sticking with it, but after switching between Thunderbird, Entourage 2008, and built-in Mail, I think it's the lesser of the three.

Mail.app's comprehensive inbox view across multiple servers, integrated Spotlight, and "mac-ness" make it my favorite. That being said, I use Entourage because I need calendar support for Exchange accounts and iCal is too clunky.

OL 2003 (SP1??) and OL 2007 have RPC over HTTPS which provides a very similar function but with full Outlook features, not a limited subset like Entourage.
Nope. The "GAL" query is actually an LDAP lookup from Entourage and there are differences in the way those resolve in some situations. And being on VPN is just about the same as "being in the network" which I noted does provide access to this different view of the data.
I was talking about more than just calendar access, namely free/busy searches. I use that feature a LOT when scheduling meetings.

I am tempted to move to mail.app but worried about switching back if I ever have to, and converting over GBs of old mail. For me it's Tbird or Mail.app, still not sure...thanks for the tips!

It's still available! :p

FWIW both Thunderbird and Mail use the mbox format to there's no need to do any conversion. You may be able to just point them both at the same folders, not sure.

The reason I ditched Thunderbird on the Mac was its complete inability to make any sense whatsoever of stuff pasted from another application. A simple table (like an itin) copied from Firefox becomes two pages of randomly-formatted-and-aligned garbage when pasted into Thunderbird.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia E71: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.13057/362; U; en))

Mail.app + Quicksilver = killer combination.

I recently switched to a mac. I didn't try TBird, but did try both entourage and mail. I ended up liking the mail interface better.

But it's gotten long in the tooth. Hasn't been updated in over 2 years. Really, it's a dog of a program when you ask it to handle big IMAP mailboxes. It was fine back in the day when a 10 MB mailbox was considered big. :)

I'd like to see Qualcomm sell/give the source code to Mozilla so that T-bird could incorporate some of Eudora's functionality.

The EOLing of Eudora was the final straw that pushed me over to webmail anyway. :D