Best Mail Apps for Mac: macOS High Sierra Edition
Mail app in macOS Mojave offers new features for sending, receiving, and viewing email messages. You can click the Emoji button in the toolbar of emails you're writing to easily add emoji. I wanted a desktop calendar program as good as iCal for Mac, and the calendar component of eM Client is certainly that. I am using personal calendars on iCloud plus a work calendar on Exchange, and eM Client is almost the only program that can do that (yes, Outlook with the iCloud plugin works, but it is spectacularly ugly). Named one of the best of Mac by Apple itself in 2016, Spark is still one of the most popular, user-friendly, and best overall email clients for Mac. With a focus on keeping you inbox free of chaos, Spark lets you organize everything into easy to find (and hide) categories and subsections.
Love it or hate it, unless you choose to live a quiet, unconnected life, we all have to deal with email. For most of us, managing email, especially with multiple accounts from various providers, can be a real pain. Fortunately there is a handful of apps that are making great strides towards easing that pain. Take a look below at some of the mail apps for Mac to help you keep your inbox under control.
If we missed any of your favorites, please let us know in the comments so we can give them a try!
Editor’s Note: this list is a constantly evolving as new apps are released or as old apps are updated. Today, we’re looking at a handful of apps that work well with Apple’s new macOS High Sierra.
Price: Free
Named one of the best of Mac by Apple itself in 2016, Spark is still one of the most popular, user-friendly, and best overall email clients for Mac. With a focus on keeping you inbox free of chaos, Spark lets you organize everything into easy to find (and hide) categories and subsections. You can schedule emails, set selective alerts, and search through your mailboxes easily. Convenience and a sleek look are the name of the game with Spark.
Price: $9.99
AirMail 3, whose iOS counterpart made our list of 5 Best Mail Apps for iPhone/iPad, is a long-running contender in the email management landscape. Though it has been around for a while, the app developers have done an excellent job of keeping it fresh, clean and powerful. The iOS and Mac versions of AirMail provide a uniform experience with its folders and labeling system and overall design of the app. Many of the features you would come to expect from an email client are included, but there are also some that are unique. An example would be the minimal view which is perfect for users like me who are in their email all day. With the minimal view, your inbox is displayed as a one-column timeline like you would see in something like the Mac Twitter app. Some users are frustrated with the complications they have when trying to move emails into different folders (the drag and drop apparently isn't as easy as proposed). However, it seems that for users who need some help, AirMail's superior customer support is available via web chat. Way to go, Mark and Sarah!
Price: Free
Polymail is easy to use and has a beautiful interface, making it one of the best mail apps for Mac. It offers numerous features to make your life easier, like snoozing emails to read them later, scheduling emails to automatically be sent later. You also get unlimited per-recipient email tracking, to keep you in the know about when and by whom your messages are read. Works with Mac and iOS, and the fact that it's free doesn't hurt.
Price: Free
Hey, who says the stock mail app can't make the list? Especially since it was specifically designed to take advantage of macOS High Sierra, Apple Mail is one of the best mail apps for Mac users. If you've been a Mac user for any amount of time, you're likely familiar with the core functionality, but there are some new features to take note of. Tabs are now used more widely throughout macOS Sierra, and Mail is no exception. With the addition of tabs, you can have all of your inboxes from different accounts open at once and just flip back and forth — pretty convenient. I should say, though, that many users, myself included, aren't thrilled with how convoluted the process is to get additional tabs. There is no simple + to be found. Hopefully Apple will address this in an update. Besides tabs, you'll also find full support for Siri, so you can compose new messages, read emails, set reminders, find specific emails and more via voice command. If Apple Mail becomes your preferred app, this is incredibly handy.
Price: $5.99
For day-to-day email, Inbox by Gmail has become my go-to. Ever since its release in 2014, I have favored the quick management of email messages to Inbox's bigger brother Gmail. Boxy is a standalone email client for Inbox that brings the service outside of your browser and adds a bit more customization and features, making it one of the best mail apps for Mac. Once you're inside the app, you'll immediately notice the familiar design that looks almost exactly like Inbox. However, if you want to switch things up, you have multiple themes to choose from as well as the option for different font sizes. As you'd expect, you will find all of the features of Inbox by Gmail that you've grown to love such as the inbox bundles, the ability to snooze emails, pin messages and more. The app isn't perfect though. Many users find the file attachment process slightly frustrating. With the omission of a browse-for-file option, you're required to attach your files by dragging and dropping. Sometimes, if your desktop or Finder windows are covered, that requires some fishing and cuts down on your efficiency.
Price: $19.99
Canary is a simple and easy-to-use email app that promises efficiency and security. Every email you send will have end-to-end encryption, so you never have to worry about privacy or security. That will always happen automatically, so you never need to double check that you've enabled encryption. With natural language search, smart filters, algorithmic bulk cleaner, and intelligent typography enhancements, Canary focuses on keeping things organized and easy to find. At $19.99, it's definitely worth it, and it easily earns a spot on this list.
Price: Free
Inky is the only Mac email app on this that isn't available from the App store, but it is still worthy of its place here. It seems like every other day, there is a major news headline that deals with someone's account being hacked or a security breach at large corporations. If this has motivated you to seek out more online security, Inky is definitely something you should check out. Every email sent through the Inky client is encrypted end-to-end, so the contents of your email cannot be read by anyone else besides the intended recipient. Additionally, you can send digitally-signed emails with Inky, so the person on the other end can be sure the email came from you. Outside of the security features, Inky comes with other features that help manage your email. You'll find built-in mailboxes similar to what Inbox offers to automatically group incoming messages, and you can also tag new emails for later sorting.
Price: $49.99/year
Newton Mail, like AirMail, found itself on our list of the 5 Best Mail Apps for iPhone/iPad and also reigns supreme as one of the best mail apps for Mac. Just like what you'll find in the iOS counterpart, Newton Mail for Mac comes with a handful of what it calls superchargers to help you master your inbox. Some of the more notable superchargers include read receipts, handoff functionality so you can start an email on iPhone, then finish on your Mac, and the ability to connect your inbox to major productivity services like Evernote, OneNote, Pocket, Trello, and more. Newton Mail has a beautiful interface that honestly makes email a tiny bit more enjoyable. But I have to break it to you: if you want to commit to using Newton Mail as your daily driver, prepare yourself for the $49.99 per year subscription fee. This is among the most expensive email clients, so soak up that free 14-day trial!
Bonus picks
Price: Free
What Boxy is to Inbox, Kiwi is to Gmail. Kiwi is an email client for Gmail that allows you to use the email service as a native app. With Kiwi, you'll find a familiar, nearly identical experience to what you get with Google's flagship email service, but you'll get a few additional features that you might find handy. Probably the most convenient feature is the global shortcuts that allow you to start a new email from anywhere at anytime. If you're like me, and have windows open on top of other windows at all time, a quick keyboard shortcut can save a lot of time. Another feature that lends itself to convenience and productivity, is the dropdown manager from the macOS menu bar. Clicking on the Kiwi icon in the menu bar, drops down a list of all of your inboxes so you can jump directly to the messages you need, or compose a new message from the appropriate inbox. And it's currently free.
Price: $129.99
Microsoft Outlook finds itself a spot in our bonus picks because it really is more than just an email client. Outlook still holds a place near and dear to the hearts of businesses large and small because it offers a complete suite of productivity tools in one place. Whether you love or hate the experience, it's hard to deny the handiness of having full access to your calendar, tasks and notes all within the same app. The Microsoft Outlook app was recently updated to bring a more friendly, modern design. This update was welcome, to say the least, but it didn't quite solve the issue of the app being quite overwhelming with the number of icons, menus and tabs you will find scattered throughout. If you're an average user who is looking for a way to better manage your own inbox, the $129.99 price tag is hard to justify, but for businesses, this tool, or suite of tools, really, is something to consider. And check out your other options with the full office suite.
We all have to deal with email in some way or another. The question is, what app is going to make your experience a little bit easier/more productive? Will you prioritize encryption and opt for Canary, or go with a simplistic, modern experience like AirMail? Or will you stick with something more tried and true, but maybe a little less pretty like Microsoft Outlook?
What would you say are the mail apps for Mac? Let us know in the comments below!
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