Which eMail App Do You Recommend?

Questions & Suggestions
1

@JMichaelTX @gglick

You are both very smart.

May I ask both of you which email app you use ?. It's a mind boggling trade-off between privacy, available features etc. I can't make up my mind.

thanks !

2

Thanks for the kind words. I use Spark with Gmail myself. For me, it strikes just the right balance between UI/UX and features, including some that I find essential, like the ability to schedule emails to be sent at a later date and smart notifications. I don't personally concern myself with the privacy aspect since I'm already using Gmail, and because email is already such an inherently insecure medium. Basically, as long as you treat email as the non-private format that it is, and don't send anything you wouldn't be comfortable with strangers seeing, I find the benefits you receive to be more than worth the drawbacks. As with many things, your mileage may vary.

1 Like
3

I have used MS Outlook for decades, and now Outlook 2011 on the Mac. I think it is great and I don't have any issues or cons with it.

You can google MS Outlook for details, but here are my thoughts:
(note this is for Outlook 2011. Current version is Outlook 2016, which may be different)

  1. It is really much more than an email client. It is like a mini-project management tool, offering:
    • EMail
    • Calendar
    • Contacts
    • Tasks
    • Reminders
    • all of which are very tightly integrated
  2. I am able to effectively manage my daily deludge of email by using OL features:
    • Contact Categories that have a color, and are automatically applied to inbound email
    • Smart Folders which allow me to use simple or complex logic to select email, contacts, calendar items
    • Rules that both process the email on the Exchange Server and on my Mac, and can also use AppleScripts
    • The ability to handle multiple email accounts, including multiple Exchange Server accounts
  3. OL is very scriptable -- much more so than Apple Mail or GMail
  4. It is very fast while also storing large (GBs) worth of data
  5. It has been easy to automate using KM (with and without AppleScript)
  6. and much more

Questions?

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4

thank you very much for your comment. I 'nearly' installed Spark from an excellent company (makers of PDF Expert) in Ukraine about 20 times, and then hesitated because of all the warnings on the Internet about privacy and passwords.
Your comments about privacy are absolutely true, and something to consider.
I think that the whole Kaspersky fiasco gave me cold feet.
thanks again very much

5

thank you very much for your reply.
I am very surprised you mention outlook. Years ago, I was happy to leave Outlook because of the limitations of folders as opposed to Gmail tags, the point being that some emails can have multiple tags.
For you to use it, I imagine that Outlook has much improved in the last 10+ years.
thanks again very much

6

in terms of privacy issues, I agree totally.
What about the problem of having your gmail account hacked and starting all over again with a new account and email ? Wouldn't it be a MAJOR pain in the neck, even if you had backups ?
Does Spark have access to your gmail password, or your gmail app specific password? (does it make a difference ?)
thanky

7

Yes it would if that happened, but how likely is that? As far as I'm aware email account hacking is far from an everyday occurrence, and barring a breach or exploit in your email provider's security, a secure password and two-factor authentication (both of which I have in my case thanks to 1Password) should be more than enough. I've used my Gmail account with several different email client apps over the years and have never had my account hacked, so while past performance is no guarantee of future success, at this point it's not something I actively worry about.

It definitely does not have access to my Gmail password, and the current system no longer uses app-specific passwords either (and yes, it did make a difference when they did). You simply authenticate the app through Google, which then gives Spark (or any email app you use with Gmail, including Apple Mail) access only to the parts of Gmail it needs to handle your email. If you later decide you no longer want to use Spark, or any other app with access to your Gmail or other Google account, you can revoke its permissions in the "Apps with account access" section of your Gmail account, under Sign-in & security.

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8

all very good points. thanks very much !

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9

What was this ?

10

I use Spark as well. Generally positive feelings about it, and the smart inbox that categorises personal mail from newsletters and notification emails automatically is a time-saver: one can literally mark all newsletters as "read".

My one lament is that Spark isn't more AppleScriptable. Here is the sum total of its scripting definitions:

HasSelectedMessage v : Has selected message check
     HasSelectedMessage
        → boolean
GetSelectedMessageTitle v : Get selected message title
    GetSelectedMessageTitle
        → text
GetSelectedMessageBacklink v : Get selected message backlink
    GetSelectedMessageBacklink
        → text

...and two out of the three of those don't actually work.

2 Likes
11

Actually Outlook has "Categories", which are the same thing as tags, only better because they are color coded, and when I assign a Category to a Contact, then all of the email and calendar events with that Contact are automatically assigned the Category.

And, yes, you can assign as many Categories as you like to any entity in Outlook (Contacts, email, calendar items, tasks).

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12

thank you

13

I read it in Wikipedia