What do you use for Mail?

6471 Views 47 Replies 26 Participants Last post by wtl, Jul 27, 2007

wing

Discussion Starter · Jul 20, 2007

Hi all this question is 2 fold....

I am awaiting my macbook pro.... :clap: and can't wait :baby: so I'm preparing myself with my current laptop for the transition.

I currently use thunderbird on my PC for mail. I really like it but am willing to change if there is something better for mac OS. I have used mail briefly on my mini before I got rid of it but only briefly as my mini wasn't my main machine.

Mail was "ok"

What I'm mainly concerned about is losing all my current e-mail that i have stored in thunderbird. It is very useful to be able to search back as I run a home business so need to keep a lot of my old mail for reference. Also I have appointments with itineraries and such in my mail box for things that will happen 1 month from now so I don't want to lose this stuff.

So should I just grab thunderbird on mac os and copy my mail over -- or is there another way?

1 - 20 of 48 Posts

CubaMark

· #2 · Jul 20, 2007

I use Thunderbird for one of my email accounts - works fine, though I'm not very demanding with it.

My main mail accounts are handled by Eudora (*snif* gimme a moment....) which is not being upgraded to Intel / Universal. Stupid Qualcomm. We Eudora users are pretty fond of our email client, and the no-Universal-upgrade thing has really p****ed us off. They've "endorsed" an open-source "upgrade" to a new mail client that is based on Thunderbird, but isn't Thunderbird, and as of the last time I checked, there is no Eudora mail import utility for Thunderbird (at least no reliable one).

Ooh. That was a bit of a rant, eh?

Other options: MailSmith, Correo (not ready for prime time, but very interesting)

jaline

· #3 · Jul 20, 2007

Gmail.

a7mc

· #4 · Jul 20, 2007 (Edited)

In my experience, 90% of PC users shy away from Apple Mail because they think it's not powerful enough. They see only 7 buttons and a few folders instead of the 30+ they are used to in their old overly-convoluted email program, and dismiss Mail as being "simple".

The fact of the matter is that 99% of these users don't ever use any of those extra buttons anyway! They are a big waste of space and are there just to give users a false sense of "importance".

Mail performs incredibly well if you take the time to figure out the "flow" of the software, and don't pretend like you need a bunch of extra buttons you don't really need. Just learn it and use it. You'll wonder why you ever bothered with the extra clutter to begin with.

Just my 5 cents. Keep the change.

A7

GWR

· #5 · Jul 20, 2007

Gmail, that I access through Apple Mail. I use Google notifier to alert me to new mail. Whenever I need to search through my e-mail I just go to gmail on my browser and search there. Works great for me. You could just forward all your mail to a gmail account that way you can access it away from home and if anything ever happens to your computer (HDD crashes or something) you have them stored on the web. Makes it easier when changing to a new computer as well.

Aero

· #6 · Jul 20, 2007

a7mc said:
In my experience, 90% of PC users shy away from Apple Mail because they think it's not powerful enough. They see only 7 buttons and a few folders instead of the 30+ they are used to in their old overly-convoluted email program, and dismiss Mail as being "simple".

The fact of the matter is that 99% of these users don't ever use any of those extra buttons anyway! They are a big waste of space and are there just to give users a false sense of "importance".

Mail performs incredibly well if you take the time to figure out the "flow" of the software, and don't pretend like you need a bunch of extra buttons you don't really need. Just learn it and use it. You'll wonder why you ever bothered with the extra clutter to begin with.

Just my 5 cents. Keep the change.

A7

One other reason why Mail doesn't have a lot of button is that it is standalone, what I mean by that is that Mail.app is jut mail. Compared to Outlook or thunderbird, address book and calendar is in a separate but linked app. Which is kinda good in my taste because its simple.

2hondas

· #7 · Jul 20, 2007

Wing, from CanadianDriver.

I don't use Mail, partly because I do not have a premium email account (I use free ones, like Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) But I wonder if I could use my University email account for Mail?

Aero

· #8 · Jul 20, 2007

2hondas said:
Wing, from CanadianDriver.

I don't use Mail, partly because I do not have a premium email account (I use free ones, like Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) But I wonder if I could use my University email account for Mail?

Most(if not all) uni email uses pop and/or imap. And both works, so does gmail (you can uses pop).

Pelao

· #9 · Jul 20, 2007

a7mc said:
In my experience, 90% of PC users shy away from Apple Mail because they think it's not powerful enough. They see only 7 buttons and a few folders instead of the 30+ they are used to in their old overly-convoluted email program, and dismiss Mail as being "simple".

The fact of the matter is that 99% of these users don't ever use any of those extra buttons anyway! They are a big waste of space and are there just to give users a false sense of "importance".

Mail performs incredibly well if you take the time to figure out the "flow" of the software, and don't pretend like you need a bunch of extra buttons you don't really need. Just learn it and use it. You'll wonder why you ever bothered with the extra clutter to begin with.

Agreed. And thanks - you saved me a lot of typing!

SINC

· #10 · Jul 20, 2007

Apple Mail. None better.

wing

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jul 20, 2007

So it sounds like I'll have to either use thunderbird or bite the bullet and just lose what I have locally.

All my mail is gmail actually I leave it on the server but I also have it stored locally for quick access on the road.

krs

· #12 · Jul 20, 2007

I use Apple mail, but since several people suggested GMail. I decided to take a look at that.
I registered a GMail account in February '05 but I never ever used it or posted my gmail address anywhere.
I was rather surprised to see all the spam in my inbox; a few spam messages were also sitting in my spam box. I thought gmail was supposed to filter these out.

The first snag I ran into trying to use gmail is that you can't create folders to sort your mail. Gmail reinvented the wheel by calling them labels, well that's OK, but I can't figure out how to create sub-folders or nested folders using the label concept. I can't create a "sub-label".

Can any gmail users help?

jaline

· #13 · Jul 20, 2007

My Gmail gets tons of spam, but I'm not surprised. I have used it for multiple things, before learning my lesson and having redirected email accounts.

The spam really doesn't bother me because Gmail catches 99% of it and it goes into the spam folder, which means I don't have to see it in my inbox.

a7mc

· #14 · Jul 20, 2007

Oh.... almost forget to mention the import stuff. Mail can do imports, and Thunderbird can do exports. I did manage to import my mail a long time ago when I played with Thunderbird. From Thunderbird, you want to export your mail to an mbox file (I can't recall which option that it). In Mail, you import "other" (which is for mbox files) and voila, you should have all your mail!

A7

rgray

· #15 · Jul 20, 2007

SINC said:
Apple Mail. None better.

I agree with SINC

on this. Mail.app does everything I need. If you want to learn more about tweaking Mail (besides the info at Apple) check out HawkWings.

Mississauga

· #16 · Jul 20, 2007

SINC said:
Apple Mail. None better.

Agreed. I've converted quite a few Entourage business users to Apple's Mail, Address Book and Calendar. All are pleased.

lreynolds

· #17 · Jul 20, 2007

Gmail, and Mail.app to have a local backup. And I am starting to use it to have access to email when I don't have WiFi access.

Andrew Pratt

· #18 · Jul 20, 2007

I came over from Outlook Express b/c its simple so Mail was an easy choice...and once you learn to use it its actually very powerful and if you plan on using the Address book it makes sense to try Mail.

Greenman

· #19 · Jul 20, 2007

SINC said:
Apple Mail. None better.

I'm with Sinc on this one too!

I do find Mail gets a little buggy when I do anything in pref's like add a sig or new rule. It doesn't download (says it's off line but when I use the Connection Doc it's fine) and a restart seems to help.

Other than that I do like the simplicity and the intigration with address book, iChat etc.

JAGflyer

· #20 · Jul 20, 2007

I have Entourage installed but I dont usually use my Mac for my Pop6 sympatico account. My desktop has thunderbird.

1 - 20 of 48 Posts

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