I couldn’t define it as the “best” (so many and different requisites and needs people has today regarding mail) but for me (a plain home user) Opera 12.16 (linux version) in-built mail client is a must (~17MB). Postbox lets you find and use files and images hiding in your mail – even while you’re composing a new message. 3) Summarize Mode Summarize Mode provides a clean and beautifully formatted who-said-what-when email that helps message recipients keep track of long email threads. It's a no-fuss email client designed for power user (GPG support, Markdown support, advanced filtering, text-only mode, etc.) I've been using it for half a year with Fastmail (personal) and Gmail (work) and pretty happy with it. Spark The Future of Email. The best personal email client. Revolutionary email for teams.
Email as a technology has been around for decades, and thanks to wide spread adoption and popularity, it isn't in danger of disappearing. Check out the five most popular email clients to help you wrangle your email.
Earlier this week we asked your to share your favorite email client. We didn't restrict the voting to only stand-alone email applications or web-based email clients, but we did specify that if you voted for a web-based tool it had to have distinctly client-like features—such as Gmail's ability to fetch and sort email from other sources. The email Call for Contenders was one of the most popular we've ever had, with over 1,000 votes logged. Here are the five most popular clients used by Lifehacker readers:
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Outlook (Windows, $399 for Office Standard Suite)Outlook has been around since the 1990s, and by virtue of being part of the Microsoft Office suite and having been entrenched in the business environment, it enjoys an enormous popularity. Even if many people use Outlook because it's the email client provided—and often required!—by their place of employment, that doesn't mean it can't stand on its own merits. Integration with Windows Desktop Search gives you the ability to quickly search through your entire Outlook workflow, and Outlook can handle everything from your email to your calendar and easily transfer tasks, contacts, and more between the two. Apple Mail (Mac, Free)
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Apple's Mail application, also known as Mail.app or simply Mail, unsurprisingly continues the tradition of Apple applications following the 'it just works' method of design. Mail allows you to collect all your email from across the web and various email servers in one place, and it actively engages your email as you read it. For example, if you get an email with an invitation to a meeting next Thursday, Mail will detect it and make it simple to kick that appointment right over to iCal. Like the integration between Windows Desktop Search and Outlook, Mail is integrated with Spotlight to make deep massaging your messages easy. Thunderbird (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)
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Thunderbird is an open-source offering from Mozilla—the company behind the beloved open-source browser Firefox. Thunderbird is a solid email application that sports the same extensibility of its code-sibling Firefox. Many readers voted for not just Thunderbird but Thunderbird with the addition of Lightning, a Thunderbird extension that adds scheduling and task management functionality to Thunderbird. If you're interested in using Thunderbird you'll definitely want to check out our guide to making Thunderbird your ultimate online/offline messaging hub, and you may also want to consider packing Thunderbird Portable away on your thumb drive for anywhere-access to your email.
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Gmail (Web-based, Free)
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Google has had quite a hit on their hands with Gmail, their extremely popular web-based email client. Not only do you get a feature-packed email account when you sign up for Gmail—you also get an email client that's is very adept at pulling in email from other services and organizing it with a robust system of filters and tags. You can check out how to manage multiple inboxes here if you'd like to use Gmail as a central hub for managing all your email. Many of the features in Gmail aren't necessarily revolutionary—like the ability to filter messages, flag, or label them—but the features are implemented in such a way that makes them effortless to use. And, surprising as it may seem, its much-loved threaded conversations are still relatively unique to Gmail. Use Gmail's Multiple Inboxes Feature to Manage Multiple Addresses
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Postbox (Windows/Mac, $39.95)
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Postbox is stand-alone email client for Windows and Mac operating systems. Client database app for mac. Postbox is based on Mozilla-code, so the Postbox team has been able to tweak quite a few Thunderbird extensions, including Lightning, to work with Postbox. In addition to its extensibility, Postbox's default interface is powerful. The app includes features like the ability to search and compose simultaneously. You can look up an email address, search for a previous attachment, and check an old email for information all in the sidebar while working on your current email. Postbox also provides email summaries as you read through and search your email, showing you not just the sender and subject line but the attachments and any important information inside the email like addresses, appointments, and URLs.
Now that you've had a chance to look over the five most popular candidates it's time to cast your vote:
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Which Email Client Is Best?(survey software)
Have a tip or trick for your favorite email client? Can't believe your favorite didn't make the cut? Let's hear about it in the comments.
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If you have an idea for a future Hive Five, make sure to send an email to tips at lifehacker.com with 'Hive Five' in the email address.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been desperately in need of a solid email client on my Mac for years. The Mail app that comes preinstalled with macOS Sierra or earlier just doesn’t do it for me, and I’ve been using Airmail for a couple years too. It’s an improvement over the stock offering, but for the price it never felt like it reached its potential. At long last, my favorite mail app for iPhone and iPad has arrived on the Mac: Spark.
Spark by Readdle (the makers of PDF Expert 5 and Scanner Pro) calls itself the “smart email client that solves a problem of an overwhelmed inbox.” In my one week of beta testing the Mac app plus about a year using the iOS app, I can declare it lives up to the mantra.
Spark’s Smart Inbox Tidies Up the Mess
Spark’s signature feature is its Smart Inbox. While traditional email clients just present all your new emails at once, Spark sorts through the new stuff and organizes them into cards. New, personal emails are at the top, followed by notifications, newsletters, your pinned read emails and the rest of your inbox. This alone dramatically saves me time as I can quickly click and swipe through emails this way. Plus, the emails come from all linked accounts.
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Spark has quick action gestures that are completely customizable in the Preferences. By default, a left swipe lets you mark an item as unread or archive it (long left swipe) and a right swipe lets you delete or pin it (long right swipe.) So in just a few gestures I can clear through all my newsletters without even thinking about it.
Like the now defunct Mailbox, Spark also has a snooze feature. It lets you deal with emails later on so that they reappear in your inbox when the timing is more appropriate. By default you can snooze an email for later today (in three hours), tomorrow morning, next week or pick any date. Choose Someday and the email won’t have an assigned date, it’ll just stay in the Snoozed folder. Again, all of these time and date options are customizable.
Other Key Features
While Smart Inbox plus gestures and snooze are highlights, they aren’t the only features Spark has going for it. Smart notifications cleverly omit strangers and automated messages from your notifications, leaving only the important senders. These are enabled on a per-account basis, so some accounts can have smart notifications, some can have all notifications and others can have none. It’s up to you.
Another useful feature though limited in its functionality is quick replies. These are basically quick actions you can take on an email to essentially respond without, well, responding. Click the Quick Reply button at the bottom of an email to send a small message with a relevant emoticon. Examples are “Thank you!” with a check mark or “George liked this email!” with a thumbs up. They’re like Facebook reactions. People who don’t use Spark don’t get the full effect including the nice UI and image though. Luckily, with the release of the Mac version in addition to the iPhone and iPad apps, the number of users should be growing.
Speaking of the iOS version, arguably my favorite feature of all is iCloud sync. Not only does Spark sync your accounts across all your devices, but it syncs your settings too. That means all of your swiping customizations, smart notification settings, even snoozes and quick replies show up instantly wherever you have Spark installed. It worked beautifully when the iPad app debuted, automatically importing all my accounts and settings, so I’m sure it’ll be an even greater delight here.
Email Support
The cherry on top of the cake is that Spark works with just about any email address. You can sign in with your Microsoft Exchange account, Google Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Outlook or iCloud. Otherwise, with your server settings on hand, you can also use Spark with any IMAP email server.
![]() Best Email Client For MacSpark Delivers on Its PromiseMozilla Thunderbird
In pretty much every way, Spark has helped ease the stress over checking and responding to emails. Best of all, it comes packaged in a fantastic design — the best design ever in a Mac email app, I’d argue. It’s lightweight yet powerful. The UI fits in nicely with macOS Sierra while still adding some personality of its own.
Best Mail Client For Mac Reddit Swagbucks
You can’t beat the price either. Spark is zero dollars and zero cents — free — on iPhone, iPad, and now Mac starting today. Apple and Airmail really have a lot of catching up to do.
➤ Download Spark in Mac App Store (free)
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