The Mac’s default Mail application (also referred to as “Mail.app” or “Apple Mail”) has a somewhat checkered past.

The Best Email Client App for Mac in 2018: Unbiased Reviews Email turns 47 this year, and it's bigger than ever. In fact, 98.4% of users check their email daily, making a good email client your most crucial business tool. Best Free Email Services of 2018. Nicole Johnston Internet Security & Appliance Editor. Best Email for Mac. When you send or receive any messages from clients, Zoho Mail automatically makes a note of it in the CRM. And it will remind you of meetings or follow-up messages you need to send after checking the Zoho Calendar.

While Mail.app provides a free, full-featured email client on every Mac and has even pioneered some innovative features over the years (like VIP and Handoff), it’s definitely not for everyone. It can be buggy, occasionally has issues playing nice with Gmail, and lacks some more advanced features that are present (and have been present for years) in other third-party email clients.

If you use plug-ins to extend Mail.app’s functionality, Apple has a history of making changes that cause developers to re-write their plugins, resulting in a broken email workflow while you wait for updates.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of excellent third-party email clients that aim to fix Mail.app’s shortcomings. In this article, we’ll take a look at several of the more popular options and introduce you to our favorite.

Criteria for the Best Email App

In selecting the best email app for macOS, we used the following criteria to select the winner:

• Overall Design — Dealing with email can be annoying, and using a poorly-designed email client can compound the frustration factor. The email client you decide to use should provide you with a well-designed user interface that aids you in your quest for Inbox Zero.
• Ease of use — The email client you use should give you the tools you need to get the job done while staying out of the way as much as possible. You want to focus on reading and responding to email, not navigating complex menus or trying to figure out basic functions.
• Innovative Features — As the amount of email we receive grows over time, the way we deal with it must evolve. Developers are starting to reconsider how we fundamentally deal with the email we receive, and it is important that we consider innovative features that make it easier (and more enjoyable).
• Support for Multiple Account Types — The best third-party email clients are flexible enough to offer support for many different types of accounts, such as Gmail, iCloud, O365, Yahoo, Exchange, IMAP, etc. If an email client doesn’t support your email provider, then it’s just not an option for you — no matter how awesome it looks.
• Support for Gmail-Style Shortcuts — If you’ve ever used Gmail keyboard shortcuts, you probably can’t imagine not using them since they can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend in your email client. For example, to archive a message in Gmail, you just have to press the “e” key, compared to using “Shift + Command + A” in Mail.app (you can view a complete list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts by pressing “?” in Gmail). These shortcuts can be a game-changer for how you read and respond to email, so it’s important that the best third-party email client for Mac support these.
• Update Schedule — The email client you use should have a track record of being well-supported to minimize the risk of it suddenly disappearing, forcing you to figure out a new tool for your email workflow.
• Integration with Other Apps/Services — Email doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Many emails you receive have a task associated with them or a file you need to save for later, so it makes sense that you should be able to link that email message to your task management system (like Things 3, our favorite GTD app) or a cloud storage solution like iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
• Customization/Widgets — A good email client is flexible enough to support customization. Email is personal, and some email clients allow you to install widgets or plugins that can extend the core functionality, enabling you to create a very custom application that meets your specific email needs on any device.
• Plays Nice with IMAP Folders — Some apps (rather sneakily) create additional IMAP folders for extended functionality, which (at best) creates additional clutter when you access your email outside of that email client, and (at worst) can cause major problems in your email-based workflow (i.e., when you can’t find a message because it’s actually sitting in a “hidden” folder).

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.

Our Favorite Email App: Spark

Spark is our favorite third-party email client for the Mac because it has a great combination of powerful features and a clean, well-designed user interface. It’s a great productivity tool for individual users, and also offers some innovative features for teams that need to collaborate on emails together.

Everywhere you look in Spark, there are features focused on making email better. The first thing you’ll notice is the Smart Inbox, which collects emails from all of your accounts and automatically organizes them into categories like Notifications, Newsletters, Personal, and Seen. This shows you the real emails from real people first so you can respond to the things that are important and save the rest for later.

Another unique feature in Spark is Quick Replies, which allows you to send short, templated responses. These are handy when you need to indicate that you’ve received or seen an email but don’t necessarily need to type out a lengthy reply. And if the message doesn’t require a response, you can use 4 different swipe gestures to mark it as read, archive it, pin it for later, or delete it entirely.

One of the things that Apple Mail gets right is the support for smart mailboxes. These allow you to create custom mailbox folders that automatically organize your email messages based on criteria like who it’s from, what’s in the subject line, or what day it was received. Once you set up and use smart folders in Apple Mail, it can be hard to switch to an email client that doesn’t support it. Fortunately, Spark has support for smart mailboxes but they are even easier to create thanks to the built-in smart search feature. Smart search appears all over the place in Spark, and functions a lot like Spotlight for your email client. All you have to do is start typing and Spark instantly shows you the available options.

Spark also has a built-in calendar view, which can be useful when replying to a message requesting a call or meeting at a specific time. But what makes this feature really useful is the way it’s implemented. There are other email apps that build in calendaring functionality, but it’s either self-contained or uses a weird syncing protocol (I’m looking at you, Outlook). Spark does it a little bit differently. If you use something like Google or iCloud and then create calendar events in Spark, they will instantly show up on all your calendars in all your apps (like Fantastical or BusyCal). The difference is subtle, but important — Spark is not trying to be your calendar, it’s just allowing you to access your calendar. There are some obvious limitations with this based on your account and service type. Such as, if you set up a standard IMAP account in Spark, the calendar view isn’t going to help you, but it is nice for the account types that support it.

In addition to Google and iCloud, Spark supports quite a few different email account types, including:

• Yahoo
• GoDaddy
• Aol Mail
• Hotmail
• Outlook
• Office 365
• Microsoft Exchange
• GMX
• Zoho
• Fastmail

Spark also integrates directly with other productivity apps like Things, OmniFocus, and Bear, just to name a few. While the integrations provide much of the standard functionality available in other third-party email apps (like adding a due date for a task or choosing a notebook for reference material), the export window is customized to match the style of the service you are using. You can add personal info before you export, and some services allow you additional options like just copying the link to the message or exporting the message as a PDF.

There are tons of other features that make Spark a great choice as your personal email client. Some of our favorites are email templates (so you don’t have to create your message from scratch every time), the ability to send messages later, follow up reminders, snoozing email messages, and customizable keyboard shortcuts (you can just click a button to use the standard set from Gmail or even Apple Mail if you prefer). But Spark also includes features that make it a great solution as a team-based email tool.

At first glance, it may be difficult to see the value or need for team-based email, and that’s okay. If you never use Spark’s collaboration features, it’s still an incredible email client. But sometimes it can be handy to have a conversation about an email, like when sending a proposal to a potential customer, and Spark allows you to do this from within the email client itself.

Spark keeps all comments private, allowing your teammates to chime in before sending so you can create a better response. This is also a MUCH better method for keeping people “in the loop” than the traditional CC: or BCC: method which just leads to cluttered inboxes. You can also attach files to your comments so that all related client documents are kept together. You can even create a secure weblink from any message that can be accessed via a web browser, which is a great way to integrate Spark with other web-based tools like a CRM.

Spark also has an interesting pricing model built on its unique team-based collaborative features. If you use Spark for personal use, it’s completely free. The free version even allows you to get started with the team features, giving you up to 5GB of team file storage, 2 active collaborators (perfect if you work with an assistant), and up to 5 email templates. You can upgrade to the Premium plan for a larger team, which includes 10GB per team member of file storage, unlimited collaborators, unlimited email templates, and even advanced link sharing options. The Premium plan is $7.99/user per month (or $6.39/user per month if billed annually).

Download Spark on the Mac App Store for Free.

A VERY Close Second: Airmail

Airmail is marketed as being a “lightning-fast email client for Mac,” and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. It’s extremely quick and responsive and looks absolutely beautiful. Everything about Airmail is well-polished from a design perspective, and it just looks and feels like a native Mac application.

But, Airmail is more than just a pretty face — it’s also a very powerful email client with a lot of great features that Mail.app lacks, like support for composing messages in Markdown. The compose window in Airmail actually allows you to compose in Markdown or HTML by opening up a side-by-side interface where you type on the left and your formatted text is displayed on the right. This visual preview of your message can be really useful as you type your message to make sure you don’t miss anything that would result in broken links or strange-looking text.

When it comes to receiving messages, Airmail takes a task-based approach that may be an acquired taste if you’re coming from Mail.app. Each message in Airmail can be marked as To Do, Memo, or Done. Selecting one of these options will apply an identifier (similar to a tag) to the message and move it to the appropriate container inside of Airmail.

A To Do is (just like it sounds) something you need to do or take action on. For example, if your boss asked you to send an updated report, or your spouse emailed you to pick up something from the store on your way home, you might classify that as a To Do.

Once a task is completed, it is marked as Done, while a Memo is defined by Airmail’s support documentation as something that you need to memorize or store for later.

Rules for comments: Remember the person. We are people from all over the world, of many ages, languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds who all want to improve our art. https://omgbits.netlify.app/best-drawing-software-for-mac-krita-reddit-2018.html.

Of course, you don’t have to use these features. If the idea of managing tasks from your inbox doesn’t appeal to you, Airmail also integrates with many productivity applications like BusyCal, OmniFocus, and Things. Creating a calendar event or a task with a link to the original email message is easy: just right-click (control-click or two-finger tap) on the email, select Send To, and then select the application to which you want to send the email link.

Airmail integrates with quite a few applications and includes a Plugin Framework API that developers can use to integrate their apps with Airmail. There’s a ridiculously long list of productivity applications Airmail supports, including OmniFocus, Things, BusyCal, Evernote, DEVONthink, 2Do, Cardhop, Fantastical, Trello, Bear, Droplr, Todoist, Trello, Asana, and many more.

Airmail also includes several features that will be appreciated by power users, like AppleScript support and the ability to delay sending a message after hitting the Send button (giving you a chance to “undo” that angry email you sent and regretted a few seconds later). For Gmail users, Airmail supports Gmail keyboard shortcuts as well, and while the complete list is not supported, a surprising number of them are.

Airmail is great, but there are a couple of things that keep us from naming Airmail as our favorite third-party email client. One minor complaint we have with Airmail is the way that it handles your IMAP folders — it actually creates a few nested folders inside of an Airmail folder that it uses to handle email-based tasks. But the bigger issue is reliability. In our testing, we noticed Airmail will occasionally not send your message (and we weren’t the only ones). It appears this issue has been addressed in newer versions, but having a message fail to send when you think it has been sent is a big problem. It’s quite possible you won’t have any issues with this, but it’s something you need to be aware of.

That said, Airmail is still a great email app overall. If you were to choose Airmail simply for the beautiful coat of paint, what you’ll find underneath is a very versatile email client that will probably meet your email needs and then some. Airmail is also a one-time cost, so if Spark’s pricing model makes you a little bit nervous and you’d rather pay for your personal email client, Airmail is a great alternative.

Airmail is available in the Mac App Store for $9.99.

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.

The Best Email App for Power Users: MailMate

If you’re looking for something more powerful than both Spark or Airmail, you might want to check out MailMate. Let me say at the beginning that MailMate is definitely not for everyone. The interface is a far cry from both Spark and Airmail, but if your goal is simply to crank through email as quickly and efficiently as possible, MailMate could be for you.

MailMate is a “keyboard-centric” mail client with a text-based approach to email. MailMate also supports more Gmail keyboard shortcuts than any other app except MailPlane, and you can even use your own custom keybindings if you want.

Because MailMate aims to be completely standards-compliant, it actually doesn’t even support formatted text. To add any basic formatting to your message (italics, bold, bullet lists, links), you must do it in Markdown. If you’re not used to writing in Markdown, it may take some getting used to. But, if you use Markdown frequently, then you’ll have no trouble picking up MailMate.

MailMate also offers several unique layout options, like a widescreen layout and special views to show thread arcs and email statistics. MailMate also has some of the most powerful search tools we’ve seen, rivaling Google’s web interface in terms of power and flexibility.

MailMate includes extensions (which it calls “bundles”) that allow integration with many different productivity applications, and the bundles that are shipped with MailMate go beyond the basic integrations that are found in most other third-party email clients. For example, MailMate is the only app that supports sending either a link to the original message or a copy of the message itself to OmniFocus (by using “Add” or “Add with Summary”).

These bundles are also built on the default message URL schemes instead of using proprietary formats like both Spark and Airmail do. Let me give you an example:

Let’s say you receive an email that you need to do something for, but you don’t want to do it right now. With any of the email clients we’ve mentioned so far, you can send that message to your task manager and it will create a task out of the message and include a link back to the original message. When you are ready to take action, you can click that link and go straight to the message — no trying to find it in your email client, which is a huge time saver.

But, if you look closely at the link in both Spark and Airmail, they are proprietary links. The address will start with either spark:// or airmail:// respectively. This means when you click on the link, it will open directly in Spark or Airmail. Which is fine if you’re all in with one of those email clients, but if you’re on a Mac where you don’t have those apps installed, you can’t get to the message. If you send an email to your task manager in Spark or Airmail for iOS, you’ll have to use the Mac counterpart if you want to access the message later. MailMate uses the default message format (message://), which allows the message to open in any email client (and will use the one you set as the system default automatically). This isn’t a big deal, but if you are thinking of using different email clients on both your mobile and desktop devices, it’s something you should be aware of.

MailMate is one of the most expensive email clients we reviewed, and is available for $50 from the developer’s website (there is a 30-day trial available). At that price, MailMate is definitely not for everyone — in fact, it’s not for most people. The interface is very functional, but also pretty boring. If looks are important to you, you won’t like MailMate. But, if you’re looking for the most powerful and most standards-compliant email client available, you write in Markdown frequently, and the price tag doesn’t scare you away, you might want to check it out.

Other Options

Postbox

Postbox was previously our runner up, and is still a great email client with several unique features that are well thought out. For example, instead of just having one unified inbox, Postbox allows you to have “account groups” that can separate or blend work and personal accounts — a very useful feature if you have a lot of email accounts you’re required to manage. Postbox also has a Focus Pane which allows you to quickly filter email to find what you’re looking for. For example, you could quickly find an email from a specific person received yesterday that has an attachment. Another great feature in Postbox is support for Pre-Made Responses. This is very similar to the “Canned Responses” feature in Google Labs (which is available in the Gmail web interface), but it doesn’t require that you have a Gmail account in order to use them and allows you to plug in tokens like first name or company.

Postbox also has a time tracker feature when responding to email so you can see how long you’ve spent composing your message, as well as a word count. When you’re ready to send your message, Postbox also has domain fencing that can prevent you from sending an email from the wrong account. And the Quick Bar is sort of like Spotlight for your email client, quickly allowing you to jump to any account, folder, or message using the keyboard. It also supports emojis, tagging, TouchBar support, and cloud file sharing (so you can attach large files to emails without cluttering up the recipient’s inbox). Postbox even has built-in anti-tracking, allowing you to block tracking pixels attached to some email messages.

Postbox is also well-supported by the developers and receives consistent updates. Honestly, the main reason it’s not a runner up pick anymore is simply the emergence of Spark. Postbox is still a great email client, albeit a pricey one when compared to Spark or Airmail, and the interface is a little more cluttered because of all the features it supports.

Postbox is $40 and be purchased directly from the developer’s website. There’s a 30-day free trial and a 60-day money back guarantee, so you basically have 90 days to try it out and see if it’s for you. Because all sales are handled through their website, they also offer upgrade pricing for owners of previous versions.

Canary

One aspect of traditional email that can easily be overlooked is security. There are services that provide end-to-end encryption for the email messages you send and receive, but they can be a hassle to set up. Canary is an email app that handles it all for you by implementing the OpenPGP standard in a beautifully-designed email interface. You don’t have to think about it, and you can feel confident that only you and the person you’re communicating with can read what you send.

Canary also has some great features, like a focused inbox, natural language search, smart filters, and a built-in cleaner that allows you to automatically find and delete unwanted emails. There’s also read notifications, email templates, the ability to snooze emails until later, and a one-click unsubscribe feature so you don’t have to search for those unsubscribe links.

Unfortunately, Canary doesn’t play well with other productivity apps. It integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive which is nice for taming attachments, but it doesn’t offer direct integration with a task manager like Spark, Airmail, and MailMate do. But if simple security is important to you, check out Canary. It’s available for $19.99 on the Mac App Store, but is also included with a SetApp subscription.

Polymail

Polymail is designed to be an email app for teams. Like Spark, it allows teams to communicate in real time with mentions and inline comments, and with email sharing you can turn any message into a sharable web link for your team to collaborate on. Polymail also integrates directly with apps your team might already be using, like Slack and Salesforce.

What makes Polymail really interesting is the built-in automation and sequences features. By automating manual tasks like email follow-up and scheduling meetings, your team can focus on the work that matters most. Sequences allows you to send out multi-stage email campaigns right from the app, and even gives you detailed reporting showing who opened, clicked, unsubscribed, or replied to your messages.

Unfortunately, Polymail is pretty expensive and not a great option for individuals. It starts at $10/user per month for the Basic Plan, and the Premium Plan (which includes the sequences) is $24/user per month. We don’t recommend Polymail for most people, but if you’re looking for a powerful team email client that integrates with Salesforce and Slack, you might want to give it a look (if you’re not scared off by the price).

Outlook

The Outlook approach to email is to integrate everything (calendar, tasks, email) into one ecosystem, which definitely isn’t for everyone and we personally don’t like it. It’s built from the ground up to support Microsoft Exchange, which combines everything into a somewhat proprietary format. So if you use Exchange-based email (popular in corporate settings), you might be stuck using Outlook as many third-party apps have limited support for the Exchange protocol.

Outlook is also only available as part of an Office 365 subscription, which is pretty expensive ($6.99/month or $69/year for Personal, $9.99/month or $99/year for Home). An Office 365 subscription also includes other Microsoft office products like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, so if you need or already use those apps it might be worth looking into. Interestingly, you can buy Office Home & Student 2019 for $149, but it doesn’t include Outlook. So if you use Microsoft Office already or rely on the Exchange email protocol, Outlook may not be a bad option. Otherwise, the hefty subscription simply isn’t worth it.

MailPlane

If you prefer the Gmail web interface, MailPlane is a great option since it basically runs the Gmail web app inside of an application wrapper. This allows you to use the complete library of Gmail-supported keyboard shortcuts as well as Gmail plugins (like Boomerang) and even gives you access to Google Inbox while still offering some native app advantages, like Evernote and OmniFocus integration (among others). At $29.95, it’s specifically targeted for Gmail users who love the Gmail web interface but want the advantages of a native Mac app.

UniBox

Unibox offers a people-centric approach to email, organizing your messages and conversations by person. The list of contacts on the left-hand side of the screen is sorted by date, but each person will appear in the list only once. Selecting a contact will reveal all your conversations with that person, similar to the Messages app. It’s a very different (and unique) approach to email, but is so non-traditional that it has a fairly steep learning curve. If organizing your messages by person sounds appealing to you, give UniBox ($20 on the Mac App Store, included with a SetApp subscription) a look.

Mail Pilot

Mail Pilot began as a Kickstarter campaign promising a a new (and better) email workflow. Mail Pilot treats your emails like tasks, which is an approach we don’t love. Yes, many messages will require you to take action, but when you have tasks in your email client and tasks in a task manager (like Things) it’s easy to lose track of what is where and what you need to be doing. Ideally, your productivity system should have a single source of truth for what needs to get done (and it isn’t your email client). That doesn’t mean it can’t work for you though, so if you like the idea of assigning due dates to your email and organizing them by multiple priority levels check out Mail Pilot.

As of this writing, Mail Pilot pricing is pretty confusing. Mail Pilot 2 was removed from sale by the developer over a year ago and at the same time version 3 was announced via Medium. The website indicates that there are 2 versions available for pre-order: Carbon Fiber which is a one time purchase of $19.99 (50% off for pre-order), and a Yacht Club membership which is $4.99/month but also includes a weird 4-month 50% pre-order discount. The subscription gives you a couple additional features plus access to a Slack community and promises of free mobile apps if they release them. Fortunately, there is a Public Preview edition you can download for free first.

Conclusion

There is no single third-party email client that is perfect for everyone, but we believe Spark is the best option for most people because of its powerful features and great design. If Spark’s pricing model makes you nervous, you prefer something a little more customizable, or need an integration with a productivity app that Spark doesn’t offer, check out Airmail. And if you’re looking for the most powerful, most flexible, most efficient, and most standards-compliant email client available (regardless of cost and looks), check out MailMate.

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.

Email apps are highly personal. Everyone manages their email differently. Which makes finding the best iPhone email app difficult. For some, it’s a to-do list. For others, it’s a temporary holding place until emails are processed into a task management system. One thing is for sure: everyone with an iOS device probably uses email.

When looking for an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, who better to turn to than Microsoft itself? Outlook alternative for mac 2018 model.

After looking at the wide range of third-party apps, Outlook is the best iPhone email app, and it’s the one we recommend as your first choice when moving away from the built-in iOS client.

With a focused inbox option, snooze options, a built-in calendar, and a wide range of support for various email systems, it’s simply the best.

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.

History

Email apps are a funny thing in reality. Like web browsers, we’ve been using them forever, but an email client in 2016 looks nothing like an email client in 1999. The technology might be the same, but the experience is a lot different. I have an interesting history with email, and it’s probably similar to many of you. My first email address was an AOL account when I was in middle school. I used that until I moved onto a Comcast.net account when we upgraded to broadband in 2001.

I used that until 2003, when I switched to a company called Mailblocks. They were purchased by AOL for their at-the-time innovative spam technology. I then migrated to Gmail (1 GB!!!) where I stayed until largely moving to .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud in 2007. One thing is common among my history: I used webmail until moving to .Mac for personal email.

I bet a lot of OS X and iOS users have a similar history. We didn’t start using a native mail client until moving to Mac and/or iOS. While web-based mail users are common on the desktop, I don’t really know anyone who uses Safari to access their email on iOS. Email apps have many features that Mobile Safari doesn’t, such as push notifications and integration with the system share sheet.

Survey

A lot of our app picks aren’t used by everyone. Not everyone uses a VPN app, delivery tracker, or a run tracker. Email, on the other hand, is used by just about everyone. As such, there are many opinions on email services, apps, and processing methods.

With that being said, we decided to do something we haven’t done before. We asked our readers to fill out a survey on what they wanted in a third party email app. The results were incredibility interesting to see. These were the most common features readers look for when shopping for an iOS mail app:

• Design
• Support for multiple account types
• Universal support for the iPhone and iPad

The Case for Mail.app

Prior to iOS 9, this would have been a very different article. Mail.app on iOS has gotten a lot better. In fact, the main thing missing is support for the share sheet (with the actual message contents) and support for snoozing messages. A lot of the people who took our survey simply didn’t use a third-party app. With the inability to change the default client in iOS, a case can be made that Mail.app is the best iPhone email client. The fundamentals of email are all the same: Compose, send, read, reply, and organize. Third-party apps make themselves indispensable because of the details.

The Best iPhone Email App: Criteria

When looking for the best iPhone email apps, we looked at design, ease of use, account support (Gmail, iCloud, Exchange, Office365, Yahoo, IMAP, etc.), Apple Watch support, push notifications, universal device support, integration with other apps, and whether it offers a snooze feature. While not everyone needs all of these features, we felt like this was a good guide to help us as we examined the market.

The Best iPhone Email App: Outlook

After much debate and testing, we chose Outlook for iOS as the best iPhone email app.

A few years ago, I’d never have guessed that Microsoft would make an iOS app that I considered the best in any category. Outlook for iOS is not necessarily a new product, but rather a rebranded one. The original name was Acompli, but Microsoft purchased it in 2014 and has been hard at work with updates.

The question is, what makes Outlook for iOS the best?

Outlook’s design is very clean, but still unique. That’s fine; I’m not looking for something to mimic Mail.app exactly. Do I want it to be a complete departure from the normal look and feel of iOS? No, but I want a unique experience.

Outlook has 5 icons across the bottom: Mail, Calendars, Files, People, and Settings. The way it’s laid out makes it feel like a complete communications/file management ecosystem. You are only one tap away from getting what you need. It uses a light theme with black and blue text throughout. I know some people like darker themes, but I feel like the design is very easy on the eyes. I don’t ever feel like the UI is distracting; it melts away and allows me to focus on what I need to see.

From a usability perspective, Outlook really shines. It provides me with just enough options to make it my own, but not so many that I am overwhelmed or spend time tinkering.

I love the built-in calendar function. While I wouldn’t say it’s better than Fantastical 2, I’d probably give it the nod over the standard iOS calendar. I love being able to see email and my schedule in one app. The compose screen is simple to use as well. It allows me to change which account I am sending from, add files, photos, send calendar invites, or see my calendar availability (a feature from its acquisition of the Sunrise Calendar app).

One important aspect of all third-party email apps is which types of email services it supports. Outlook supports Office 365, Outlook.com, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, Google, and IMAP. (POP3 isn’t supported, so if you require it, you need to look elsewhere.)

Outlook has support for iPhones with 3D Touch features. From the 3D Touch menu, you can hop right to your calendar, create a new event, or start a new email. I find myself using the View Calendar function frequently. A Notification Center widget and watchOS app are included as well.

Outlook supports push notifications for new emails, or just “important ones” with a feature Outlook calls Focused Inbox.

Focused Inbox sorts your email so you see the important ones first. It does this by considering past emails from a particular sender and your address book. You can also reclassify emails as you go in order to help train it. The calendar feature can also notify you of upcoming appointments as well as send short emails letting the people in your meeting know you are running late.

The snooze/delay function of email was made popular by Mailbox, but has since become adopted by a handful of other apps. Outlook offers a feature that allows you to control which folder your snoozed emails are stored. Your options for snoozing are in a few hours, this evening, tomorrow morning, or a custom time. Outlook doesn’t offer the ability to customize these times, and I’d like to see that added in the future.

Like I mentioned earlier, I love the fact that Outlook has a built-in calendar. It also has native support for a number of file systems. It includes OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. While this isn’t as important for attaching files (due to document providers), it does offer some advantages. There is a file screen that shows your most recent files for cloud document apps, as well as making saving attachments faster.

A recent update added third-party app integration through “add-ins.” Add-ins let you turn any email into a Trello card, save a message to Evernote, insert a GIF, translate messages, and more. These are currently only available to users with Office 365 email addresses, however.

Overall, Outlook is a great Mail.app replacement. I tried it originally, but went back to Mail.app with iOS 9. With recent updates, Outlook is a great alternative. I like it so much that I purchased an Office 365 home subscription so I can use Outlook 2016 on my Mac. While it lacks a lot of the features, it appears some of the Acompli team is now working on adding features from iOS to the Mac.

Best iPhone Email App: Runner Up

Spark from Readdle came out in 2015 to much fanfare. Scanner Pro and PDF Expert, also by Readdle, are some of the best apps in their respective categories. Spark seemed to come out of nowhere, and also didn’t seem like a category that Readdle would enter. After a semi-public beta period, Spark was released in May of 2015.

Spark is a close second in the best iPhone email app category. For me, though, some small things keep Outlook in front.

Release Date: July 11, 2017 Version 15.36.0 (Build 17070201) This release provides the following updates. July 2017 release Release Date: July 21, 2017 Version 15.36.1 (Build 17072101) This release fixes an issue with Outlook keeping group messages up to date. If the link is deemed malicious, the user is redirected to a warning page instead of the original target URL. Mathtype for mac office 2018.

From a design perspective, Spark is heavy on blue. I’ve never been a dark theme person; I prefer a white background with black text. The actual emails are on a white background, but I’d prefer this to be app-wide. The design feels a bit more playful than Outlook, and that may appeal to some users; however, I prefer Outlook’s more minimal design.

Well, good news: is now here for your printing pleasure. We know you love Tuesday Tips With Lynn, but we also know that you really love being able to have them all in arms reach whenever you need them! Download the AutoCAD 2018 Tips and Tricks Booklet Now Get all the tips you can handle. Once you have it, you can print it out or keep it on your computer for easy searchability. Autocad lt 2018 for mac.

Spark is incredibly easy to use. Of all the apps I tested, it reminds me the most of Mailbox (which I really liked and would probably still use if the iOS and Mac apps were still around).

Composing a new message puts the options at the top, which I’d rather see at the bottom since I am using a 6s Plus. It does allow you to easily swipe through signatures to pick a different one. Like Outlook, it supports a “Smart Inbox” to help you deal with the most important emails first. Spark also contains “quick replies” that you can customize. This allows you to quickly reply to messages that don’t need more than a “Sounds good” or “Thank you.”

Spark supports the usual email account types. Google, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, Outlook.com, and IMAP are all included. One unique aspect of Spark over others is that a lot of the actual processing happens on the device — it’s not Readdle’s servers that are parsing it. A few things are stored with Readdle, but it’s on AWS, and it’s minimal. They have a blog post that explains it in more detail.

For example, things like snoozing emails actually happens on the device. From a security perspective, this is great. My main concern is that if the app somehow got closed on the device, the snoozed email wouldn’t show up on another app (a Mac app for example) until Spark was re-opened. Depending on how security-focused you are about your email, this is either great or terrible.

Spark originally launched as an iPhone-only app, but was recently updated to include native iPad support as well. In late-2016, Readdle completed the trifecta with a much-anticipated Mac app that is available for free in the App Store.

Like other apps in this category, Spark integrates with a number of third-party services. This includes Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Readability, Pocket, Evernote, OneNote, and Instapaper. It does contain a built-in calendar, but it lacks anything but a “day view” with the ability to tap on other days in the month. The calendar is a part of a “Card” system that Spark offers to quickly access certain items (Mail folders, snoozed emails, etc).

Overall, Spark is an incredible app. Readdle came out of nowhere with one of the best email apps on the market. One question that I’ve always wondered is if it is sustainable as a free app. Although Outlook is also free, it makes sense because Microsoft is a large enterprise. With Readdle, they seem to depend on app sales.

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.

Other Notable Apps

Airmail

Airmail is the newest entrant to the iOS mail scene. The Mac app has been well-regarded for some time, and it’s actually our favorite email client for OS X. If you want the best email client for the Apple ecosystem, and you wanted the same experience across OS X and iOS (settings sync via iCloud as well), then you should look at Airmail. It’s currently $4.99 on the App Store.

One area that Airmail excels is third-party app integration. It has support for 2Do, Drafts, Deliveries, 1Writer, OmniFocus, Fantastical, Wunderlist, and many more.

Dispatch

Email Clients For Mac Yosemite

Dispatch is a fantastic app and has a lot of great integrations with other apps. However, it does lack true push notification support and Exchange accounts (and no plans to add it, so for a lot of people that will be a show-stopper. Otherwise, it’s a really great app that works on both iPhone and iPad. It’s currently $6.99 on the App Store.

Inbox/Gmail

There is a lot to like about Inbox for how it organizes your email. If you are a heavy Gmail web interface user, you might consider looking at Inbox or the official Gmail app. Since they only support Gmail accounts, it’s hard to recommend either as the best third-party email app.

Newton

Newton is a fantastic mail app. In fact, if you loved Mailbox by Dropbox, it reminds me a lot of that app. I’ve actually been using it as my go-to-app for the past few weeks, and it’s been great. Recent additions added Exchange Global Address and GSuite directory contact looks ups. It supports the usual features (snoozing, push, etc.) that all other clients support, but with a great design.

It’s a free app, but it requires a $49.99 annual subscription to use after the 14-day free trial expires.

Boxer

Boxer is a really good app that includes a built-in calendar and a number of integrations with cloud services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc., and supports the usual account types (Google, Exchange, iCloud, etc.). It has great swipe actions and solid bulk email management and was recently purchased by VMware, so it looks to be well-financed in the long term. It does lack the snooze feature that so many people use, however. Another negative is that it lacks push notifications for a number of account types.

InkyMail

InkyMail is one of the more unique email systems I looked at. The most unique feature is how it can sort your email in various ways. It can filter out any kind of newsletters, social notifications, and other types of fluff that can distract you from handling the more important emails. The app is free for basic use, but it requires a $5 per month subscription if you want Exchange support.

Mail Pilot

Email Clients For Mac Os X

MailPilot is the most expensive app what we considered. At $10, it’s still a bargain for all that it does. Its focus is on turning emails into tasks. It supports snooze, easy navigation, and is extremely customizable (with great swipe actions). One large negative that will deter many users is that it lacks Exchange support (unless your Exchange server supports IMAP connections).

Conclusion

We’ve come a long way from a time when Apple didn’t allow apps on the App Store that duplicated functionality of the built-in iOS apps. While the iOS 10 Mail app is the best yet, there is still plenty of room for additional improvement. With a wealth of options from existing apps and newcomers, 2016 might be the year that a lot of users look to upgrade from the default client. Outlook is what we consider to be the best iPhone email overall app. With a smart inbox, great snoozing options, and a built-in calendar, it makes a great addition to your iOS toolkit.

2018 Best Email Clients

Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.