What Is The Best Gmail Client For Mac

13-05-2021

What Is The Best Gmail Client For Mac

Email clients come in all shapes and sizes, but when it comes to the options available on the Mac, we feel that Airmail is the best email client for most people. It’s easy to use, supports a number of different email providers, has a solid search function, and more.

Airmail 3

Gmail, Inbox, and Mutt are probably your best bets out of the 4 options considered. 'Safely automatically displays images' is the primary reason people pick Gmail over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision. If you are looking for the perfect email client for Gmail on Mac, I would suggest you to use Mia for Gmail. It displays all your email notifications directly from the menu bar. You can mark emails as read, delete, archive or send them to spam directly from the application. Google's Gmail is one of the most popular email products around, and with generous storage allotments, reliable service and easy web or client integration, it's not difficult to see why.

Platform: macOS
Price: $9.99
Download Page

Features

Supports Gmail, Google Apps, iCloud, Exchange, IMAP, POP3, and local accounts
Unlimited email accounts with a unified inbox
Gmail keyboard shortcuts, global shortcuts, and custom shortcuts
Adjustable interface with multiple themes, modes, and layout options
Global search, filters, advanced token search, and a preview mode
Integration with Omnifocus, Fantastical, Trello, Asana, Evernote, Reminders, Calendar, BusyCal, Things, 2To, Wunderlist, and Todoist
Large contact photos for most contacts
Support for Gmail Primary Inbox
Support for folders, colors, Gmail labels, flags, and more
Attachment support for integration with Dropbox, Google Drive, Droplr, and CloudApp
Customizable notifications
VIP support with sender-specific notifications
Quick replies
Send later options
Customizable menus, gestures, and shortcuts
Today extension and handoff support
iCloud syncing with iPhone app
Folders and labels for organization
Search filters, flags, and message sorting
AppleScript support
Muting and blocking features
Task-based sorting with options to send emails to memos, done, or to-dos
Support for Markdown, rich text, HTML, and plain text

Where It Excels

Airmail’s biggest strength is the variety of ways you can customize it. Part of that comes from the fact that Airmail is updated pretty frequently, which means that not only does it regularly get new features, it’s also always up to date with the most modern iterations of macOS. Over the course of its life, those updates have added in features like snoozing, VIP mailbox, and plenty of other modern email features.

The ways that you can customize Airmail are pretty in-depth. You can alter what’s on your sidebar, what emails you’re notified about, how emails are displayed, how long a “snooze” is, how gestures work, where you save files, and tons more. Airmail also integrates with a bunch of third-party services, so if you use one of the supported to-do apps or notes apps as part of your email workflow then it’s pretty easy to integrate that into Airmail.

Airmail is basically a power-user email app for people who don’t want to go “full power-user” with something like Outlook. It’s great for the niche of people who need an advanced email client on their Mac and who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty customizing it.

Where It Falls Short

At $10, Airmail is a bit of an investment and while it’s well worth the cost if you use all is features, not everyone needs a ton of features to begin with. While Airmail is very customizable, it’s not great out of the box, which means you’ll want to spend a 10-15 minutes playing around with various settings, options, and other things to tweak it to suit your needs. If you use email a lot for work, this isn’t a huge deal, but if you’re a casual user who just want to send and receive some mail then Airmail is overkill.

The Competition

Apple Mail is probably the most obvious competition here. The packed-in email client is... fine. It works on a fundamental level, but since it’s only updated when Apple updates its entire operating system, it’s pretty devoid of modern features. If you just check and reply to emails, it does the job though.

Spark(Free) is easily the best alternative to Airmail for people who don’t need as many of the advanced features that come packed into it. Spark has a lot of the modern razzle-dazzle of Airmail without the clutter. It has smart inbox sorting, iCloud syncing with the free mobile app, email snoozing, and quick replies. The free part might seem like its main strength, but it gives me pause because it’s unclear what the business model is, and therefore hard to tell what will happen to the app in the future. We’ve seen far too many abandoned email apps over the years to trust any free app moving forward, even if it is run by a company with a whole productivity suite. Still, it’s a great alternative to Airmail and free to check out if you’re curious.

Postbox ($40) is another great competitor. Like Airmail, Postbox excels in search options and additional powerful features you won’t find in most other mail clients. For example, you get message summary mode, sorting by type/subject of email (called the Focus Pane), add-ons, easy archiving of messages, and more. It’s a little clunky to actually use though, and Postbox doesn’t feel as at home in macOS as Airmail does. While you can check out a trial of Postbox for free, it’s a tough sell at $40 unless you really enjoy it.

Lifehacker’s App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

Email is the single most important element of daily work life; without which we would be less-than-efficient. We rely upon email to communicate, send files, schedule, and much more. Every company depends upon different solutions for email - some use Gmail. For those that depend upon Gmail, the browser interface may not be the ideal interface to work with throughout the day. For those wishing to have a more standard email client, you're in luck. I have found five efficient, user-friendly desktop email clients that interact with Gmail.

No more will you have to depend upon a browser-only interaction with your email account. Let's take a look at these five clients and see if any of them can stand up to your demands. Each of them offers a different feature set; but all of them tackle the most important task – email.

Five apps

1. Geary

Geary is the one Linux-only client on the list. It's written in Vala and intended for seamless integration into the GNOME desktop. It's about as simple as it gets - open it up and use your Gmail account. There are few bells and whistles to this take on the desktop Gmail client. The Geary interface is based on conversations, which makes reading an entire discussion quite simple. Setting up Geary is as simple as adding your Gmail address and password. Once you've done that, Geary will very quickly draw in your email so you can begin reading within seconds. Geary does allow you to mark conversations, add labels, archive emails, view inline and attached images, search, and more. Geary is free and can be installed from source or from your package manager.

2. GMDesk

GMDesk is built upon the Adobe Air runtime environment. Although GMDesk hasn't been in development for quite some time, it still works and works well. With this Air-based application you get access to all of the Gmail features, including Calendar, Drive, and more. Each app will open as a stand-alone application and can be closed as such. There is zero configuration necessary - just enter your Gmail credentials and go. You can also connect GMDesk to your Google Apps account instead of the standard Google services. You can select your preferred start-up service, and even switch between Google services within a single window.

3. eM Client

eM Client offers Gmail synchronization built in. This particular solution is more of a traditional email client. In fact, you might find it similar to that of Outlook - only geared toward Gmail. With eM Client you can work with your email, calendar, tasks, and contacts. You do miss out on Google Drive - but that's not really the purpose of an email client anyway. Em Client also has a built in tool to connect with your colleagues using Gtalk. The one caveat to using eM Client is that, in order to get it for free, you must register. The free license is intended for non-commercial use and does not offer any support. If you want the Pro version, you'll have to shell out $49.95 USD.

Also read:Five email clients to help ease you away from Outlook

4. Gmail by Pokki

Gmail by Pokki is another simple to use desktop app for your Gmail account that offers up friendly notifications from within the Windows system tray. With this free app you can: View and save attachments, set label notifications, create customized tabs, chat, turn any conversation into a video call with up to ten friends, establish a theme, and more. The one thing to be aware of is that Pokki is an entire app store on its own. So when you download Gmail by Pokki, you are installing their app store. It is quite unobtrusive and can be easily avoided. Getting to the settings requires a right-click of the Pokki 'menu' button in the task bar.

Gmail Client Download

5. Thunderbird

Thunderbird is just as capable of dealing with Gmail as any other client. Set up of your Gmail account on Thunderbird is quite simple - no need to know the Gmail server addresses (just create a new account, add your Gmail credentials and let Thunderbird handle the rest. You won't gain access to your Calendar, contacts, tasks, labels, or any of the other Gmail features, but you will have a very powerful email client at your disposal. You can, of course, add the Lightning addon and have it connect to your Gmail Calendar. Thunderbird is a great cross-platform solution (Windows, Linux, Mac) for those looking for a Gmail desktop client.