DEV Community

Cover image for What E-mail client do you use?
Madza
Madza

Posted on

What E-mail client do you use?

Emails surely help us communicate and keep things going. It’s all fun and games until the number of emails starts climbing up, and you find it difficult to manage it from multiple places.

That's where E-mail clients come in. Currently, I use Gmail with Chrome extension Checker Plus for quicker access and real-time notifications. What are your solutions for managing e-mails?

Top comments (48)

Collapse
 
stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee • Edited

If MacOS were my daily driver, I'd use Apple Mail without hesitation. No free email client comes even close (and few, if any, paid clients, for that matter).

I love Linux (which is my daily driver), but its options for email clients have sucked forever. I grudgingly use Mailspring, occasionally installing Thunderbird as a backup in case that acts up (as it often does, but it's still somehow less frustrating than TB). Geary's lack of a unified inbox is a nonstarter for me, Evolution is too buggy, and KMail is a joke (this coming from a huge fan of KDE in recent years).

Collapse
 
alexcavazos profile image
Alex Cavazos

Check out spark, mac email lacks tons of features.

Collapse
 
stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee

Meh. I'm cheap, and I don't need any of those extra features. And again, Linux is my daily driver (but Mac Mail would be more than enough if I used MacOS daily).

Thread Thread
 
alexcavazos profile image
Alex Cavazos

Its free man haha

Thread Thread
 
stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee • Edited

OK, my mistake, though I'd be curious to see if it at least tries to nag me given how many email addresses/providers I use - double digit accounts - but nagging is fine if unobtrusive, Mailspring does too (though that's one thing I love about recent releases of Apple Mail, it doesn't choke on several accounts, at least not nearly as bad as other clients). Still doesn't change that I gain no benefit from its features and that it doesn't support my OS.

Thread Thread
 
metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

I haven't tried Spark on Mac but have had no issues with six accounts on iOS and Android. I'd like to use it on Mac, but I use the Antidote grammar checker (it's for English and French) and it integrates with Thunderbird (and Apple Mail, I think) but not Spark. I could run it manually but I'm way too lazy for that. :D

Collapse
 
crimsonmed profile image
Médéric Burlet

MailSpring as simple as Apple Mail but cleaner ui and better navigation and tagging, and activity tracker as well.

Collapse
 
stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee

Mailspring is great when it works. But there are lots of issues: Taking forever to sync mail, extremely high RAM/CPU usage when syncing, mapped delete key sometimes deleting/sometimes archiving, and more that can make it extremely frustrating.

Thread Thread
 
crimsonmed profile image
Médéric Burlet

I have to disagree I have been using it for a year on three laptops and never had any issues like that. The syncing for me has less issues than default mac client. I get instantaneous notifications and have linked 10 emails on each devices (gmail, outlook, custom smtp).

Thread Thread
 
stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee

You're fortunate. Mac Mail syncs way faster with my double digit accounts than Mailspring on Mac or Linux, using far less CPU/RAM.

Collapse
 
twigman08 profile image
Chad Smith

I honestly just use Gmail. I have tried using multiple email clients, and some do have some features I like, but they all seem to do something I can't get used to. So really since all my emails are Gmail accounts I just use that. Plus it's integration with their other apps makes it that much better. I don't have to keep switching apps.

I don't like email notifications on my desktop because they get in the way. So I just use my phone for email notifications. Easier to ignore them and they can be a bit more "async". I feel if I use a desktop email client app and end up using their notification system, I find that I want to go straight to my email every time a new message comes in and it takes me away from what I was working on.

Collapse
 
mjforclaz profile image
Marcelo Javier

I've used Outlook and ProtonMail. After all, I always return to which I think is the best solution: Gmail. The integration with Google Drive, Hangouts and Calendar makes a great stack. I have an Android mobile and that ends up completing all what I need.

Collapse
 
andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

I am using Apple Mail its okay but I am always on the lookout for a better solution. I have multiple email accounts so using Gmail alone might not be the best in my case at least not on iOS. I think the Android version of Gmail supports multiple email accounts from different services?

In the past I have tried almost all the best ones. Airmail, Polymail, Spark and Outlook. Maybe they have improved now? Finding an app that works across all platforms without too many bugs (Airmail) is what I was looking for.

Collapse
 
weppami profile image
weppami

Edison Mail, I used to use Sparrow and sadly was voided by Google when they bough it..
Edison is the closest I found, working well in mac, ios, android.

Collapse
 
mitchartemis profile image
Mitch Stanley

I really like MailMate. As described by the developer:

MailMate is not the most widespread, the cheapest, or the greatest looking email client, but I also have no aspiration to MailMate ever being any of these. Instead, MailMate aspires to be the most powerful, the most flexible, the most efficient, the most standards compliant, and the most secure email client.

Ticks all the boxes for me. It has great search functionality, supports Markdown, and I can create emails in a text editor of my choice which can be pretty handy sometimes.

Collapse
 
eduardort profile image
Eduardo Reyes • Edited

MailMate is amazing once you have it setup correctly.

Collapse
 
dailydevtips1 profile image
Chris Bongers

I use Gmail everywhere, and I'm a big believer of Zero-inbox, so if anything is stuck it means I have to do something with this mail.
It works perfectly by swiping mails between delete and archive and syncs across all my devices.

I also use three different gmail accounts, so these all sync well.

Collapse
 
bashfulrobot profile image
Dustin Krysak

Oddly enough, I use your exact setup. Having that extension made me enjoy the Gmail interface more. I like the regular web interface for processing larger volumes, but quick checks just didn't quite jive for me.

Collapse
 
vtexperts profile image
Tom Brown

Inboxy was a game changer for me. It's open source gmail extension. Very simple extension, but it allows email grouping by label. If you are using Gmail, take a look at it - you will not regret. (,I'm not associated with inboxy in anyy way)

chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/...

Git: github.com/teresa-ou/inboxy

Collapse
 
gsarig profile image
Giorgos Sarigiannidis

I use Newton out of the lack of a better alternative on Windows, but I am not very happy with it. It's just that I don't like how Outlook plays with Gmail and that I like having my desktop and mobile client in sync. Also, I find mobile-style email clients to be more convenient even on the desktop, compared to traditional desktop clients like Outlook or Thunderbird (especially since I use a Surface Pro).

I am looking forward to Spark releasing a Windows version to try that too, but apparently it takes too long.

Collapse
 
heytimapple profile image
Tim Apple

Well, I have gmail, outlook, tutanota, protonmail, fastmail..maybe some I have forgotten about. But for my main email for these days, I have jumped on the Hey bandwagon. It has changed my life completely as far as dealing with emails that matter.

Collapse
 
etienneburdet profile image
Etienne Burdet

I'm a Hey hipster.

Collapse
 
tfantina profile image
Travis Fantina

Got on that train and I don't think I'll ever get off!

Collapse
 
habereder profile image
Raphael Habereder

To be honest, I love outlook. As an advocate of OSS I tried alternatives many, many times. But there is so much missing. I want a tool that I can deploy on my machines and not worry about it anymore. I don't really want to "look for plugins" or shoehorn stuff in that wasn't designed to be in there.

Apple Mail? IMO that's just a fancy looking toy.
Thunderbird? Great base, too much missing features (Calendar anyone?)

In comparison Outlook just seems like an all-around feature-complete product. The integration of other MS365 products, like Teams for example, is also a neat bonus (if you use them)

Collapse
 
_adrian_e_ profile image
Adrian E.

I use Gmail.

It gets strong with the search-query-language and rules. Newsletter automatically get a label and moved out of my inbox. Technical issues get marked and calls get into my Kanban-System. This works also when every client is offline. Awesome thing to automate and concentrate on important emails.

Collapse
 
francisprovost profile image
Francis Provost

I've been using Spark for a while on macos and ios. It's been great but I'm still looking around for the perfect one.

All I want it's one that groups email like Gmail (same sender and subject goes together and newsletters and stuff like that) and gives me the possibility to send the emails to apple reminders app

Collapse
 
cadams profile image
Chad Adams • Edited

Spike Now. I love this app :) I used Edison mail before but I actually really enjoy how Spike manages multiple emails and displays the emails like text messages. It removes a lot of the clutter from the email so you can focus on the message.
spikenow.com/