Newton (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch) – Also for Android and Windows. MailMate, using its clever Distortion Mode to obscure my email contents Also worrying, the “recommended” version of the app to download has been a sporadically-updated beta for nearly two years now, which makes it hard to bet on as a daily driver, or justify its $50 price tag. But it’s really hard to get past the antiquated UI layout in particular, there’s no widescreen-friendly multi-line message list.

MailMate (Mac) – By the numbers, this artisanal Mac-assed Mac app built by a solo developer, positively festooned with low-level power user customisation features advertised as “experimental” or “proof-of-concept” in the web-based manual, should be right up my alley. Despite supporting almost every platform under the sun, Canary Mail ships native apps for all of them. A security- and privacy-forward choice, Canary Mail proves that securing your data needn’t come at the expense of a polished user experience. Apple Mail on macOS 12 MontereyĬanary Mail (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch) – Also for Android and Windows. The fact that it’s included for free with Apple’s operating systems is probably what makes it so hard for alternatives to make an honest buck, and why a cottage industry of add-ons and extensions exists for it. Despite a patchy record of quality in the past decade, which has included some almost unusably buggy releases, Apple’s bundled app remains more of a robust all-rounder than almost any competitor (mostly just because of how long it’s been around). These are the apps that made my shortlist:Īpple Mail (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch) – AKA Mail.app. Otherwise, strap in for some obsessive comparison-shopping! If you’re in a hurry, feel free to skip to the end to see what I chose. So with the time I saved on shopping for email hostsĮmail clients for my Apple-ecosystem devices. With Protonmail and iCloud+ the only others that seemed viable to me.īut I do love a good deep-dive into competing software, The list of alternative email hosts is actually pretty short, On the custom data compression it does to optimise its web app. Neil Jenkins presented at Web Directions Code 2019 Honestly, I’ve been thinking of switching to Fastmail since The option best suited to my needs and tastes.įastmail was it: an Australian indie success storyĪnd solid engineering.

I could have just switched to the paid version, or moved my email, calendarĪnd contacts to a free individual Google account,īut this seemed like an opportunity to survey the field and pick The free version of G Suite that I’ve used for over a decade. After Google announced it was shutting down

Best mail application for mac