The problem with the best Mac email client is that it doesn’t exist. There are a few good ones, they all break when things get heavy.
Apple Mail – The default email client is not bad. However, there are so many little quirks in its UI that using all day makes for a stressful experience.
Microsoft Entourage – A beautiful mail client and nice PIM, has great IMAP support. The only problem I have with it is its “Main Identity / Database” storage system. Entourage stores all its data in this huge file, prone to corruption and impractical for daily backups. It’s also incompatible between different language versions of Mac Office; I still have a database with few gigs of data from French Microsoft Office for Mac 2004, waiting for a way to import it.
Mozilla Thunderbird – It’s as ugly and unreliable as ever. It has the drawbacks of both Mail and Entourage.
Web mail client – Impractical.
There are projects like MailCore and GyazMail but those are not quite there yet.
I’ll keep using Apple Mail until Entourage changes its storage system. It’s not impossible, given that it most of its users insist for Time Machine compatibility.
Comments 6
u need a girlfriend… u are too pessimistic…
Posted 13 Apr 2009 at 16:48 ¶My wife would probably disagree :-)
Posted 13 Apr 2009 at 21:31 ¶You can export from any client and import into any client through an IMAP server (assuming both clients support IMAP).
Posted 03 May 2009 at 08:37 ¶Question? Would the “Main Identity / Database” storage system problem matter if you were using Entourage as an IMAP client, rather than retrieving emails via POP. Wouldn’t they all still be stored on the mail server should corruption occur? Just curious. I am a former Entourage user, who ran into the database problem many years ago (when I was accessing my mail via POP and downloading it to my computer), but have since switched to gMail, accessing via Apple mail and IMAP. Am thinking about switching back to Entourage and was wondering about IMAP and that database issue.
Posted 29 Jul 2009 at 19:57 ¶@Nora: Entourage on IMAP would solve most of the corruption issues, but that wasn’t a big problem in the first place. Your DB will still be huge if you want a local copy.
Posted 01 Aug 2009 at 14:29 ¶Entourage (2001) has a max DB limit of 4gig, after that Entourage just stops working, no warning. I’d like Gates to pay for all the mess he’s created.
Posted 18 Feb 2010 at 17:20 ¶Post a Comment