So, I am trying out both Airmail Beta and MailboxBeta on the desktop, and Mailbox on my iOS.
There certainly are pros and cons to both:
Airmail Pros
-- nice interface, good workflow.
-- drag and drop to folders
-- easy 'to do' list
-- organizes emails by date sent, not by date last read
-- has a nice little icon in the menu bar that toggles back and forth with the program
Airmail Cons
-- sidebar a little hard to read
-- when writing emails, indent won't stay indented when starting a new line (maybe this, and some of the other things are fixed in latest version, I don't know)
-- It seems a little pricey for a mail program
-- It doesn't have an iOS compatable program, which makes me wonder, when they do, are they going to ask for more money for that? (That, or a higher price on the desktop version would be a deal breaker for me.)
-- Lists are separate for EACH email account. This makes things very confusing, since if you put something in the wrong email account list, it seems to go into the trash instead. You have to be really careful not to trash something you don't want trashed.
-- When you archive something, there is no archive folder where you can just go and look at everything in it. (This is what I hated about using Google, itself)
-- strange things wind up in the trash. For instance, I think if I try to put an email into a list and I put it into a list that is from the wrong account, it doesn't tell me I can't, it just trashes it.
Mailbox Pros
-- Very nice interface, clean, easy to use
-- I like the timed options of being able to have the email resent at a specific time (but I haven't used it yet)
-- Once you make a list, it applies to ALL of your email accounts. This is a BIG deal.
-- It HAS a compatible iOS app.
-- Has an archive folder that you can actually look at the contents, once you've archived.
-- It's FAST. It's really FAST.
Mailbox Cons
-- The sliding to put something into a different folder is ... different. Wasn't sure to put this in a pro or a con. It's kind of cool, but I still find myself wanting to drag and drop. It's a little awkward at times.
-- The iOS app has a bug that once you get into settings, there seems to be no way out.
-- Organizes emails by date that you last looked at them rather than date sent, with no option to change this. This is proving to be a deal breaker for me. I sometimes look at things to see if I want to clean old stuff out, but then all of a sudden, it's at the top of the mail list. VERY annoying.
Comparison
Overall, I seem to be leaning towards Airmail. Having them both open, I seem to gravitate towards that more.
-- You can see mailbox's lists in your airmail account, but it's a little funky, again, because it separates it by email address
-- If there were a way to make compatible Airmail with the iOS version of mailbox, list-wise, that would be great. As it stands now, if you put things in lists in one place, they will be there in the other program, but you have to search around for them because they aren't in the same place.
Have the rest of you seen any of these issues? If so, how have you resolved them. I really used to like Apple Mail, but just couldn't take how it interacted with gmail anymore. At least, with both of these programs, if you put an iMAP email into a list, you have it available to you mobile-y, unlike putting it into a folder in Apple Mail. If I could find a way to make these two programs compatible with lists, I think I could jump on full board.
Thoughts? Solutions? What are you guys using and how do you use it?
Best,
Caat
