Mail driving me crazy, where should I go?

[Kentuckienne]

Apple Mail is making me insane. It keeps losing the ability to download my gmail. It will work fine, then all of a sudden not work with one of the accounts only. I'm all the time having to go in and tell it how to connect and what the passwords are. Plus, it's so confusing because there are mail accounts in Mail, and then there are Internet accounts in Preferences, and if I try to delete a duplicated account in Mail it won't let me because it's in use by Internet accounts, but it's not, there's just a duplicate in Mail ... and so on. It's taking me way too much time to keep fixing it, and all I want to do is get mail.

So I read as much as I could find and people seem to recommend PostBox - which I got a copy of through MacHeist - except for the people who say the support isn't good. And then there are people who like AirMail except for the bugs. I have several Gmail accounts for my multiple personalities, I mean needs, and one Live (Hotmail) account. Any suggestions for a nice, easy, reliable account that runs on Yosemite and won't bug out all the time?

Part 2: is there a way to migrate my already downloaded IMAP data from the existing client so they don't have to synch again? I'm on metered bandwidth - satellite internet - and only get 10 GB a month.

 

[simonsi]

...then there are people who like AirMail except for the bugs.

I use Airmail, don't have any issues with bugs, it just seems to work. I use it for Exchange and 2-3 IMAP mailboxes but not Gmail so YMMV.

 

[0388631]

Another vote for AirMail. On Windows, I prefer eM Client. Currently playing around with a work partner's MBP because I want to get the next gen one, and I really love the client. I've played with PostBox in the past and it reminded me too much of Thunderbird, which I despise.

On Windows, I found eM Client Pro to be great. There is also Inky, but I never had much luck getting it to authorize anything. Support is a crapshoot as well.


edit: Actually, you could try out Inky as well. I do believe they do something for OSX and it's free. Couldn't hurt.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Thanks for advice. I did look at Inky, and it seems that it stores all data on its own servers instead of downloading it to my machine. I'm on limited bandwidth - satellite internet, 10 GB per month - so I'd have to be constantly redownloading mail if I had to look at a message again. Plus, I just like having an onsite copy ...

I'll look at AirMail again. I read that PostBox was based on Thunderbird but I never used Thunderbird, so don't know if that would make me hate it or not. I don't mind paying for good software. I would gladly pay Apple if they would fix Mail! Oh, wait, I already did.

 

[0388631]

Thanks for advice. I did look at Inky, and it seems that it stores all data on its own servers instead of downloading it to my machine. I'm on limited bandwidth - satellite internet, 10 GB per month - so I'd have to be constantly redownloading mail if I had to look at a message again. Plus, I just like having an onsite copy ...

I'll look at AirMail again. I read that PostBox was based on Thunderbird but I never used Thunderbird, so don't know if that would make me hate it or not. I don't mind paying for good software. I would gladly pay Apple if they would fix Mail! Oh, wait, I already did.

Not storing it. That's how IMAP works, and that's if the the software is perma stuck in IMAP download. Mailbox is done by DropBox.

 

[lowendlinux]

I use Thunderbird because apple mail can't send from my iCloud account

 

[Kentuckienne]

Sorry for all the questions - I've spent hours trying to educate myself on this and maybe i'm almost there. The problem is I'm on restricted bandwidth. I started out with POP on all my accounts years ago, and that worked fine because then I had all my mail available offline. I wound up getting an IMAP account set up in addition to a POP account during an OSX upgrade, and Mail then re-downloaded every single email that was on the Gmail server. IMAP is acceptable, as long as it downloads the email so I have it offline. But I have trouble keeping the application from constantly connecting to the mail servers. I really only want it to send/receive mail when I ask it to, for example during free download hours in the middle of the night. POP seems better suited to my this satellite internet world which is more like the old dial-up world than the modern rich access that all you city people can get.

I have a copy of Postbox 4 that I got in a MacHeist bundle, and I don't mind the interface. I installed it in offline only mode and fooled around with it to see if I could migrate all my existing mail and run the two applications alternating for a while to see which one I liked better. But Postbox doesn't have the documentation that I need, and they don't have a user forum, so I haven't been able to figure out how to import my existing accounts and folders. It did a good job, I think, of doing something but I can't figure out what. For example, I can't tell if Postbox is using the same folders as Mail, or if it made its own copy. And I can't figure out how to import my multiple inboxes from Mail into Postbox.

So if I had to use IMAP - which if I can force it to be quiet would be OK - I have another problem. I have multiple email accounts, and a large assortment of folders. I shove emails from various accounts into the folders, in addition to leaving some in the individual inboxes. I've deleted many messages and moved some to folders. This seems to confuse IMAP. I've already run into the situation where the email account re-downloads all the moved/deleted messages when I moved from my old G4 PowerBook to the Intel OS. Really would like to avoid doing that again and using up all my bandwidth allotment, not to mention the time to sort out all the duplicated messages.

I would like to migrate a group of email accounts, with multiple inboxes and multiple sub-folders on my mac, into another email client in such a way that I don't trigger a redownload of all the files that were moved from the inbox into folders. Gmail doesn't do folders, it just has the one inbox. If there is no way to do that, how about moving maybe I can import one account at a time and allow the new mail program to redownload/synch everything during "free zone" time. After that, I'll have a bunch of messages re-downloaded into my inbox that I have already moved into folders. I'm guessing they will be marked "unread" and I can just delete them. Then I will be left with the messages that were already in the inbox. But it seems that this could cause problems.

1. If I delete all that newly downloaded mail, won't the server then delete the corresponding messages from my online inbox? I like keeping them on the server just in case, even though I do backups.

2. Is it correct that the messages already moved into subfolders will remain, even if the original is deleted from the server?

3. Is there a way to import my existing inbox into another client in such a way that the server recognize those messages, or will it be confused by the fact that I'm using a different client and redownload them again anyway?

4. Mail is driving me crazy because it will work for a while, then all of a sudden one of the accounts will no longer be able to send mail. I can't edit the account because Mail won't allow me to have the same SMTP server name for two different accounts. For some reason I have for some accounts both an IMAP and a POP account, and then there is also something called an Internet account with the @ sign. Making a change to an existing account sometimes creates a new one, and then I can't delete it because there is an Internet account with the same name ... I CANNOT figure out how to clean up the Mail accounts so I have just the ones I need. I guess Apple is trying to force everyone into the connected world where I the computer and phone and tablet all live together, and maybe that's OK if you have bandwidth out the wazoo, but I don't. Is there some way to fix Mail so that the duplicate accounts are gone, or will Apple just break it again?

5. Lastly, does Airmail work better in this situation than Postbox? Multiple accounts, subfolders?

This little forum is my lifeline, thank you ...

 

[Toltepeceno]

I know you are not going to like this recommendation but the only email app I like a lot is outlook for mac. I have postbox that I got through macheist also, and it's better than apple mail or even airmail as far as I am concerned, but to me nothing beats outlook. I don't think you can get it without a subscription, which is bad for some, but for 5 of us here the 7. plus us that it costs in mexico is worth it for storage alone. Not to mention each one getting an hour of skype free a month.

May not work for you, but just putting it out there.

 

[Kentuckienne]

I used to like Outlook a lot, and used it until the version of Office I had wouldn't run on my machine. I've looked at it again, but you can only get Outlook as a part of Office. Skype doesn't do much for me since I don't have the bandwidth to spend on it. On the Microsoft website they are still selling the 2011 version of Office for Mac with a new update due next year. If I could get just Outlook, I'd try it, but they make it too hard. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

 

[Toltepeceno]

I used to like Outlook a lot, and used it until the version of Office I had wouldn't run on my machine. I've looked at it again, but you can only get Outlook as a part of Office. Skype doesn't do much for me since I don't have the bandwidth to spend on it. On the Microsoft website they are still selling the 2011 version of Office for Mac with a new update due next year. If I could get just Outlook, I'd try it, but they make it too hard. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Yea, I figured it was a long shot as it's definitely not for everyone. Too bad you can't get it stand alone, I think they would do well offering it that way. If we ever stopped getting office, like maybe the kids are gone as the two oldest use it in school, I would probably use postbox.....but would be wishing I had office. Good luck my friend.