Seeking suggestions on alternate to Mail app

[dhutch]

What's the current best alternative to Mail?

I've lost too much time while Mail 1.2.5 (v552) on OS X 10.2.8 writes changes to disk, has repeated compaction errors and repeatedly restores mail I've tried to delete...I'm working on an early iMac, 233 MHz, 384 MB ram, 4GB hard drive, 265 MB available (was 450+ MB available earlier today, and I haven't added anything but Mail did restore messages again). I've run Disk Utility to repair permissions, and still have the same problem.I have around 1,750 messages in five mail boxes--I'd have less, but I can't delete and am sick of spending hours a week waiting for Mail to write changes to disk, locking up every other process.

This machine doesn't have the hard drive space to upgrade to Panther, so until I can replace the machine, I need a better mail program...Any suggestions?

 

[nevreb]

alternative to Mail app

Do you have Microsoft Office? If so, install or open up Microsoft Entourage. I have been using it with a lot of success, as it was recommended to me at MacWorld last January as a better alternative to Mail.

 

[panphage]

If you can stand a text-based email client and don't mind doing some setup, I absolutely love mutt. Of course then you have to set up fetchmail and procmail (of equivalents) but man, mutt is fast, and does EXACTLY what you tell it, looks EXACTLY how you tell it to look, AND you can set tons of custom keybindings.

 

[Anna]

Entorage is definately the best option rather than mail.app. As it is able to be used sucessfully on a large network and has more features

 

[Rower_CPU]

Sounds more like an issue with your email account and/or settings.

I have 4-5 accounts in my work and home Mail, all with multiple subfolders/mailboxes, a mix of POP and IMAP. It all works fine.

 

[ahunter3]

Anything that is not Eudora is a pretender to the throne.

Download Eudora and experience a real email client. I have almost every email sent or received (minus the spam) since 1991, divided up into a dozen + mailboxes. It's never slow and I can search the whole thing and it's quick. I have 3 inbound accounts and about seven outbound (some are address or reply-to variants). It works nicely with OS X's sendmail (using yourself as your own SMTP server). The mail files are plain text and easily salvaged even if they get corrupted.

 

[dhutch]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've used Entourage, but really like the built-in junk mail filter in Mail. I'm trying Mozilla's Thunderbird and like it, so far. I've also used Eudora (some time ago) and may give it a try again, too.

 

[Btoney]

I have been very satisfied with Mulberry. It is a very flexible application, is easy to set up and works fine, particularly in IMAP mode.

 

[yellow]

I use Mail.app for multiple, simultaneous accounts with no problems at all..
And then I chime in with:
Mailsmith

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

GyazMail ges quite a bit of praise. I tried it for awhile but have always gone back to Mail, but then i have never had any problems with mail.

 

[tjwett]

I too have given up on Mail.app. It's been nothing but a mess for me since the beginning, and I'm even using a .Mac account. Right now I'm using Entourage and I'm very happy with it. For free I think Eudora is a good option too.

 

[krhodus]

This probably isn't an opion, but I use webmail-based email on my server under Horde. I really like Horde especially since through the day I check the email on multiple computers

 

[jywv8]

Re: Seeking suggestions on alternate to Mail app

I really like Entourage. However, I just recently went back to using Mail for their Bounce feature...don't know if bouncing actually affects the level of my spam, but I figure it can't hurt.

 

[mrjamin]

i recomend Mozilla Thunderbird. It's still in pre-alpha (0.3 atm) stage but very stable, very fast (because an independant version of the mozilla email client as bundled with the mozilla suite) and as feature packed yet simple as Mail.app. Best of all its open source, free and the HTML engine is gecko. Its set to get a lot features and speed improvements when it hits beta. As soon as it approaches the ends of beta stage it'll be the dogs danglies! It's the best email client i've EVER used and its still only pre-alpha! incredible

 

[bousozoku]

I've been using Eudora in Pro mode ever since Claris em@iler died. It's not bad, especially since version 6. I tried Mac OS X's mail and it was acceptable unless I had multiple accounts, which I did/do. The client in the Mozilla browser suite is the best I've seen for free.