Mac users have many choices of using different email clients. Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook are the two widely used email clients on Mac systems. However, with the availability of different email clients, users do not have to depend completely on these two. Depending upon the need, a user can choose any email client.
These email clients are supported by all versions of Mac OS X. Current statistics revels that version wise market share of OSX are as follows :
- Mac OS X 10.9 3.66%
- Mac OS X 10.10 1.18%
- Mac OS X 10.6 0.72%
- Mac OS X 10.8 0.57%
- Mac OS X 10.7 0.56%
- Mac OS X 10.1 0.19%
- Mac OS X 10.5 0.14%
- Mac OS X 10.4 0.03%
Note: Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite are popular naming convention for Mac OS X.
There are many email clients, which provide advanced features to cater the need of various users. With the availability of so many email clients, Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook no longer remain stagnant email clients. Moreover, it is even harder to choose the best email client from so many different clients.
Some of the Mac Mail Clients available for Mac OS X are mentioned below.
PostBox 3
Postbox 3 is a smart and reliable email client for Mac OS X. Though it is not new, but, it has maintained a traditional look and feel of Mac. It provides a set of advanced features and makes you feel as if you are working with Apple Mail. Some of the
- Provides a safe and smooth way of handling email.
- Smooth way of setting of POP and IMAP accounts with the ability of analyzing and finding the right IMAP configuration.
- Easy loading of huge number of messages with a progress bar to track the progress
- Enhance the emailing experience by a set of new features and very interactive and easy to use interface.
- Easy handling of messages with marking facility at the beginning and end. You can quickly reply to the latest messages and easily follow any message thread. In addition, you can easily see the sender of the message with the help of the inspector pane next to each message and click them to see the sender’s contact details.
- Advanced searching mechanism based on the sender of the message. This option allows you to search for any messages, images, or attachments just by clicking the links within their address book info.
- Inbuilt ability to write a new mail in an easy way by choosing your response preferences from a pull down menu.
- Works easily with many tools like Evernote to keep track of the services you send to them.
- Can easily be used with the Dropbox. By simply dragging and dropping the files, allow the receiver of the message to download the file directly from the Dropbox account.
- Uses the Gravatar service to get images and acquaintances.
- Perform various operations on task like creating new tasks, checking finished off tasks, etc. by using the To-Do mode.
- Maintains your favorite feeds by integrating the RSS reader into it.
- Allows support for Gmail by allowing the use of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts. Such a feature can be used at anytime, whenever required.
- Advanced Online help files to help you find and use all these features.
With all these features Postbox 3 is considered to be one of the best options for the majority of the Mac Mail clients’ user.
Inky 
Inky is yet another Mac mail client, which has lots to offer. It combines the features of a highly professional email client meant for business as well as provides various other features required by many other users. Some of the key features of Inky are mentioned below.
- Provides great portability by storing the mails on a remote server and information about the POP and IMAP accounts on itself.
- Require only one account login credentials to get all the emails to any computer.
- Provides a very interactive and transparent interface, which allows you the view mail on the basis of individual accounts or clever Smart Views.
- Uses an advanced algorithm to categorize maps, package info, daily deals, subscription mailings, etc. automatically.
- You can set Inky to arrange your email on the basis of relevance by just clicking on the icons.
- It is free to use and incorporates new ideas that can be well executed to provide the best a user is looking for.
Mail Pilot
Mail Pilot also provides more or less the same features as offered by other email clients. Some of the noted features of Mail Pilot are mentioned below.
- Mail Pilot considers each message as a task. With this, you can perform any action to a message instantly or at a later time. In addition, you can set reminders for a later action. Moreover, such tasks can be performed by making use of the various keyboard shortcuts present at the bottom of the screen.
- It uses the IMAP protocol to set up an account.
- Provides various options to navigate message thread, sort them, and stack them.
- Many of the features like the ability to save a new message as a draft, is still under construction. However, the Mail Pilot client is worth a use.
Unibox
Unibox is a well structured and designed email client for Mac OS X. You can take advantage of the following features if you are using Unibox as an email client.
- Takes a quick and easy approach to set up IMAP accounts.
- Displays the mailbox on the basis of the sender on a particular day.
- Easy switching between multiple sender’s message thread from the top of the screen.
- With the interface involving just one window, you can utilize maximum space.
- Various buttons to sort, junk, or delete a message as well as replying and forwarding options appears on the left and right side of the screen.
AirMail
It is another very economical Mac mail client to be used on Mac OS X. Some of its features are mentioned below.
- Interactive and nice interface
- Inexpensive client to be used with IMAP-based webmail.
However, unlike the Post box 3 as discussed before, the Dropbox option is not easy to set up.
Apple Mail
- Advanced search features based on the attachments and attachment types.
- Support for Microsoft Exchange accounts.
Sparrow 1.3.1
As the name says, Sparrow 1.3.1 is a very light and elegant email client for Mac OS X. With this you can configure your Gmail and Yahoo addresses and get them loaded into it within minutes. Some of the other features include the following.
- Maintains the same color coding and labels as used in Gmail or Yahoo folders.
- Allows you to create new labels in Sparrow in a color-coded fashion.
- Allows you to link the messages to any message sorting rule.
- Very interactive and beautiful interface.
Thunderbird 3
- Tabs for email are one of the latest features introduced in Thunderbird 3.
- Allows you to open more than one Web page in tabs.
- Allows you to open emails and search results in new tabs.
- Supports various add-ons to enhance the working experience with it.
Outlook for Mac 2011
- You can keep intact your emails from PC and tasks together in a Mac inbox
- It allows you to unify your messages, contacts, calendars, etc. of your home and office
- Uses a single subject to condense long email threads
- You can view the schedule display while viewing the meeting invitation
- Easily migrate from Windows by just making use of the PST file and using the import tool
- Uses a single folder to consolidate all your work and home emails
- Keep all things integrated without any fear of losing any work
- Supported across various operating systems like Mac OS X or Windows 7
- Lightweight workflow
- Allows attachment preview and data backup using the Time Machine feature
With the availability of so many email clients for Mac OS X, there is always a need for a Mac mail converter. A person using Thunderbird often looks to migrate to Outlook for Mac 2011. Both Thunderbird and Outlook for Mac 2011 uses different file formats and are not compatible with each other. It is always recommended to have Stellar Mac mail converter to convert mails from one email client’s file format to another.