The Best Email App For Mac

Many of us use our email app more than any other type of software, so it’s easy to see why it’s worth spending extra time finding the very best solution for our needs – starting with the best email app for Mac users.

Whether it’s work or personal, we receive what feels like far too many emails in a day. 

Keeping on top of these messages requires organization, and email apps can help you sort out your life by sorting your email. 

Mac users have plenty of options for apps, and the choice can be overwhelming. Maybe you’ve been using the default for a while, and are now wondering what else is out there. 

Is it worth it to pay for better service, or are you just throwing money away? 

We’ve looked extensively at the options available to help you decide for yourself!

Features

Apple iCloud Mail is a user-friendly app that keeps your messages well organized by subject. 

Organizational addicts will love a new feature called Smart Mailboxes, where they can control how their mail is organized. 

Messages can be filtered by a variety of different criteria, such as messages not yet responded to or emails with attachments. 

Overall, it does a great job of filtering spam and archiving certain types of emails. It makes unsubscribing to emails easy with just a quick click! 

On the other side of the coin, you can mark certain senders as VIPs to make sure you never miss an important email. 

If privacy is important to you, iCloud Mail is an ideal choice. Some users have made the switch away from other email providers that have been found to use their emails for targeted advertising. 

You can rest assured that Apple iCloud Mail will not read your emails using automatic algorithms, or mine your information in other ways. 

Other handy features include Mail Drop, which uses iCloud to quickly share large attachments, and Handoff, which allows you to easily switch between using the iPhone app and Apple Mail– even when working on the same email. 

You can even hide your primary email address via aliases!

Along with working with iCloud mail, it is also compatible with many major email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, AOL mail, and Exchange. You even have S/MIME support for end-to-end encryptions when using IMAP and POP3 accounts. 

Drawbacks

Apple iCloud Mail provides a free storage capacity of only 5GB. This can be limiting if you like to save your photos through the service. 

While there are workarounds like IMAP, those with limited technical knowledge may struggle to make this work. 

More storage space can be purchased, however, and it’s not too expensive at $0.99 per month for an extra 50GB.

The aggressive spam filter may sometimes filter messages you actually want to receive. This will not occur with personal emails, but could happen with emails from various service providers that you may want to hear from. 

Overall, iCloud Mail is a great option for those who don’t want much hassle with setting up an email app. As a default app goes, it is a seamless choice and will work well for most users.

For those looking for a collaborative email app, Spark for Teams has the rest beat. 

Team members can work together on an email, proofreading, editing, making private notes, and having conversations via a text box right in the document. It works similarly to Google Docs, but specifically for emails. 

Team members can even share specific document points through secure links. The team management tool allows work to be delegated, deadlines to be set, and progress to be tracked. 

The free version of Spark allows this collaboration between two people. This is a great option for a small independent company or one with a two-person team that handles emails. 

Larger teams may want to consider an upgrade to the Premium plan. Costing $6.99 a month and allowing for unlimited collaborators, the paid package also offers more storage and access to unlimited email templates. 

HEY

Hey is marketed as a Gmail alternative, and the app claims to have “fixed email” for a price of $99 a year. 

Whether or not HEY is worth the price tag when a similar service (Gmail) is free is up for vigorous debate. The answer is really dependent on the person’s email needs. 

What HEY is good at is sorting through the noise. It’s a great option for people that get way too many emails! 

While some will love HEY for decluttering their email, others will be less than thrilled about not seeing all their messages.

HEY’s philosophy is that people only want to receive three types of emails:

1. Things you need to respond to

2. Things you want to read

3. Receipts 

Emails from new email addresses are put into a holding pen. When you look in this folder, you can decide what’s important to you. You’ll mark each item with how it should be filtered: Into your inbox, archived, into a separate folder, or deleted. 

Emails that require responses get a separate section where you can then categorize them based on urgency: Reply now, or Reply later. 

When you enter the Reply Later screen, it’s set up so you can tackle the bulk of emails, one after the next. 

In a feature called “Clippings,” you can highlight interesting things from your email that will be set aside in the Clips folder. This can be useful when gathering information for a project from multiple sources. 

Additionally, the “File Viewer” function allows you to quickly look through any attachments sent to you from newest to oldest. 

Another handy feature is that if you get an email with an irrelevant or empty subject line, you can change it so it’s easier to find later. 

You can also adjust whether others can see read receipts when you open their emails, and HEY also blocks pixel tracking and other surveillance for user privacy. 

Lastly, you can “set aside” emails that have attachments you want to be able to quickly access, such as a concert ticket or a boarding pass. Simply pull it up in a dedicated viewer when you need it!

Overall, HEY is a great choice for those that receive too many emails and don’t mind paying for what is essentially a hyper-optimized version of Gmail. 

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is an open-source app by Mozilla that supports Gmail, Outlook, and GMX mail and allows users to manage multiple accounts from one inbox. 

Thunderbird is completely free to use. You can donate to its development if you enjoy the app, but it’s not required. 

Because it’s open-source, add-ons are available from third parties where you’ll be able to get an extensive selection of features! 

One example of a downloadable feature is WebTranslate. This allows you to convert text into different languages. 

It has excellent security features, including a powerful spam filter that uses your address book and history to make sure important emails go to your inbox. 

In terms of other features, Filelink allows you to add large files via the cloud with a link rather than an attachment. 

While the default interface itself is somewhat basic and dated, you can change your dashboard view not only between Light and Dark modes but also between other options available as well via add-ons. 

For a free, open-source software program, Thunderbird is a great choice! There’s no customer support available, but Thunderbird users seem to be a good community who help each other and answer questions on the official support forum.

Mailspring

Mailspring is open source, which is a big selling point for tech-savvy users that like to see and alter the source code of the programs they use. 

However, there are other great things about Mailspring, even for those without programming knowledge! 

With Mailspring, you’re able to use just about any email service out there, and it’s easy to set up multiple accounts. 

Users have access to a local cache of messages, and the search functions are super advanced– making finding emails from a vast backlog super easy. 

Mailspring also offers plenty of opportunities for customization, including themes, plugins, and filtering and organizing preferences. 

Most features are available in the free version, but you can upgrade to the paid version for $8 per month. This allows you to see if your sent messages were read, additional sidebar information including social media links, and link tracking. 

Overall, users seem to love Mailspring, but the main complaint some have is a lack of customer support if that’s something that’s a consideration for you.

Polymail

Polymail is a great choice, specifically for start-up companies. It’s got an elegant interface that allows you to connect multiple accounts without confusion. 

The perfect users for this app are those working on networking or making outbound sales. The app has some great features to help business owners operate smoothly and efficiently. 

Read-receipts allow you to monitor when emails are opened, attachments downloaded, and links are clicked. You can even set follow-up reminders to pop up if your email is unanswered after a set amount of time. 

Profiles can help you to keep track of contacts (including social media links), and you can use their LinkedIn Photo to help you put a face to the name. 

Lastly, the” Undo Send” button is a great tool when you realize you’ve made an embarrassing error in an email, or sent something to the wrong person right after hitting the send button!

Another feature that helps make life easier for startups is Polymail’s scheduling – it allows users to keep track of sales meetings effortlessly! The calendar sends invites right in the app, and the two features work in collaboration. 

While Polymail does not explicitly mention the use of AI in its features or functionality, the automation and intelligent features it provides can be seen as a form of AI. These features serve you the information you need when you want it, helping you to be more effective in your communications, spend time on high-impact work, and stay on top of important conversations

The Free plan contains most features, but upgrading to the Pro plan gives you access to unlimited versions. A Pro plan costs $10 a month, and covers everything a start-up or freelancer would ever need. 

There are also Team and Enterprise plans for larger companies. 

Just keep in mind that while Polymail is a great choice for start-up businesses and freelancers, personal users will find many of the features unhelpful and may prefer a more simplistic app.

Canary Mail

Canary Mail is all about security. It’s an excellent option for those in lines of work where end-to-end encryption is essential. 

It even has a feature called SecureSend, where you can send an encrypted email to any email service! This allows the sender to PGP-encrypt a message with just one click, requiring the recipient to log in to view the message from a separate page. 

This type of encryption is available on its Pro Plan at $20 a month, which comes with a 30-day free trial. 

Canary’s free plan is still a great choice for those less concerned about encryption. It offers an easy user experience with handy features, such as the ability to track emails (including seeing when they were read), snoozing emails as they come in, and unsubscribing simply by clicking a thumbs down icon from the inbox. 

Canary Mail’s feature, Copilot, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to compose emails for you. Activating Copilot is as easy as tapping an icon, and it generates emails based on your instructions. The AI understands conversational language, making email interactions more engaging and human-like. It also simplifies email management by eliminating manual searches, saving time. As you use it more, the AI learns from your preferences and interactions, providing a personalized and efficient email experience.

The app also has a built-in calendar that works nicely with the email functions, as well as other useful functions like categorizing your inbox by dividing emails into several distinct sections. 

Gmail, Yahoo, Office 365, iCloud, and IMAP accounts can all be used, and you can set different notification types for messages from each account. 

MailMate

Many seeing the MailMate app for the first time will instantly feel turned off and look elsewhere. 

The interface is clunky and dated; it’s certainly not what we’ve come to expect in this day and age, and it’s easy to assume the app is substandard as a result!

However, MailMate does have its place on this list for a particular set of users. It’s a powerful service that’s chock full of features. 

The text-based approach will suit fans of keyboard shortcuts, who can navigate the app by customizing keybindings to reply to messages, switch mailboxes, tag emails, move messages, and read emails. 

MailMate is fully standard-compliant. If you want to add any basic formatting to your emails, you’ll need to write in Markdown, a plain text markup language. This will be a learning curve for some, but once you get the hang of it, you can format emails quickly and easily. 

Additionally, the search function is one of the most robust out there. Data junkies will love the special view where they can see email statistics and thread arcs. 

MailMate is a great choice for advanced users, as it’s fully customizable. Those with programming backgrounds and fast typing speeds will find they can do everything they need to quickly without ever taking their fingertips off the keyboard!

Meanwhile, novice users will probably feel overwhelmed by the app and dislike the ugly interface. It’s an expensive option at $49.99, but worth it for the right user.

Newton

Newton is another app that’s more appealing to advanced users who are fine with spending money for a feature-rich email service. The app gives users plenty of control over how they want it to act. 

It has a minimalist design which some users really love; emails are organized neatly in black and white. You can also “push emails off” to have them reappear the next day, reply to them, or delete them altogether. 

Three of Newton’s features make it stand out over the others. 

The first is True Inbox. When answering emails, they move to the top of the inbox rather than going into a sent folder. Some feel this feature helps them keep track of ongoing conversations. 

The next is Zenbox. Instead of getting a barrage of emails all throughout the day, Zenbox notifies you and makes emails appear in batches at set times. 

As you might imagine, this can really help with distractions. You can choose for certain types of emails or emails from particular senders to not be included in Zenbox if you know they need to be dealt with immediately. 

Finally, the third feature is Tidy Inbox. This keeps those promotional and social emails and newsletters out of your inbox. It helps to keep notifications low, and you can still enter this folder at your leisure. 

The AI Scheduler, powered by x.ai, is a feature that enables effortless calendar scheduling for both individuals and teams within the Newton platform. Once a user connects their x.ai account to Newton, they gain the ability to instantly share their availability using simple keyboard shortcuts. Additionally, the AI Scheduler can automatically send available times to guests directly within the email thread.

Newton is a more expensive option at $50 per year. The other drawback is that the company has switched owners and closed and reopened multiple times. While it appears to now be stable, this may be a concern for some.

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is used by many for workplace emails, and those used to the app may be inclined to use it as their primary email as well. 

While Microsoft Outlook has a ton of features, it’s not known for its simplicity. This is why it’s a good choice for those that were required to learn the system for work, or for tech savvy users that want access to everything an email app can do. 

The app includes a calendar, task manager, note-taker, and chat features. It works great with other Microsoft services, which means it may not be the best choice for personal Mac users. Professionally though, it is the industry standard. 

Microsoft Outlook uses AI to improve its functionality. It offers features like Tone Suggestion, Conciseness, Summarization, and Copilot. These help users deliver messages thoughtfully, write concisely, summarize long texts, and generate responses. However, it doesn’t adapt to user interactions or preferences.

Microsoft has a great selection of templates for you to choose from, or you can design your own!

They offer all the modern email features including, but not limited to: 

• Customizable finger swipes
• Support for SVG graphics
• Follow-up reminders
• Email scheduling
• A focused tab for important emails
• Even @mentions! These allow you to tag others as recipients.

You’ll need to be a Premium user at $6.99 per month in order to use the desktop app. This includes an email address with a domain name of your choosing! 

If you don’t have a domain, Microsoft Outlook is integrated with GoDaddy, so you can easily set one up. 

This is a must for businesses in order to look professional. Premium users can also encrypt their outgoing messages. 

The Spam filter works pretty well, but it does make mistakes at times. It’s easy to move messages from the Junk folder back to your inbox, and the app will learn these are safe emails and not filter them out in the future. 

Overall, the Microsoft app is a good choice for professional use, but there are better free options for those after an app for personal use. 

PostBox

PostBox is a good all-rounder that is easy to use, has a clean interface, but also contains advanced features for business and advanced users. 

Improving on previous versions, PostBox has worked hard on decluttering the default view. You can quickly sort through your messages, filtering them with single keystrokes such as ‘J’ for junk. 

PostBox allows you to choose whether or not to load images on any email, alerting you when remote tracking is activated. 

The user can easily customize how emails are sorted, by categories such as topics or the presence of attachments. 

There are plenty of templates available, particularly for business use. PostBox will prompt you to fill in the missing information to ensure you aren’t sending out a form email without personalizing it. 

Even with thousands (or tens of thousands) of emails, the app doesn’t slow down. Searching through a massive archive of emails is instantaneous!

PostBox has robust support for HTML, making sending newsletters or images easy. The tools allow for editing the images within the email, saving you additional steps and the need for other software. 

Obviously, this will not be as sophisticated as software like InDesign or PhotoShop– but in many cases, it will do the job. 

At $49 for a lifetime license, it’s a reasonable price for business users based on the features they are getting. For home users this may be slightly expensive, considering they may not need everything that’s on offer. 

Kiwi for Gmail

Kiwi for Gmail is a solution for those that love Gmail but want to access it in an app instead of opening a browser. Those familiar with Gmail will have no problem switching over to the app as the interface looks very similar. 

Using the app, you can easily tab through other Google services such as calendar, contacts, and many others. With all these services, notifications can get overwhelming, so you can also choose to filter the notifications to only include essential emails. 

With Kiwi for Gmail, you get subfolders for social and promotional emails as well as an excellent spam filter. 

You can quickly star important emails and senders to prioritize these emails and create many subfolders and categories. 

The Standard version allows you to use one Google account at $2.75 a month, while the Premium version allows up to 3 and only costs $39 per year. 

MailTrim

MailTrim best serves business teams with its advanced email management features. 

With a user-friendly design, team members can quickly access what they need in no time at all! 

Quick previews of emails and a one-step search bar make MailTrim ultra efficient. All emails are intelligently sorted so that they’re extremely easy to find. 

Quick previews of emails and a one-step search bar make MailTrim ultra efficient. All emails are intelligently sorted so that they’re extremely easy to find. 

Emails can be customized for individual looks based on their purpose. PGP encryption can be set for secure emails, and third party integration is available for Google Drive, DropBox, and CRM platforms. 

Additionally, you can set reminders to follow up on unanswered emails, automate when emails are sent out, and flag ones that slip past the spam filter so they’re caught next time. 

You can also create email signatures and even schedule meetings with the team via the event calendar. 

Mailtrim uses AI to enhance email workflows. It summarizes emails, detects action items, and generates smart replies. It also filters spam, categorizes emails, and suggests optimal email sending times based on past behavior.

Airmail 

Airmail is a significant upgrade from iCloud Mail, known for its speed and terrific modern features. 

All of the features make sense, too. Airmail remains clean and fast as it’s not cluttered with things no one really uses!

One of the things Airmail users love is how customizable it is; you can make the app look and work how it best suits you. 

It’s also fantastic for organizing your schedule. For instance, you can turn emails and messages into calendar reminders or put them on to-do lists with just a couple of clicks. 

Even if you have multiple email accounts through different services, you can view all your emails in one unified inbox. When sending an email, you simply use a drop box to select from which account you want to show– and can even select which persona to use (similar to the alias feature on iCloud Mail)!

Snoozing emails is a great feature that Airmail does well, too. 

Say you have a particular time during the day (3PM, for example) that you sit down and deal with emails, with the rest of the day reserved for urgent matters. 

If you look at an email that can be addressed at 3PM but also want to make sure you don’t forget about it, you can snooze the email from your inbox. 

This will make the email reappear again at 3PM, which means that it doesn’t get buried in your read messages!

Airmail uses the same shortcuts as Gmail, but you can set your own as well if you prefer. You can also use the Quick Reply option to respond to an email without even opening a window. 

Airmail integrates well with other apps. This is where it stands out over iCloud Mail, where you essentially need to do everything within the app. 

While that may be great for those that want simplicity, but those that like to have options or use other services will find Airmail’s functions very useful. 

Unibox

Unibox is a fantastic choice for self-employed individuals, freelancers, and small businesses that want to keep their work and personal emails separate. 

The interface is clean and beautiful. It looks uncluttered, as buttons will appear when you need them depending on where your cursor is hovering. 

Composing an email doesn’t open a new window, but uses the main inbox window instead. In this window, you’ll be able to see the email you’re responding to while typing. Additional fields like CC only appear if you open them, giving you more space to work. 

Emails are grouped by the sender, so you can see the entirety of your conversation at a glance! 

When you have a stack of newsletters or emails from one company, you can put the whole group aside or delete them with one swipe. 

If you’re after an attachment, you can view all attachments sent by a person in one place, so you don’t need to randomly open up emails searching for the right one.

Unibox works with any IMAP email providers, including Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Outlook, Office 365, Yahoo, and Exchange. 

Some drawbacks to the app that users find frustrating are having to click “more” to read the full email, having to push refresh to see new emails, and having a messy search function. 

While there is a lot to be excited about, it may be best to wait for the updated version down the line so that the glitches get worked out.

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Key Takeaways 

At the end of the day, the best email app for Mac will depend on each user’s email needs. We’ve summarized the key features of each program below to help you make your final choice! 

iCloud Mail is a terrific free program that is going to meet most users’ needs, particularly those looking for an app for their personal email. 

There are some users that will have specific needs beyond what iCloud Mail provides; in these cases, they’ll probably be better served by something like MailMate.

Advanced users can consider MailMate for a text-based program with customizability, or Newton for lots of control. CanaryMail is the best choice for users with security concerns, such as a business that shares sensitive information. 

HEY is a good pick for those overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive, while Spark is a nice and simple app for the novice user. 

Professional users should consider other options that will have the features needed for their businesses. Start-ups would do well with PolyMail, especially those involved in outbound sales, and collaborative teams would love the tools available in Spark Team. 

MailTrim is another choice for teams that want to keep things moving efficiently. Self-employed individuals and freelancers may find Unibox to be a good option for keeping business and personal emails separate. 

People who have been using Microsoft Outlook at work may want to have a similar program on their home computer, while Google lovers can get the same Gmail browser experience in a stand alone app. 

Lastly, people looking for an open-source program have Thunderbird and Mailspring to choose between. 

Consider your level of comfort with software, how much control you want to have, what you want out of an email program, and if you are willing to pay for extra features (and if so, how much). 

From there, you’ll be able to narrow down what’s going to give you the best experience– and then give it a try!