Best e-mail program?
 

What is the best e-mail program and why?

I’m using Entourage for OSX, English version. Does this have the same vulnerabilities that I have heard MS Outlook does?
Should I switch to a different program for security reasons?


ArcticStones

I prefer the Apple Mail.app

It's easy to use, and the junk mail filtering is the smartest feature in OS X (to me anyway)

I can't remember the last time a junk mail slipped into my inbox...

:)

If not Mail.app, then Eudora is a suitable replacement. Avoid Micro$oft.

Mail.app is my fave.

Eudora is #2.

Yahoo web mail - great.

Mozilla email for sending html email.

Apple's email is limited to RTF which is useless for the rest of the world. If you need to send pics to friends you need html and apple doesnt support it.

Ever get an apple itunes invoice? you cannot do what they do so apparently they dont use their own emailer either. I personally like to send pics with comments to my friends and they need to be sent as one , apples mailer cannot do this without html which they dont support. They should at least support it and let people turn it on or off, but they dont.
So Mozilla gets my vote.

Entourage is a completely different codebase from Outlook for Windows; most likely the worst that will happen is you forward a bad attachment to a Windows user.

I also vote for Mail.app, especially in it's Panther incarnation. My wife has used Entourage for a couple of years with few problems.

No one mentioned Mailsmith so I will. If you are like me and hate HTML mail and think all mail should be text, like excellent filtering, great scriptability and don't need IMAP, then Mailsmith may be for you.

edit: typo

One nice addition to Mail in Panther is that it won't load HTML emails unles you click the load HTML button.

MS may suck, but Entourage doesn't.

Lots of power-user stuff, nice account management, and it handles folders with /tons/ of messages very well. Good Exchange support, too, if your office requires it (as mine does).

Downsides? Can't configure the toolbar (minor annoyance, and if you use Safari, you won't care (can't edit the order of items)), its junk filtering isn't as strong as Mail.app's, and you don't get a copy unless you buy Office.

Me, I don't get any spam anymore since dropping the only account that was getting deluged (150 a day sometimes), so number two isn't an issue. I got Office on teh cheap, so I had it anyway (and happen to be an old Outlook Express user from my 7.5 days, so I'm very comfy in the setup).

Mail doesn't suck at all. If you want more power features, Entourage is up your alley. If Entourage and the cost of Office (assuming you don't have to have Office anyway, in which case, it's moot) are too much, check out Eudora. (Or, you might like Eudora more, anyway. I don't know if Eudora has much in the way of Exchange support, though.) Mailsmith is definitely for the hardcore e-mail user. It isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Postscript: Entourage performance reference machine here is a 500-MHz PowerBook G4 with 512 MB of RAM.

> yellow wrote:
> One nice addition to Mail in Panther is that it won't
> load HTML emails unles you click the load HTML button.

where is this option?! under the viewing preferences panel i see a "display images and embedded objects in html" option, but this doesn't stop html messages from being rendered. i'd love to stop those html messages from rendering in the first place.

fxt

the one I use and love is ...
 

mutt

Craig & Mikey-san, I’m relieved to hear that Entourage has a different codebase from Entourage, and that the consensus is that it deserves a bit more applause than the other products from Gates & Ballmer.

I’ve considered Mail.app (Apple?) and Eudoura (which I used a couple of years ago), but since I had to purchase Office for OSX anyways, I’ll stick with Entourage. Unless there is a very compelling reason to drop it.

Doug Stetner, MailSmith sounds promising, too...
Strange thing - but I don’t get any spam (one or two a month, tops). Even without using a mail filter. But then again, I’ve only given my e-mail account to customers and friends, who are not inclined to spread it around.

The exception is Apple’s Newsletter and cheap holiday offers/cheap fares on spare flight seats from an outfit here in Norway.
When I’ve registered to read the New York Times or the like, I make sure that I never say yes to letting them/advertisers send me "special offers and exciting information".

I keep both my incoming and outgoing e-mails as a log, and that has come in handy on many an occassion. When the disk on my old computer got a bit full last year, I deleted attachments tat were older than a given date.


Thanx, everyone, for sharing good advise and suggestions!


ArcticStones, Norway

Remember that Mail.app and Eudora are free to try out. BareBones have a Mailsmith demo on their site, too:

http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith/demo.shtml

If you want to see if there /is/ a reason to drop Entourage for something else, it doesn't cost you a dime. :-)

Another vote for Eudora. Eudie can hold and search a total volume of mail that would bring most other mail applications to their knees.

Yeah, I've seen some very impressive stuff out of Eudora in that respect. My buddy Claude, who runs his own Web hosting company and serves/runs Bungie.org's servers, gets a /massive/ amount of mail. He also never throws any of it away, it seems, having thousands upon thousands of messages tucked away in various locations from years gone by. Eudora doesn't skip a beat.

Eudora with a few reservations
 

definitely part of the reason i use Eudora.

i've been using with the same mail database since '94, and i never throw away mail. and it's as quick now as it was then. and i've never heard stories of lost mail through database corruption the way i have with Entourage.

it's also incredibly scriptable and tweakable with a million and one adjustable settings.

i also like the multiple window interface.

all that said, improvements have been a bit slow coming over the past few years. i wish it used the OS X system address book. and there's no excuse for not supporting Quartz text smoothing at this late date. using the Safari WebKit for HTML mail would be a nice bonus as well.

i've flirted with Mail, and indeed do use one IMAP account in Apple's app. but i'd still recommend Eudora for serious email action.

I've given Mail.app another try since installing Panther and it still suffers in comparison to Entourage. Entourage integrates more seamlessly with its calendar, notifications, and addressbook database than Mail; yet such integration is precisely wherein I would expect Apple to shine given a home field advantage. Many of the benefits of other applications mentioned above are present in Entourage as well. For example, go to Mail and News Preferences and uncheck the HTML box and you will never see another formatted eMail again (until you want to). I also maintain a large backlog of eMails for reference purposes. With some maintenance, I have never experienced a single glitch. It is recommended that Entourage users with such circumstances rebuild their databases periodically (this is easily done - just hold down the option key while launching Entourage). Most compelling of all, Entourage is available separately: no need to buy the bloatware package.

Mail Mail Needs Mail $ and more Mail:
 

RE: Mail Mail Needs, Mail $, and more Mail:

Every one has different Needs. Multiple Real Separte mail accounts, Exchange Server suport, web mail etc.

I use Entourage. I have office so it is already paid for.

I wanted to use Apple Mail but with out using (freeware/shareware [depedning on features]) Box of Rox Mail Switch or Signing in and out of different users for Different Separte mail handling, Apple Mail does not truly support Multiple mail users logins.

Apple does support multiple email account but not users. e.g. name@work.com, name@earthlink.net, billnames@earthlink.net, wifename@earthlink.net etc. all would come in one In, Sent, Out, etc. And Fast user switching is still a Kludge.
And while one could write a bunch of Apple mail scripts one should not have to.

They are many good pay mail clients and paying for a good tool is fine. Eudora, mailsmith and many others....

A piece of Advice about mail in General
 

Keep Multiple mail accounts for Multiple Purposes e.g.

1) Order things from the net (semi-disposable)
Use this for software and download registration too or see #4.

*** orderthings@isp.net

2) friends/Collegues
*** namelast@isp.net

3) Bills
****namebills@ispnet

4) etc. You might want to have a registration email address for software separte
****registrationname@ispnet

Not counting my wifes email and work. I keep those 3 accounts (I have a 4th that held onto 8 years prior to this behavior that has been spammed into a no use account about a year ago).

**Basically you want to be extermely careful (do not respond to take my name off the list).

**Uncheck every offer when ordering from Anywhere for free news and info/Updates.

** If you wanna know, go to site your self or versiontracker.
Other wise email account eventually will be buried in 50 percent self inflicted news and 50 percent spam and you will miss Real email in the middle somewhere.

Rememeber that the internet ordering account will probably eventually become garbage. So far no spam in 12 months. Tick Tick Tick:)

P.S. Keep all your Serial # in your Palm Desktop or similar for and when you need to upgrade or get support etc.

DCWatts,
I recently rebuilt my Entourage database. (After advise on MacOSXHint.) The day preceding my use of this remedy was the first time I had ever had trouble with this software.

Anthlover,
Your advice on different e-mail accounts seems very well founded. I think I’ll put it into practice.

I don’t know why, but after all these years, I am still having virtually zero problems with spam...

Judging from the discussion here, there are very strong cases to be made for both Eudora and Entourage. As well as more specialized programs like MailSmith.

Thanxx!

I've used Eudora for years and the most compelling reason is that the mail is stored in text files. This, in my opinion, lessens the likelihood of data loss due to corruption, which is more common in apps that use (proprietary) databases. As a Eudora user, I have never lost email due to corruption or due to anything other than user error. The fact that I can open the files in a text editor, if needed, provides some assurance that I am not locked out of my data by a proprietary file format. Eudora, while not perfect, is the only logical choice for me. :-)

-- Rob

eudora...

I've just updated from 9.2 to OSX Panther...
 

I've just updated from 9.2 to OSX Panther.
I have been using Outlook Express up until now but it doesn't seem to be available for OSX.

So what should I use?
Mail? Eudora? Outlook Express in OS9?

Here are my requirements:
* I've got around 5 email accounts from different providers
* I like the way that OE allows me to check my Hotmail acconts rather than signing in to hotmail.com
* I am getting a huge ammount of junk mail to some of these accounts which I'd like to filter/block
* I'd like to write emails in HTML - i.e coloured text, bold, etc [nothing more than that]
* I've got a load of old emails & addresses in OE that I would like to transfer to the new program

That's all I can think of for now - there will probably some other things

Any advice would be really appreciated.

thanks
Rich;)

I would suggest MS Entourage. It’s part of the MS Office package. I’ve been using it for years and am rather satisfied with it.

Best regards,
ArcticStones

Is it a free download?

I have to Agree Entourage in General but.....
 

You gave us scant info beyond your general email needs information...

1) Do you have MS Office X already???
2) Do you need your your different email accounts to remain separte. That is do you need Entourages/Expresses Multiple Account feature where you log in and out of different email users with Separte In, Out, Sent mail boxes etc??
3) Do you have any Friends or are or your self in Education (Office SuiteX is like $129 vs. regular $300+ Depending which version and discounts)??

4) Do you want to spend money at all assuming you do not already own office X??
5) What OSX version are you using of 10.3x e.g. 10.32?
The Best way to avoid spam is to have even more mail accounts. One Should have:
1) A real internernet mail ordering account for all the stuff ones orders on the internet e.g. orderstuff@yourisp.com (this account is semidisposable as it will get spammed more then others)
2) A billing email account yourbills@yourisp.com
3) A cooresponence email for trusted folk yourname@yourIsp.com
etc. You might want to have a separte account too, for software registration Or you might use the order account.
4) An email account for your spouse? etc.

1) Apple Mail offeres Even Better Spam filtering then Entourage and HTML. Coupled with Shareware/Freeware Box of Rocks Mail Switch it not only supports the multiple email accounts but gains the Abilty to use Multiple Users.

I should point out that with JAg and Pather (eaiser still with fast user switching) you could sign in and out as different users (yuck, I know). Multiple Desktops, Multiple Prefs etc.

2) NetScape Mail is Also Decent

3) Eudora is wonderful but No HTML savvy

4) There are many other fine email programs people may tell you about.

Also a reminder back up your whole system, as well as your email. It is possible for your mail prefs read mail and addresses to get corrupt.

Good Luck.

In case anyone was looging for mail switch

http://www.hawkwood.com/mailswitch/

Entourage is the only reliable solution on an exchange server.
 

If you are on an exchange server, Entourage is the way to go. I don't know if it is best to discuss the best mail program when you have to consider calendaring and scheduling as part of any professional package. In fact, Entourage is not just a mail program, that is a misconception. It has mail, calendar, task, notes, address book, projects all wrap in one and they all work together. For interacting with people in the Windows world on an exchange server, Entourage is the way to go. The other added benefit with Entourage is that it is completely scriptable.

If you don't need to work on an exchange server, then one of the others programs may suit your mail needs. In this case, I prefer Apple Mail. Apple Mail is also completely scriptable.

In regards to the other email clients, are they scriptable?

thx
RLC

There is one very essential feature that is missing in Entourage, which I otherwise consider an excellent Microsoft application.

Ron, do you think that it will be searchable by means of Spotlight anytime soon? It’s a real hassle that it is not. To me Spotlight is by far the most valuable feature in Tiger – it has changed the way I work and improved my productivity.

So: Spotlight + Entourage = true search?

???

The use of a non-documented message-store by an email-client disqualifies the software in my view.

I'm not willing to make extra backup provisions just because they want to lock me in by making it hard to export mail.

It is unfortunate Apple didn't go for the widely adopted maildir format, but the plist-based stuff they cooked up can at least be easily understood and salvaged even when a bunch of bits gets flipped by accident.

This may be difficult with the current mail format. But you never know.
 

Disclaimer, I would not be using Entourage if a better choice was available on an exchange server. As I stated before, for me, it is not only the mail program. It is the mail, calendaring, tasks, etc... that I have to rely on in a professional environment. When I accept and invitation from Mail, it goes into my Entourage calendar. I can schedule meeting through Entourage calendar and other will receive it without issues.

I think the Entourage database makes it difficult to implement spotlight anytime soon that would be efficient. Microsoft Entourage is a closed vault.

That being said, Microsoft does provide a way to search the mail database via criteria searching, but you will have to do this without spotlight for now.

My work around, although not elegant, is to set up an exchange account on both Apple Mail and Entourage. That way I can search Apple Mail via spotlight if I have the need to do it. I use Entourage for all other Exchange related activities such as calendaring, tasks, and address book and mail.

thx
RLC

I would never even remotely for a moment consider Entourage. Count the number of recent threads about people's Entourage mail file becoming corrupted and/or Entourage greeting them with a brand-new "Welcome" message and a totally empty set of mailboxes.

Roncross@cox.net: Yeah, I hear you. But long after you've moved on from your current job, and the job after that, I'll be using Eudora, and I'll have all the email from my current job, and the job after that, and the job before any of those, and from my university days, and all my AOL-era email, and all my latter-day personal email from the various email accounts I've maintained, right there in Eudora.

True, but they aren't as sophisticated as those in Eudora, and nowhere near as fast, especially once you've got more than a decade's worth of email to search through.

Eudora doesn't do calendars and whiteboards and other stuff that Entourage may do. But it sure does POP email like nothing else can. And the file format, as others have said, is industry-standard, and plain text under the hood for that matter. When I had a really rude MacOS 8.6 system crash a handful of years ago and had to salvage missing emails from a raw-text file-fragment search of the hard drive, I got back pretty much all the text from a month and a half's correspondence. Not only that, I massaged the raw text so as to format it appropriately to paste it back into the Eudora mailboxes and have Eudora recognize them all as separate email messages. (Some of the complex header info such as the Received-from trail is phony and/or missing, but aside from that it's as if I never lost it). It put me on the straight-and-narrow about doing more regular backups, too, to be sure, but do you think you could do any of that if you were in Outlook or Entourage?

Never thought of the exchange account work around that you indicate here. Sounds interesting! but I don’t think I will implement it.

I essentially use Entourage (Office X, 2000) as my logue – and am currently having problems with that. I am constantly told that I am close to exceeding my size constraints. It’s a hassle to have to keep finding more attachments that I can delete.

I’ve used the Search feature in Entourage many a time, but I do wish for something more powerful.

AHunter: I’ve heard many good things about Eudora, too, and know people who swear by it. But I’ve really gotten used to Entourage and it works great for me.

With best reagards,
ArcticStones

Look up the free program, MailbackupX 1.4, over at Versiontracker. It parses Entourage mail into text files that can be searched via Spotlight. You have to run it manually, but at least it's a solution for now.

If you run a business, and/or are heavily into GTD, my vote is for Entourage. I think it's the most heavy duty mail app out there.