Airmail?

For some years, Ive been looking for an alternative Email client for the Apple Universe. I’ve finally found one I like. Most alternative clients worked only with Gmail. This one works with iCloud, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other popular mail services that support POP, IMAP, or ActiveSync.

Unboxing

I bought the program for the princely sum of $10 on the App Store. It launched and configured without issue.

I have 2 step authentication enabled on most accounts so I had to do the following extra stuff.

• Create an iCloud App Password
• Do Apple 2 step authentication
• Do Google 2 step authentication
• Add the first account at startup
• Add the additional accounts from Preferences (like Apple Mail)

This took a little fumbling around but Google found the appropriate instructions at Apple Support quickly and all worked as advertised.

Reading Mail

Once my accounts were set up, I could read my mail in a unified inbox or check each account inbox. Articles can be archived, deleted, snoozed, starred, etc. I never really warmed to the Google Inbox idea of using an AI to sort Email into the those likely needing action, those that were informational, and those that were adverts, etc.

The reader interface is modern, easy to figure out after using the traditional Apple and Gmail interfaces, and it was easy to review and clear new mail.

The program silently imported my Apple Contacts, Apple Calendar, and Apple mail archive. Everything was there and indexed. Many products ignored the existing mail archive and started a new one. It is a pleasure to see that Airmail uses the existing MacOS mail archive.

Writing A Message

The Airmail composer is a joy to use compared to Apple Mail compose window. In Apple mail, I always disliked the start as plain, switch to html, and difficulty with bold, italic, and lists, particularly terminating a list. Airmail’s composer has solved all these issues.