Best Mail Program For Mac And Ios
Email apps are highly personal. Everyone manages their email differently. Which makes finding the best iPhone email app difficult. For some, it’s a to-do list. For others, it’s a temporary holding place until emails are processed into a task management system. One thing is for sure: everyone with an iOS device probably uses email.
Email clients come in all shapes and sizes, but when it comes to the options available on the Mac, we feel that Airmail is the best email client for most people.
- A recent surge of worthy new email clients offers Mac users some of the best choices they’ve ever had for managing their mail. With a panoply of clever features and new ideas, these contenders.
- The Mail application that ships with macOS and OS X is solid, feature-rich and spam-eliminating software that is also an easy-to-use email client. Optimized to work on the Mac, the Mail app is trouble free and full featured.
After looking at the wide range of third-party apps, Outlook is the best iPhone email app, and it’s the one we recommend as your first choice when moving away from the built-in iOS client.
With a focused inbox option, snooze options, a built-in calendar, and a wide range of support for various email systems, it’s simply the best.
Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.
History
Email apps are a funny thing in reality. Like web browsers, we’ve been using them forever, but an email client in 2016 looks nothing like an email client in 1999. The technology might be the same, but the experience is a lot different. I have an interesting history with email, and it’s probably similar to many of you. My first email address was an AOL account when I was in middle school. I used that until I moved onto a Comcast.net account when we upgraded to broadband in 2001.
I used that until 2003, when I switched to a company called Mailblocks. They were purchased by AOL for their at-the-time innovative spam technology. I then migrated to Gmail (1 GB!!!) where I stayed until largely moving to .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud in 2007. One thing is common among my history: I used webmail until moving to .Mac for personal email.
I bet a lot of OS X and iOS users have a similar history. We didn’t start using a native mail client until moving to Mac and/or iOS. While web-based mail users are common on the desktop, I don’t really know anyone who uses Safari to access their email on iOS. Email apps have many features that Mobile Safari doesn’t, such as push notifications and integration with the system share sheet.
Survey
A lot of our app picks aren’t used by everyone. Not everyone uses a VPN app, delivery tracker, or a run tracker. Email, on the other hand, is used by just about everyone. As such, there are many opinions on email services, apps, and processing methods.
With that being said, we decided to do something we haven’t done before. We asked our readers to fill out a survey on what they wanted in a third party email app. The results were incredibility interesting to see. These were the most common features readers look for when shopping for an iOS mail app:
- Design
- Support for multiple account types
- Universal support for the iPhone and iPad
The Case for Mail.app
Best Mail Program For Mac And Ios Apps
Prior to iOS 9, this would have been a very different article. Mail.app on iOS has gotten a lot better. In fact, the main thing missing is support for the share sheet (with the actual message contents) and support for snoozing messages. A lot of the people who took our survey simply didn’t use a third-party app. With the inability to change the default client in iOS, a case can be made that Mail.app is the best iPhone email client. The fundamentals of email are all the same: Compose, send, read, reply, and organize. Third-party apps make themselves indispensable because of the details.
The Best iPhone Email App: Criteria
When looking for the best iPhone email apps, we looked at design, ease of use, account support (Gmail, iCloud, Exchange, Office365, Yahoo, IMAP, etc.), Apple Watch support, push notifications, universal device support, integration with other apps, and whether it offers a snooze feature. While not everyone needs all of these features, we felt like this was a good guide to help us as we examined the market.
The Best iPhone Email App: Outlook
After much debate and testing, we chose Outlook for iOS as the best iPhone email app.
A few years ago, I’d never have guessed that Microsoft would make an iOS app that I considered the best in any category. Outlook for iOS is not necessarily a new product, but rather a rebranded one. The original name was Acompli, but Microsoft purchased it in 2014 and has been hard at work with updates.
The question is, what makes Outlook for iOS the best?
Outlook’s design is very clean, but still unique. That’s fine; I’m not looking for something to mimic Mail.app exactly. Do I want it to be a complete departure from the normal look and feel of iOS? No, but I want a unique experience.
Outlook has 5 icons across the bottom: Mail, Calendars, Files, People, and Settings. The way it’s laid out makes it feel like a complete communications/file management ecosystem. You are only one tap away from getting what you need. It uses a light theme with black and blue text throughout. I know some people like darker themes, but I feel like the design is very easy on the eyes. I don’t ever feel like the UI is distracting; it melts away and allows me to focus on what I need to see.
From a usability perspective, Outlook really shines. It provides me with just enough options to make it my own, but not so many that I am overwhelmed or spend time tinkering.
I love the built-in calendar function. While I wouldn’t say it’s better than Fantastical 2, I’d probably give it the nod over the standard iOS calendar. I love being able to see email and my schedule in one app. The compose screen is simple to use as well. It allows me to change which account I am sending from, add files, photos, send calendar invites, or see my calendar availability (a feature from its acquisition of the Sunrise Calendar app).
One important aspect of all third-party email apps is which types of email services it supports. Outlook supports Office 365, Outlook.com, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, Google, and IMAP. (POP3 isn’t supported, so if you require it, you need to look elsewhere.)
Outlook has support for iPhones with 3D Touch features. From the 3D Touch menu, you can hop right to your calendar, create a new event, or start a new email. I find myself using the View Calendar function frequently. A Notification Center widget and watchOS app are included as well.
Outlook supports push notifications for new emails, or just “important ones” with a feature Outlook calls Focused Inbox.
Focused Inbox sorts your email so you see the important ones first. It does this by considering past emails from a particular sender and your address book. You can also reclassify emails as you go in order to help train it. The calendar feature can also notify you of upcoming appointments as well as send short emails letting the people in your meeting know you are running late.
The snooze/delay function of email was made popular by Mailbox, but has since become adopted by a handful of other apps. Outlook offers a feature that allows you to control which folder your snoozed emails are stored. Your options for snoozing are in a few hours, this evening, tomorrow morning, or a custom time. Outlook doesn’t offer the ability to customize these times, and I’d like to see that added in the future.
Like I mentioned earlier, I love the fact that Outlook has a built-in calendar. It also has native support for a number of file systems. It includes OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. While this isn’t as important for attaching files (due to document providers), it does offer some advantages. There is a file screen that shows your most recent files for cloud document apps, as well as making saving attachments faster.
A recent update added third-party app integration through “add-ins.” Add-ins let you turn any email into a Trello card, save a message to Evernote, insert a GIF, translate messages, and more. These are currently only available to users with Office 365 email addresses, however.
Overall, Outlook is a great Mail.app replacement. I tried it originally, but went back to Mail.app with iOS 9. With recent updates, Outlook is a great alternative. I like it so much that I purchased an Office 365 home subscription so I can use Outlook 2016 on my Mac. While it lacks a lot of the features, it appears some of the Acompli team is now working on adding features from iOS to the Mac.
Best iPhone Email App: Runner Up
Spark from Readdle came out in 2015 to much fanfare. Scanner Pro and PDF Expert, also by Readdle, are some of the best apps in their respective categories. Spark seemed to come out of nowhere, and also didn’t seem like a category that Readdle would enter. After a semi-public beta period, Spark was released in May of 2015.
Spark is a close second in the best iPhone email app category. For me, though, some small things keep Outlook in front.
From a design perspective, Spark is heavy on blue. I’ve never been a dark theme person; I prefer a white background with black text. The actual emails are on a white background, but I’d prefer this to be app-wide. The design feels a bit more playful than Outlook, and that may appeal to some users; however, I prefer Outlook’s more minimal design.
Spark is incredibly easy to use. Of all the apps I tested, it reminds me the most of Mailbox (which I really liked and would probably still use if the iOS and Mac apps were still around).
Composing a new message puts the options at the top, which I’d rather see at the bottom since I am using a 6s Plus. It does allow you to easily swipe through signatures to pick a different one. Like Outlook, it supports a “Smart Inbox” to help you deal with the most important emails first. Spark also contains “quick replies” that you can customize. This allows you to quickly reply to messages that don’t need more than a “Sounds good” or “Thank you.”
Spark supports the usual email account types. Google, Exchange, Yahoo, iCloud, Outlook.com, and IMAP are all included. One unique aspect of Spark over others is that a lot of the actual processing happens on the device — it’s not Readdle’s servers that are parsing it. A few things are stored with Readdle, but it’s on AWS, and it’s minimal. They have a blog post that explains it in more detail.
For example, things like snoozing emails actually happens on the device. From a security perspective, this is great. My main concern is that if the app somehow got closed on the device, the snoozed email wouldn’t show up on another app (a Mac app for example) until Spark was re-opened. Depending on how security-focused you are about your email, this is either great or terrible.
Spark originally launched as an iPhone-only app, but was recently updated to include native iPad support as well. In late-2016, Readdle completed the trifecta with a much-anticipated Mac app that is available for free in the App Store.
Like other apps in this category, Spark integrates with a number of third-party services. This includes Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Readability, Pocket, Evernote, OneNote, and Instapaper. It does contain a built-in calendar, but it lacks anything but a “day view” with the ability to tap on other days in the month. The calendar is a part of a “Card” system that Spark offers to quickly access certain items (Mail folders, snoozed emails, etc).
Overall, Spark is an incredible app. Readdle came out of nowhere with one of the best email apps on the market. One question that I’ve always wondered is if it is sustainable as a free app. Although Outlook is also free, it makes sense because Microsoft is a large enterprise. With Readdle, they seem to depend on app sales.
Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.
Other Notable Apps
Airmail
Airmail is the newest entrant to the iOS mail scene. The Mac app has been well-regarded for some time, and it’s actually our favorite email client for OS X. If you want the best email client for the Apple ecosystem, and you wanted the same experience across OS X and iOS (settings sync via iCloud as well), then you should look at Airmail. It’s currently $4.99 on the App Store.
One area that Airmail excels is third-party app integration. It has support for 2Do, Drafts, Deliveries, 1Writer, OmniFocus, Fantastical, Wunderlist, and many more.
Dispatch
Dispatch is a fantastic app and has a lot of great integrations with other apps. However, it does lack true push notification support and Exchange accounts (and no plans to add it, so for a lot of people that will be a show-stopper. Otherwise, it’s a really great app that works on both iPhone and iPad. It’s currently $6.99 on the App Store.
Inbox/Gmail
There is a lot to like about Inbox for how it organizes your email. If you are a heavy Gmail web interface user, you might consider looking at Inbox or the official Gmail app. Since they only support Gmail accounts, it’s hard to recommend either as the best third-party email app.
Newton
Newton is a fantastic mail app. In fact, if you loved Mailbox by Dropbox, it reminds me a lot of that app. I’ve actually been using it as my go-to-app for the past few weeks, and it’s been great. Recent additions added Exchange Global Address and GSuite directory contact looks ups. It supports the usual features (snoozing, push, etc.) that all other clients support, but with a great design.
It’s a free app, but it requires a $49.99 annual subscription to use after the 14-day free trial expires.
Boxer
Boxer is a really good app that includes a built-in calendar and a number of integrations with cloud services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc., and supports the usual account types (Google, Exchange, iCloud, etc.). It has great swipe actions and solid bulk email management and was recently purchased by VMware, so it looks to be well-financed in the long term. It does lack the snooze feature that so many people use, however. Another negative is that it lacks push notifications for a number of account types.
InkyMail
InkyMail is one of the more unique email systems I looked at. The most unique feature is how it can sort your email in various ways. It can filter out any kind of newsletters, social notifications, and other types of fluff that can distract you from handling the more important emails. The app is free for basic use, but it requires a $5 per month subscription if you want Exchange support.
Mail Pilot
MailPilot is the most expensive app what we considered. At $10, it’s still a bargain for all that it does. Its focus is on turning emails into tasks. It supports snooze, easy navigation, and is extremely customizable (with great swipe actions). One large negative that will deter many users is that it lacks Exchange support (unless your Exchange server supports IMAP connections).
Conclusion
We’ve come a long way from a time when Apple didn’t allow apps on the App Store that duplicated functionality of the built-in iOS apps. While the iOS 10 Mail app is the best yet, there is still plenty of room for additional improvement. With a wealth of options from existing apps and newcomers, 2016 might be the year that a lot of users look to upgrade from the default client. Outlook is what we consider to be the best iPhone email overall app. With a smart inbox, great snoozing options, and a built-in calendar, it makes a great addition to your iOS toolkit.
Get Your Email Under Control: Check out our free guide for getting your email inbox calm and under control. Download it here.
Like it or not, email is a part of our lives. What started as an exciting declaration of “You’ve got mail!” has become a nonstop nuisance of beeps, buzzes and dings. All day long we’re inundated with a barrage of messages, and it’s all we can do to keep up. Important emails can get lost under the weight of so many extraneous ones, as our inboxes bulge at the virtual seams.
Apple’s own Mail app has gone from just respectable to pretty great, at least since iOS 6. For many users, there’s no need to go searching for another email app. Its standout feature is still simplicity, but it also benefits from superb Maps and Calendar integration, VIP filtering, and support for large attachments. And if there’s a third-party email client that can match Mail’s annotation capabilities, I haven’t found it.
But while Mail may be one of the few stock iOS apps users don’t immediately banish to a deep, dark folder, many habitual emailers will still seek out a third-party alternative. And that’s where my quest to find the best iOS email app began.
A year ago, Orchestra Inc’s Mailbox was the clear leader, but even if it hadn’t shut down last month, retaining its top spot would have been difficult. Today’s great email clients go beyond simply separating the messages that need your immediate attention from the ones that don’t. Before you can attack your inbox, you need a client that makes you want to spend time with it, and developers have elevated their mobile email clients beyond what desktop apps can offer, with rich, gesture-heavy interfaces perfect for Multi-Touch screens.
Winner: Spark
iPhone users of a certain generation can remember the day Sparrow landed in the App Store. Following in the footsteps of its stellar desktop app, Sparrow was sadly shut down before it had a chance to truly spread its wings. But you need look no further than Spark (free in the App Store) to see what it could have become.
It’s not that Spark is derivative of Sparrow, more that it’s just as ambitious. Developed by Readdle, Spark understands productivity in a way few other email apps do, giving a sense of clarity to your inbox even before you start jettisoning emails to the future or the trash. It starts with the smart inbox, an option in the sidebar that automatically filters your unread emails into a separate space. Similarly, newsletters and promotions are separated from personal messages so you can instantly see what’s important.
Spark’s smart inbox isn’t just about organization. By utilizing a card system, you can act on bunches of emails at once, deleting, snoozing, or pinning blocks of messages with a single swipe. You can navigate between individual messages by swiping left or right, a small time-saver that makes a big difference when churning through a crowded inbox. Spark even lets you dial down notifications to just the emails it thinks are important, kind of like how Mail separates VIPs from the rest of pack, only you don’t have to manually flag the worthy contacts.
But Spark’s smarts don’t stop there. The app connects to all of the major cloud services (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Evernote, etc.), so you can attach and save files with ease, while slick Pocket compatibility lets you save links for later reading. A Fantastical-like natural search engine even amplifies your searches, helping you find messages and attachments more accurately, and you can save frequent searches. The composing process is just as pleasant, with clear buttons to add attachments and photos, and after you send a message, an undo button gives you five seconds to change your mind and prevent it from being delivered.
Spark isn’t lacking in the looks department, either. A slide-out sidebar set against a sky-colored gradient keeps your accounts, folders, and cards organized, and you can access your smart inbox and attachments here as well. Above your inbox, Spark’s family of tiny widgets can give you quick access to your appointments on the built-in calendar, or provide a shortcut to one of your favorite folders.
Spark’s interface is extremely customizable, from the widgets to the cards to the swipes. Things can be tweaked, shifted, or removed altogether, making Spark one of the fastest and most adaptable clients I’ve used. It can operate under the common “Inbox Zero” rules of snoozing and archiving, but what makes Spark superior is how it doesn’t force you into any one method. It simply gives you the control you need to properly manage your messages.
Runner-Up: AirMail
Most modern email apps allow a certain level of customization, letting you adjust the behavior of gestures and swipes, set alert sounds for each mail account, even tweak accent colors and avatars. But even if you were to combine every option in every email client mentioned here into some kind of super settings, it likely still wouldn’t be able to measure up to the amazing personalization of Airmail ($5 in the App Store).
On the surface, Airmail is little more than a good-looking mobile client that relies on common organization methods to manage your inbox. Buttons at the bottom of the screen provide one-touch filtering, letting you dial down your messages to just the ones containing attachments or only those that are part of a conversation thread. But nothing about them is particularly innovative. In fact, it wasn’t until I looked for a way to hide those buttons when I discovered Airmail’s true power.
Tapping on the settings button in Airmail’s sidebar is like opening a whole new app. Where other apps more or less force you to learn their way of doing things, Airmail’s default interface is merely a suggestion. You can customize everything from the appearance to the swipes, snoozes, and services, and it’ll probably take days, if not weeks, before you settle on the perfect combination.
There are so many actions and options to choose from, it looks more like an automation app than an email client. Many of the apps here use iCloud sync to keep versions in sync, but what Airmail offers is significantly more powerful than an on-off switch. Not only can you choose specific accounts to sync, you can get downright forensic with what gets sent to the cloud. Every single setting has its own toggle, so if you want to sync your right-swipe setting but not your left one, Airmail can accommodate that.
Speaking of swipes, there’s no shortage of ways to customize them, with more than a dozen individual actions, from archiving a message to shipping it off to another app. The same goes for interactive notifications, which feature an array of options that go far beyond the usual “mark as read” and “send to trash” choices.
For power users, Airmail connects to some 30 apps and services, letting you hook up with your Dropbox, Google, and Box, while also saving links to Pocket or sending snippets of text to Evernote and Editorial. For serial organizers, it offers tremendous control over folder mapping, and you can assign labels for just about everything. Additionally, it lets you set limits on automatic downloading for attachments, change the counter shown on the badge, and set aliases. And if you want to just turn off the filters, you can do that, too.
Airmail might not have a have-to-try feature that will lure people to download it, but its distinction isn’t in what it does, it’s in what it allows you to do. As an email client, it won’t introduce anything that changes your routine, but it will give you the tools you need to set up your dream inbox, no matter how many messages you want to keep in it.
Best for minimalists: CloudMagic
Mailbox’s popularity wasn’t just about clean inboxes. Along with its scheduling prowess came a beautiful design that was minimal yet functional. If you’ve been searching for something similar, CloudMagic (free in the App Store) is every bit as light and airy as its name suggests.
CloudMagic understands that minimalism is about more than sparsity, and its interface doesn’t make you hunt to find any of its features. The elegant typography and layout give the app a natural, logical feel that works well at a glance. For example, when you’re in the unified inbox, strips of color delineate your accounts, a subtle way to separate messages without adding distraction.
Even with limited customization and the vaguest sense of Inbox Zero, CloudMagic manages to provide order to your email. It dispenses of things like snoozing and scheduling in favor of smart integration with the other productivity apps and services you already use. With just a tap or two, you can set a due date in Todoist or add to a Trello list without having to bounce back and forth between the two apps.
But the real magic comes from its smart interface. By putting a premium on simplicity, CloudMagic helps you navigate your inbox without crowding the screen with unnecessary buttons—only what’s essential.
Best for professionals: Outlook
Microsoft’s Outlook desktop app has always been the first name in enterprise email. Even more than professional features like calendar and Office integration, seamless syncing, and top-notch organization, Outlook has always brought the privacy and security that businesses crave.
And the mobile Outlook app (free in the App Store) continues in that vein. While some users questioned its commitment to security when it merged Accompli and Sunrise into Outlook mobile, Microsoft hasn’t fallen asleep at the wheel. A series of steady upgrades have brought important features like multi-factor authentication and OAuth for Office 365 accounts, as well as mobile device and application management capabilities. And the most recent update added Touch ID support for an extra level of on-device privacy.
And Outlook on iOS isn’t lacking in professional features either. A clean, focused inbox puts important messages front and center, while a dedicated tab lets you easily browse attachments as well as files stored in cloud drives. A full calendar lets you see your schedule, add events and RSVP to invites without even opening the message, while a handy in-app address book filters messages, events, and files by sender.
Best for Gmail: Inbox
Let’s face it, the majority of people aren’t actively working to achieve Inbox Zero. Most of us never see the bottom of our inboxes, drowning in the mostly unread promos, newsletters, and announcements that flood our accounts each day. While other clients here attempt to solve this by shielding them from view, Google has taken a more organizational approach to the problem with Inbox (free in the App Store).
Instead of having you sift through a massive container of emails, Inbox sorts your messages into bundles. Things like promos, purchases, and trips are all automatically sorted as they arrive, and even personal messages are arranged by time. You can also create your own groups based on a variety of criteria, and since Inbox doesn’t hide these messages from view, you’ll be more likely to see and act on them.
Best Mail App For Mac And Ios
Inbox also supports snoozing and scheduling, as well as a smart toggle that collects any messages you’ve pinned, but it’s most effective when you let it do the heavy lifting for you. After all, since Google is to blame for much of the targeted advertising we receive anyway, it’s only natural that Google would find the best way to deal with it.
Best for Getting Things Done: Dispatch
Even if you dutifully empty your inbox every day, eventually you’re going to have to act on all those snoozed and scheduled messages. Many of the apps here will let you schedule events and reminders, even set to-dos, but if you have serious work to do in your inbox, Dispatch ($7 in the App Store) is the only one you can count on to make sure every last thing gets done.
Dispatch is about actions. The usual ones are here via swipes and buttons, but it goes much further than simple replies. The app acts like more of a hub than an email client, connecting to dozens of popular apps ready to do your bidding. Every message has the potential to be transformed into something more specific, whether that’s a task for Clear, a note in Drafts, or a reminder for Fantastical. The precise wording can be edited within the app and shipped off in seconds, letting you quickly get to work on the next message.
And if all you need to do is reply, Dispatch even does than with efficiency, storing snippets of text that can be accessed and pasted into messages to cut down on repetition. Dispatch might not get you to Inbox Zero quicker than the other clients here, but it’ll be much more satisfying than merely filing away your messages until a later date.
Others of note
While the email apps here run the gamut of what can be done with an inbox, there are many more excellent options available in the App Store.