“Mail in Mac OS X has progressively grown from the simple mail client Apple included with the first builds of Mac OS X into one of the best email solutions for the Mac, and certainly the most popular. As the default app for email on the Mac, Mail gets lots of feature requests and lots of complaints when things don’t work as expected. For example, Mail 2.0 in Tiger drew gasps from its use of nonstandard toolbar icons that grouped functions together in bubbles. Apple has significantly updated Mail for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing support for Notes, To Do reminders, RSS feeds, Data Detectors, and HTML Statonery,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
McLean covers:
• Mail’s Origins
• The Macintosh Office
• Steve Jobs’ NeXTMail
• Microsoft’s Exchange and Lotus Notes
• Apple’s PowerTalk and CyberDog
• NeXTMail at Apple
• Mail in Mac OS X
• Tiger Mail 2.0
• Leopard’s New Mail
• To Do Reminders
• Apple Data Detectors
• Take Notes
• RSS Feed Reader
• New Mail Source List
Full extensive article, with screenshots, here.
Too bad for the Mail.app team that most people these days use webmail for their non-corporate email needs. POP3/SMTP mail is just too difficult for most people to set up and too limiting. Who wants to be restricted to getting their email from one computer? It would be huge news if Apple started offering free webmail accounts with OS X. Mail.app itself is just an anachronism.
Agreed.
If it is not web based mail, what is it’s real value? Near Zero.
I prefer feMail 2.69….
Hmm. Apple apparently doesn’t think that Mail.app is an anachronism. Let’s stop crowing about how awesome we are for a sec and try to figure out why they think that.
@TT….
now that’s funny right there.
Yep, its called .Mac. If you use it, there is no messy setup, just input your name/pw and Mail does the rest. Webmail has a lot of disadvantages to stand-alone applications such as Mail. I’m not saying it isn’t powerful and attractive (I’m a gmail user), but at least with .Mac you get amazing integration with limited setup hassle.
For some people Mail is useless, but I still know a lot of people that use it.
Personally, I just have everything set up to be forwarded to my Gmail account, which I just use through the webmail interface so that I don’t have to worry about what computer I’m using to access it, it will be the same everywhere.
But for someone who just uses one computer and has the know-how to set it up, Mail is still a very useful application.
I work from my home, never use web based email. I, for one, love Mail and love that Apple is upgrading it!
If it’s web based mail, what is it’s real value? Near zero.
Sorry to dissapoint, but I’ve been using POP email for over 10 years, and I still prefer it over web-based mail.
While web-based mail is good, whenever you’re a business user (and “business users” does NOT mean MS Exchange. POP and IMAP have been there way before), I find a desktop client more convenient.
I’ve been a long time Netscape Mail user (since Netscape 3), going through all Netscape versions, Thnderbird (for Linux and Mac) and finally tried Mail.app, which I find the best mail client I’ve used so far.
I can’t wait for the new version of Mail, since it has a lot of features I can really use.
It’s not an either or issue – I use both.
My hosting company provides webmail and I have entourage setup to download my mail but not to delete it from the server. That way if I need to access my email I simply go to mail.<domainname>.com and login in.
This way I get a rich mail experience on my client machine, but still have the flexibility of webmail.
.MAC has some nice features but they need to drop the price. $100 a year is way to much.
Web based mail if for kids, teens, bloggers, unimportant stuff. A joke.
You have to have your mail in your possession, archived, retrievable, data base-able, present for legal fights, etc.
Kiddies, yes, take your little web email programs, your gmail, whatever, and tap away all you want.
Apple’s email is great.
My mail account (from local cable company) can be checked from any computer online if I need to, but I still much prefer Mail and can’t wait to see the updates.
I agree that client-based email is the way to go, and I use web-based email in a pinch. It’s great having your mail on your MacBook Pro’s hard drive when you’re traveling, and often I use spare moments while I have no network to clean up my inbox and send out a few replies which will be queued up for when I’m later on a network. Plus, there’s all the capabilities of a client – easy folder organization, smart mailboxes, offline storage, spotlight, integration with Address Book, integration with mailto: links, etc.
Now… why can’t someone come up with a way to instantly configure POP & IMAP clients? Something like a little file you download from your mail provider’s website which will create a new account within Mail. Or why can’t Mail do this — you put in your email address, and it fetches the appropriate parameters?
One last gripe about Mail. I can’t set up a non-use account. I have a few accounts that I have for SMTP sending only (so that my From address is different than normal), but I don’t ever receive email there. An example is that I’m a webmaster at a site, but the email to webmaster gets auto-forwarded to my regular account. However, I do at times want to send out as if I’m from that webmaster address, but in order to set it up I need to put in a dummy POP server account.
Web Mail for emergiencies only!
I’m glad it’s there but also glad I don’t have to use it all the time.
Mail 3’s new features are nothing more than window dressing. When is Apple going to provide a way to synch Mail (database), Address Book and Safari Bookmarks between computers without having to go through .Mac? Sheesh…Apple can create amazing software for video and images, but cannot provide these very basic features.
I use my Gmail account on my MacBook, and whenever I retrieve my Mail Google then archive it into All Mail so if I access using a browser I know where to look.
So my mail is always where I need it. And Mail does kick ass.
BTW Has anyone EVER got Mail to work with Exchange? I’ve tried and tried and tried but never got anywhere. Does it work?
“Out of Synch”
You my friend have lost touch with reality. You’ve been spoiled by Apple.
Mail is great and so is .Mac. Apple should limit some of their great features to .Mac. They have a right to try to sell more .Mac accounts!
Why should everything be included in Leopard?
What would be really cool is if you could use simply use Mail to access your web based mail as well. Then you would have all of your email accounts in one interface.
Yes yes yes. Great great great.
Release Apple Longhorn, already!
Just my 0.02
Traveller
I have my Apple (.Mac) account, AOL account, cable account, and work all in one palce. Well, two if you count my iPhone. Well, millions, if you count every computer that is online that I can access.
I have never succeeded using Mail with Exchange. My understanding is that Exchange is proprietary and therefore Mail can’t directly access Exchange / MAPI type mail. The only workarounds are either to use Entourage from MS or convince your IT dept to allow IMAP mail access from their Exchange server (which of course they’ll never do – and for no good reason). Since the iPhone faces the same problem, there has to be a solution on the horizon, maybe similar to a Blackberry server.
BTW Snerdware software does allow iCal and Address book access to Exchange.
Ok, so if Mail can finally learn to save an email as “email”, rather than RTF, text etc. so I can double-click it and sent it to someone, then I could finally consider using this for my business, otherwise I will have to stick to Entourage (M$&%#@)
Now how hard could that be????? anyone in Cupertino?
(A program that cannot save a document in its native format is RETARDED)
Apple Mail is bliss.
And it works fantastically in combo with Gmail…
I use both, online mail systems which I prefer and Mail.
gmail, yahoo and msn are online mailing systems I CAN NOT live without – be it on the road, on vacation, where ever I am when ever I like it. ONLINE web mail is the best.
At work we use Apple Mail. It is super too.
Yet, Apple needs to have something to be as compelling as Entourage… why… cos Apple is BETTER then MS.
Pls consult Entourage users… I don’t know why but there is a need.
Count me out. But nevertheless, I am happy to see Apple doing yet another upgrade for 10.5.
Dougless
I just wish that Mail would work with non-POP accounts – like my Yahoo account.
yeh my it department won’t enable IMAP access, they don’t even give a reason, they just say they won’t do it…
Remind me again what year we’re in?
Thanks Jim TIV!
can you tell I got rained out today?…..
i have used Mail since OSX.3. Before that I used Entourage. Mail is great, and I am looking forward to 3.0.
I do have a web based email for backup (not one of the big names – something called “HowAmazing” which I signed on to years ago). My ISP also has a web based service. Good when I use someone else’s computer. Its drawback is I can receive attachments but I can’t send them.
I know the well known webmail services do allow you to send attachments, but my question is this, if anyone can help me.
I regularly send attachments of between 5-15mb (provided the person at the other end can download them).
I have always distrusted webmail for attachments – the service can’t take them, or it fails to send them, or they somehow seem to corrupt when they get to their destination.
Am I paranoid, out of touch, or just old fashioned? But that is why I stick to pop3. Someone let me know and perhaps give me a recommendation. Thanks
Cubert
I think you can upgrade to Yahoo Premium for $20.00 and use its forwarding.
I think.
Remember, Apple has replicated the desktop Mail experience with the new .Mac mail.
Web mail? Are you kidding? It’s a toy! Not at all suitable for real work. Maybe as a backup.
With Mail.app, you can collect mail from multiple servers, and also send identified as any of those accounts. it works offline. Your storage is only limited by your hard disk (OK, so it may conflict with all your iTunes stuff). Spotlight searches mail, as does the search in Mail.
My employer uses a web mail as their primary mail for most people. It SUCKS BIG TIME. Fortuneately Mail.app works, so does Thunderbird. We have a typical IT dept. though – they know nothing, and act like they know everything.
People, Mail.app DOES give you the best of both worlds – especially if you have a laptop. I LOVE having ALL my mail accessible INSTANTLY (no waiting for a page to refresh) and being able to search through 1 or more (or all) mailboxes in a FLASH. Try that on a web based mail client (I’ve found it takes FOREVER)!
However, for those times my laptop is not with me, I can ALWAYS use web-based email with all my current accounts. What’s the problem?
For me, the speed, elegance and flexibility of always having all my emails with me all the time FAR outweighs the occassional need to read my mail when I’m without my MacBook Pro (for those times, I have my iPhone- so really I never need to use anyone else’s computer).
Just my $0.02 worth…
@MacGuy
Couldn’t you just forward it? Why the need to keep a copy outside the mail client?
Mail is my preferred mail app and I look forward to the upgrade. Of course, I have a .Mac account and address – therefore, I also have web mail. Most ISP’s provide IMAP and Web Access, so Mail is still very relevant when used with IMAP/Web access accounts like .Mac and many, many other ISPs.
Most POP email can be accessed from multiple locations. When I’m on the road, I set my laptop to check my POP accounts, but leave the messages on the server. They’re still there when I get home, at which point they are downloaded to my desktop client and deleted from the server. This scheme works out of the box with Mail, Entourage, Thunderbird, or any recent client, and virtually any POP account. You just have to change your account preferences to make it work.
Why do people like web based mail? There’s no drag and drop, sending attachments is a 3-step process instead of 1… Every page has to load as a webpage… I just don’t get it. But all my friends are obsessed with Gmail.
to Ryan:
There is a simple solution that will do exactly what you need.
In Mail, open settings to any of your accounts. On the ‘Account Information’ tab, under ‘E-mail address’, type as many e-mail addresses as you wish, separated by commas. Now, when you want to send a message, there will be a flip-down list from which you can choose how you want the sender to be identified. You don’t need to create a bunch of dummy POP3 mailboxes for that. This feature has been there for years; I’m surprised you couldn’t find it, as it is documented in Help, as well as online, on Apple’s site. It may not be competely intuitive, but it’s easily findable in the documentation.
and, to MacGuy:
You must be confused; I don’t know what ‘native’ format you’re talking about; I’m assuming you are implying that there exist some universal, standard file format for individual e-mail messages. This is in fact not true. Microsoft seems to be rather popular with its .msg format (well, duh…Outlook/Outlook Express); there are dozens of others (Eudora has its own; Lotus Notes, Novel Groupware, etc., each ts own). What specific proprierary format would you wish Apple’s Mail used for saving messages into a file? My wild guess would be Microsoft’s, as it is probably somewhat more common than the others.
Apple is probably doing the best possible thing here, as none of those other formats can be opened by any application other than originator. Meanwhile, Apple Mail’s RTF can be read by anyone.
@Romeodawg: Irony of ironies: MailPlane is a Gmail thin-client that let’s you drag and drop files into Gmail as an attachment. (The irony being that you need a desktop app for the web mail.)
@ qka:
* Gmail can collect mail from other servers.
* Gmail can make it appear to SEND mail from other servers.
* Gmail has this really cool search function: Google. Have you heard of it? (Sorry, I can’t help myself from miming Fake Steve Jobs.)
Gmail is not for people who insist on sorting mail into mailboxes. It has labels, which are a pretty much the same thing. Personally, I never understand people who sort mail. Why not let the computer do what it does best — search through large databases?
Nothing beats Mail.app’s integrated inbox for me. I have four accounts — .Mac, two IMAPs and gmail, and I love having them all come in and letting Mail.app color them via filters and automatically setting the appropriate response account.
When I’m away, .Mac and gmail are easily accessible via the Web (I rarely need the other two online, but they have squirrelmail interfaces if necessary. Blech) When I’m home, gmail gets downloaded and automatically archived on its servers and .Mac is obviously an IMAP account, so it’s all good, too.
Also, which no one has mentioned, with a bit of set-up, you can get secure email certificates that is super-simple to use. MUCH better end-user experience than GPG or PGP. Secure email through Web-based interfaces are damn near impossible.
Since I’m here at my work I use Microsoft’s Office for Mac– Entourage instead, but at home, I use Apple’s Mail. It’s nothing very fancy, just a simple basic e-mail program, but it does everything that I need to do at home. I’ve never been able to get the smart folders to work like they should, but other than that, I’ve been happy with Mail.
The fact that this program will be updated with the new Leopard upgrade too is great news.
NIce,
but as I wrote a yaer ago to Apple Suggestion site and to Mac OSX Hints here in Europe we’d like to see the same Finder option that is Secure Empty Trash!!!!
Privacy, privacy guys, that’s what we need!!