There are few things on the App Store that get me to download them almost immediately like email clients.
I’ve tried all the heavy hitters: Mail.app, Airmail, Spark, and Outlook. I’ve bounced back between Airmail and Spark quite a bit, never settling on one or the other.
Outlook never stuck with me and Mail has promise now that I can drag emails out and put them in something like OmniFocus on iPad.
But recently I have tried out a couple new email apps. There are a few new ones worth mentioning and some have new, improved features that are going to push them into business class apps.
Airmail
When Airmail came to iOS, I was thrilled. I used it on the Mac for a while but since it didn’t have an iOS counterpart, I went back to Mail.app on the Mac and some other third-party app on iOS.
Right away, I was happy with the iOS version.
<img class=” wp-image-2376 aligncenter” src=”
Design-wise, it is very clean.
Snooze, Send Later, Saved Searches, and Custom Actions, which were added later, were a selling feature of using Airmail over other email clients.
[caption id=”attachment_2383” align=”aligncenter” width=”319”]<a href=”
While Airmail is definitely an app for email power users, bugs plague the app. Sometimes archiving an email or emails doesn’t work as expected 1. Other times I’ve had crashed when composing an email or not all of my email is being shown. Sometimes I’d have to use another app like Gmail to see all my emails.
It is a very powerful app but the bugs outweigh its usefulness.
<img class=”aligncenter wp-image-2375” src=”
This seems like an obvious name for an app. I don’t know how I came upon this 2 but I had to try it.
It, too, is a powerful app. You don’t get custom actions because AFAIK only Airmail has this.
But it is powerful in its feature set.
Email: Sidebar Features
The Email sidebar has a lot of nifty features: Subscriptions, Bills & Receipts, Packages, Travel, Entertainment, and Security.
<img class=” wp-image-2379 aligncenter” src=”
This is useful for tracking your packages, seeing what you’ve spent money on, and getting your itineraries, etc.
The nicer things, however, are being able to bulk unsubscribe from newsletters 3 and adding newsletters as favorites. Also, being able to see if your email account has been breached is a big plus for me and for many others.
<img class=” wp-image-2377 aligncenter” src=”
I don’t use this client often. I appreciate that they are security conscious and are thinking of encryption and user privacy. But it is free and I am not sure how long it will be around and, as in lots of situations like these, if they will sell to someone who is not so privacy focused.
Astrobot
<img class=”aligncenter wp-image-2380” src=”
I only downloaded this after realizing that the excellent Astrobot skill I got for Alexa would need something like this.
The selling point of the app is its AI bot. I don’t use it. But I do use the Alexa Skill.
https://vimeo.com/238661367
Spark
<img class=” wp-image-2381 aligncenter” src=”
Whenever I change email clients away from Spark, I always come back.
The design is top-notch. The speed is almost unmatched. The intelligent sorting of emails is a feature that always hooks me. And now, with their latest release, they are aiming squarely at business users.
OmniFocus Integration
Having web service integration is really nice, but some people don’t use Todoist or other web based task managers.
With Spark on the Mac 4 you can send an email to OmniFocus, lessening the need for OmniFocus Clip-O-Tron in Mail.app
<img class=”wp-image-2382 aligncenter” src=”
The implementation of this is my favorite so far. I also like the design of the modal.
Send Later and Follow-up
These are two new features added to Spark that make this a new entry into the business market with apps like Newton Mail which I will also be writing about 5 fully in another post.
https://vimeo.com/238328926
These are some of my favorite features of Spark, which is becoming a direct competitor to Newton. Readdle has stated they are moving towards “The future of work” as a business model. Seems they are taking the right steps.
Newton
<img class=”aligncenter wp-image-2378” src=”
I won’t get into too much about Newton as I am saving the review for later. But I will say I really like what I am seeing. Fast, fluid, beautiful, and useful for people who need to connect with clients, employers, and other business related tasks.
It is $50/yr which is a lot for an email client. And it is subscription based and you can only subscribe yearly. But I have to be honest, I love this app.
The Mac app is okay but I still use Gmail/G Suite in the browser because of the extensions. But on iOS this is one of the best clients for professionals I have seen yet.
https://vimeo.com/238312269
Email Clients are My Sickness
At least so far. I don’t get as much email as some but I do get enough and I need to manage it.
There was a time where I got at least five requests in one day and I almost lost my mind. I can imagine how people with 3,000 emails in their inbox feel.
Email clients are important. Still, there feels like most are missing critical features.
Sign up for my smart home Substack
I enjoy writing and want to do it more. Join me if you like smart home content.