[aamefford]

I've been a mac guy most recently for 2 - 3 years, longer in the past, with winders interludes here and there. I've always just used Yahoo mail on the web, and it suits my needs fine, mostly. I want to try out one of the two mail programs as I am starting to collect a couple or 3 mail accounts and it would be hand to have local access rather than just web access. Last time I researched all of this, I got analysis paralysis and took no action. I may eventually get an iPhone or other smartphone, or not. I also would like to most easily migrate my contacts from address book, yahoo, shutterfly and wherever else I have them into the mail program I end up using. Any real life stories out there?

Thanks!!!

aamefford

 

[Wodgy]

Unless you need to integrate with a corporate Exchange server, Mail is the far superior program (especially on Leopard).

 

[grawk]

gmail

 

[blessingx]

I use Mail.app for archiving, but would recommend Gmail (in regular browser, with Fluid, or Mailplane). I'd not head to a desktop perspective for daily use, and besides a better interface, Gmails POP and IMAP options are just superior for backing up than Yahoo or Hotmail.

In fact I don't even know why people install Office anymore (so no Entourage). No DB on Mac side and better word processors like Scrivener out there or Google Docs and Spreadsheets being free.

 

[krmathis]

Mail for me!
I have been using it for 4 years, and it has so far never let me down.

Correo looks nice though. Might attempt a switch when it has matured a little bit.

 

[Czilla9000]

I use Mail.

 

[Contrastique]

Mail for me as well. Don't feel the need to try others so Mail is my only experience.

 

[tylernol]

Mail. But gmail + mail aren't too fun to use together. (just saying)

I used mailplane when it was in beta for months and really liked it. I'll give Fluid a shot, that seems cool. Thanks blessingx

Tyler

 

[JMcMasterJ]

I used Entourage w/ Tiger, but with Leopard I am now using Mail. I've got it set up with Gmail IMAP and it works well.

 

[noddyisking]

Haven't felt the need to try Mail because gmail meets all my needs. Also, the mobile application works well on most mobile phones.

 

[aamefford]

Wow, overwhelming props for mail and gmail, and zero for entourage - how much of this lack-o-love for entourage is function, and how much is disdain for Bill's products? Also, can someone give me the Cliffnotes version on why gmail is thought superior? Being a closet conspiracy theorist

just kidding... what? why do you ask? (looks furtively behind and scuttles off...) I automatically decided not to use gmail because of the scanning in order to target advertisement. Though I'm sure Yahoo is no great protector of privacy either. Hey! is that the NSA at my door? They wear dark suits and glasses, right? Aghhhhh! JUST KIDDING

 

[MfiveM]

I used to use Entourage back in the day but now I just use Mail since it is a lot faster and cleaner. I use the widescreen plug in and I am set.

 

[ken36]

mail.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aamefford /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, overwhelming props for mail and gmail, and zero for entourage - how much of this lack-o-love for entourage is function, and how much is disdain for Bill's products? Also, can someone give me the Cliffnotes version on why gmail is thought superior? Being a closet conspiracy theorist just kidding... what? why do you ask? (looks furtively behind and scuttles off...) I automatically decided not to use gmail because of the scanning in order to target advertisement. Though I'm sure Yahoo is no great protector of privacy either. Hey! is that the NSA at my door? They wear dark suits and glasses, right? Aghhhhh! JUST KIDDING

I don't doubt a lot of it can be chalked up to lack of Gates-love, but I suspect it's also because of price (usually in Office suite and like Adobe - the higher the price the more alternatives), at least the last I check (admittedly a couple years ago) over 90% of Mac exploits were through Office. See you can even blame Bill when your Mac gets hosed.

Plus for those that have to suffer through general lag and DB structure of Outlook at work, why would you want to start up Entourage at home?

I was an Entourage user when first 'switching', but the path went over the years to Eudora, then Mail, then Thunderbird, then back to Mail, and finally to Gmail. Generally, I now do everything on the web that I can. Nice not to be tied to a specific computer. Plus it's hard not to see everything moving that way even more in the future. Seriously I'd be less concerned with getting your mail off the 'cloud' and more so with getting your docs to Zoho or Google's Docs & Spread or Apps.

As for Gmail over the other two biggies (and there's of course many others), I'd say POP, IMAP and tagging alone moves it easily to the top. Add search tricks and pioneering key-shortcuts if you want. You can adjust the CSS as you wish (even making ads invisible) if you want a different look. Finally they're not potentially in a hostile takeover with a competitor.

EDIT: And to reinforce your conspiracy theorist ways, I contracted at Google for nine months last year. I didn't work on any of these projects, I just saw some of the advantages of using them. Then again I know people at Yahoo too, including two couples split between the companies. Oh, that pillow talk must be exciting.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aamefford /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, overwhelming props for mail and gmail, and zero for entourage - how much of this lack-o-love for entourage is function, and how much is disdain for Bill's products?

It has nothing to do with political issues. Entourage just isn't the better product. Some beefs:
- it stores all your mail in a single large file that's vulnerable to corruption and can't be backed up properly with the current version of Time Machine
- it's harder to get your mail out if you decide to switch to another desktop mail client
- it doesn't integrate with the systemwide data store in Leopard, which means it doesn't integrate with other applications; for instance, you can't see your Entourage todos in a billable hours/time tracking application like TimeLog
- it's a Carbon app with all kinds of pre-OS X cruft that feels slow and un-Maclike
- there are all sorts of neat plugins for Mail like MailTags

I don't really see the advantage of using Gmail on the desktop. You can access Gmail just fine through Mail's IMAP. I can't fathom the need for something like Mailplane. It made sense when there was no IMAP interface to Gmail, but that's history now. If you use Gmail exclusively, you can't search your messages using Spotlight, can't integrate your mail into a workflow with other applications, etc.