Is Mail.app The Right Choice For Me?
Well, I think after three years with the same e-mail client, it may be time to move on… or perhaps even backwards, in a manner of speaking. From 1994 to 2002, I used Eudora. Then when OS X came out, I migrated everything to Apple’s Mail.app — I figured I had to, being that I do what I do. That lasted a little over a year, during which I realized that Mail simply wasn’t yet cut out to handle the volume of e-mail I needed to manage. At that point, I switched to Mailsmith, and have been there ever since. Not only am I a huge fan of other BareBones software (these days, BBEdit and Yojimbo), but I just liked the way Mailsmith worked for me. I detailed all of this in my review at the time. Since then, though, I realize that Mail.app has come a *long* way and Mailsmith, by most rights, has stagnated. It pains me to write this, because as I said, I’m a really big fan of BareBones, and enjoy a great working relationship with their head-honcho, Rich Siegel. But it’s true… Mailsmith hasn’t had a public release/update since March of 2005. Now some folks may argue that it doesn’t need an update, and for those folks, I’m sure that’s correct. My big problem is that I manage a LOT of e-mail… I have almost 1400 mailboxes within which are nearly 200,000 e-mail messages. I pretty much save everything, and it’s saved my ass in HUGE ways over the years, so I ain’t gonna stop. Launching Mailsmith now takes me nearly 3 minutes, and quitting takes almost 5. While it’s running, it uses hundreds and hundreds of megabytes of RAM and, from my own testing, takes up even more swap space (and I’ve got 2GB of RAM in my laptop!). On top of that searching and parsing things has gotten painfully slow. The bottom line: the existing situation simply cannot continue. It’s impacting my workflow in a significantly negative way.
So my choice is either to stay with Mailsmith but archive all my mail out somewhere, or switch to something that can handle it. My big problem is that, as far as I can tell, there is no way to automatically migrate all of my mail out of Mailsmith while preserving the hierarchy of 1400 mailboxes that exists. I did just recently stumble across a script that will export all the mailboxes, but it simply dumps them all into one folder, flat, with no hierarchy. Better than nothing. (Update — Yesterday I updated that script to make it export to a full hierarchy. 🙂 Enjoy!).
With that, I’m trying a test: I’m now importing that flat structure into Mail.app to see how it handles that kind of volume these days. The import is taking a while, as one would expect, and hopefully I’ll have an answer to that particular question soon.
But I ask you: knowing what you know, is Mail.app the right choice for me? Any heavy-duty Mail.app users out there who care to chime in and help a fellow nerd? 😉
August 20th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
I would research at Tim Gaden’s Hawk Wing’s web site,(hawkwings.net) or ask him directly. He is very knowledgeable about email on the Mac and the alternatives to Mail.app.
August 20th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
I would research at Tim Gaden’s Hawk Wing’s web site,(hawkwings.net) or ask him directly. He is very knowledgeable about email on the Mac and the alternatives to Mail.app.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Hey, Thanks, Scott! I will!
August 20th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Hey, Thanks, Scott! I will!
August 21st, 2006 at 12:20 am
Hi Chris — well, as someone who used it for its first year of (public) life, I can *completely* understand why folks complain about it. It was really not originally built for anything more than very light duty work (hence my reason to switch away from it… it was just too slow and clunky).
However, I realize that since then not only has the core application matured significantly, but a huge groundswell of third-party development has happened, as well. So I’m curious… cautiously so, but curious. 🙂
August 21st, 2006 at 2:08 am
Hi Dave,
I never understand why people winge about Mail.app. I think its a great email client. I used Entourage for a while and found it too clunky. There are quite a few plugins available, see what Scott has to say above on this.
I use Mail for email at work in a PC environment. People are always say, hey I wish I could that with my email….then again I think they also want my mac as well!
chris
August 21st, 2006 at 7:08 am
Hi Dave,I never understand why people winge about Mail.app. I think its a great email client. I used Entourage for a while and found it too clunky. There are quite a few plugins available, see what Scott has to say above on this.
I use Mail for email at work in a PC environment. People are always say, hey I wish I could that with my email….then again I think they also want my mac as well!
chris
August 21st, 2006 at 7:20 am
Hi Chris — well, as someone who used it for its first year of (public) life, I can *completely* understand why folks complain about it. It was really not originally built for anything more than very light duty work (hence my reason to switch away from it… it was just too slow and clunky).
However, I realize that since then not only has the core application matured significantly, but a huge groundswell of third-party development has happened, as well. So I’m curious… cautiously so, but curious. 🙂
August 21st, 2006 at 8:48 am
[…] He has had a gutful of his old mail client: Mailsmith, by most rights, has stagnated. It pains me to write this, because as I said, I’m a really big fan of BareBones, and enjoy a great working relationship with their head-honcho, Rich Siegel. But it’s true… Mailsmith hasn’t had a public release/update since March of 2005. Now some folks may argue that it doesn’t need an update, and for those folks, I’m sure that’s correct. My big problem is that I manage a LOT of e-mail… I have almost 1400 mailboxes within which are nearly 200,000 e-mail messages. I pretty much save everything, and it’s saved my ass in HUGE ways over the years, so I ain’t gonna stop. […]
August 21st, 2006 at 1:48 pm
[…] He has had a gutful of his old mail client: Mailsmith, by most rights, has stagnated. It pains me to write this, because as I said, I’m a really big fan of BareBones, and enjoy a great working relationship with their head-honcho, Rich Siegel. But it’s true… Mailsmith hasn’t had a public release/update since March of 2005. Now some folks may argue that it doesn’t need an update, and for those folks, I’m sure that’s correct. My big problem is that I manage a LOT of e-mail… I have almost 1400 mailboxes within which are nearly 200,000 e-mail messages. I pretty much save everything, and it’s saved my ass in HUGE ways over the years, so I ain’t gonna stop. […]
August 21st, 2006 at 9:31 am
Although I use and (kinda)* like Apple Mail, I have serious doubts that it could handle this kind of load better. Then again it’s free and you might simply to throw you mail archive at and see what happens before giving up on Mailsmith …
* I’d wish for more professional features like better IMAP support and a better (plain text) editor instead of this useless HTML template crap in the Leopard version!
August 21st, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Although I use and (kinda)* like Apple Mail, I have serious doubts that it could handle this kind of load better. Then again it’s free and you might simply to throw you mail archive at and see what happens before giving up on Mailsmith …
* I’d wish for more professional features like better IMAP support and a better (plain text) editor instead of this useless HTML template crap in the Leopard version!
August 21st, 2006 at 10:38 am
Christian — you’re right, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. While that will certainly allow me to test it, I’m still stuck with a Mail archive of 1400 e-mail boxes in *no* hierarchy due to Mailsmith’s limited export capabilities. 🙁 So for testing, this works fine, but for long-term use, it’s far less-than-optimal.
August 21st, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Christian — you’re right, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. While that will certainly allow me to test it, I’m still stuck with a Mail archive of 1400 e-mail boxes in *no* hierarchy due to Mailsmith’s limited export capabilities. 🙁 So for testing, this works fine, but for long-term use, it’s far less-than-optimal.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
I recently made the move to Mail.app from Mailsmith, for much the same reason. Mailsmith was glacially slow doing searches on large mailboxes. Mail.app is lightning fast in comparison, which was reason enough for me to switch. One unexpected benefit of moving to Mail.app is the fact that I can now take advantage of its integration with the OS and other Apple applications, e.g. iPhoto and Safari. I’ve been very happy with the move.
If you’re like me and thought Mailsmith’s plain text focus was great, you might want to set the following hidden pref in Mail:
defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
That will make mail display the plain text part of a message by default if one is available.
August 21st, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I recently made the move to Mail.app from Mailsmith, for much the same reason. Mailsmith was glacially slow doing searches on large mailboxes. Mail.app is lightning fast in comparison, which was reason enough for me to switch. One unexpected benefit of moving to Mail.app is the fact that I can now take advantage of its integration with the OS and other Apple applications, e.g. iPhoto and Safari. I’ve been very happy with the move.
If you’re like me and thought Mailsmith’s plain text focus was great, you might want to set the following hidden pref in Mail:
defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
That will make mail display the plain text part of a message by default if one is available.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:06 pm
For what it’s worth, I’m faced with the exact same dilemma. I love BareBones, but Mailsmith is definitely getting creaky.
Currently, I’m running a horrendously ugly lashup of Mailsmith (for POP) clients, Entourage (for my company’s Exchange server), and Apple Mail (for my dot-mac account), and I hate it. But I don’t trust *any* of them with my entire mail archive. I’ve suffered lost data with each of the three (of course, I had backups).
I wouldn’t mind if I could take ten years of email and stuff it all into FileMaker, then use Mail going forward. But I’ve tried various export-to-archive programs, and they all seem to be based on AppleScript, they’re all incredibly slow, and they all crash messily.
I hope someone reading your blog comes up with a strong recommendation one way or the other…
August 21st, 2006 at 5:06 pm
For what it’s worth, I’m faced with the exact same dilemma. I love BareBones, but Mailsmith is definitely getting creaky.
Currently, I’m running a horrendously ugly lashup of Mailsmith (for POP) clients, Entourage (for my company’s Exchange server), and Apple Mail (for my dot-mac account), and I hate it. But I don’t trust *any* of them with my entire mail archive. I’ve suffered lost data with each of the three (of course, I had backups).
I wouldn’t mind if I could take ten years of email and stuff it all into FileMaker, then use Mail going forward. But I’ve tried various export-to-archive programs, and they all seem to be based on AppleScript, they’re all incredibly slow, and they all crash messily.
I hope someone reading your blog comes up with a strong recommendation one way or the other…
August 21st, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Over a year ago I left Mailsmith — reluctantly. I really liked the user community & the program was still working OK for me, but I decided that I was spending too much time tinkering with email instead of getting my work done. Mailsmith is a scripter’s paradise; if it doesn’t do it out of the box, chances are you can find some way to create a script for it. It can support all sorts of byzantine constructions, very few of which actually significantly help me. When it became clear that BareBones had no intention of supporting Spotlight, reality finally came home.
A good search function beats elaborate filing any day. Spotlight is approaching a good search function; it isn’t there yet, but it’s gaining. But even in its current state of imperfection, it’s a lot better than what I was doing. I’m beginning to trust Spotlight.
I haven’t broken my habit of meticulously filing received email, but I have given up filing sent email. I know I’ve saved a lot of time not filing sent email. And in those rare occasions when I’ve had to find old email, I’ve surprised myself at how easy it was.
Of course, that doesn’t answer your main question about Mail’s ability to handle very large mailboxes. My gut reaction is that Mail won’t be any better than Mailsmith. That’s why I dumped my old email into archives. When I need to look for something, I do a Spotlight search from the finder. What we need is an email program that allows you to load particular archives when needed, allowing you to view archived email using the familiar interface. And then unload the archive when you’re done.
Margaret
August 21st, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Over a year ago I left Mailsmith — reluctantly. I really liked the user community & the program was still working OK for me, but I decided that I was spending too much time tinkering with email instead of getting my work done. Mailsmith is a scripter’s paradise; if it doesn’t do it out of the box, chances are you can find some way to create a script for it. It can support all sorts of byzantine constructions, very few of which actually significantly help me. When it became clear that BareBones had no intention of supporting Spotlight, reality finally came home.
A good search function beats elaborate filing any day. Spotlight is approaching a good search function; it isn’t there yet, but it’s gaining. But even in its current state of imperfection, it’s a lot better than what I was doing. I’m beginning to trust Spotlight.
I haven’t broken my habit of meticulously filing received email, but I have given up filing sent email. I know I’ve saved a lot of time not filing sent email. And in those rare occasions when I’ve had to find old email, I’ve surprised myself at how easy it was.
Of course, that doesn’t answer your main question about Mail’s ability to handle very large mailboxes. My gut reaction is that Mail won’t be any better than Mailsmith. That’s why I dumped my old email into archives. When I need to look for something, I do a Spotlight search from the finder. What we need is an email program that allows you to load particular archives when needed, allowing you to view archived email using the familiar interface. And then unload the archive when you’re done.
Margaret
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:16 am
This gets even more interesting… It seems as though Mail.app can’t export its mail out *either*… In fact, Mailsmith is *much* better at exporting mailboxes than Mail.app could ever hope to be, at least as far as I can tell. At least Mailsmith is scriptable in that regard. Any ideas?
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
This gets even more interesting… It seems as though Mail.app can’t export its mail out *either*… In fact, Mailsmith is *much* better at exporting mailboxes than Mail.app could ever hope to be, at least as far as I can tell. At least Mailsmith is scriptable in that regard. Any ideas?
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:34 am
[…] « Is Mail.app The Right Choice For Me? […]
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
[…] « Is Mail.app The Right Choice For Me? […]
August 28th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
I’ve struggled with Mail.app. I am a 1-year-old Mac convert. I am using Mail.app because of the integration with the Mac Address book. If you check out http://www.avolio.com/weblog/pc2mac/Mail-and-IMAP.html you’ll see pointers to previous blog entries in which I discuss my voyage of finding my perfect mail client. My original blog is at http://www.avolio.com/weblog/pc2mac/MacEmail.html.
As I said when I started, the main thing keeping me is the tight connection with Address book. The IMAP support works most of the time but as others have found, it doesn’t close the Inbox on the server until you Go Offline.
I’d go to Thunderbird, as I mention, if it used the Mac Address book. I used Eudora for years. I’m not sure what could cause me to return to it, though I loved it for years (when a PC user).
Although, I do recall I stuck with Eudora before:
http://www.avolio.com/weblog/e-mail/tbird.html
Fred
August 28th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
I’ve struggled with Mail.app. I am a 1-year-old Mac convert. I am using Mail.app because of the integration with the Mac Address book. If you check out http://www.avolio.com/weblog/pc2mac/Mail-and-IMAP.html you’ll see pointers to previous blog entries in which I discuss my voyage of finding my perfect mail client. My original blog is at http://www.avolio.com/weblog/pc2mac/MacEmail.html.
As I said when I started, the main thing keeping me is the tight connection with Address book. The IMAP support works most of the time but as others have found, it doesn’t close the Inbox on the server until you Go Offline.
I’d go to Thunderbird, as I mention, if it used the Mac Address book. I used Eudora for years. I’m not sure what could cause me to return to it, though I loved it for years (when a PC user).
Although, I do recall I stuck with Eudora before:
http://www.avolio.com/weblog/e-mail/tbird.html
Fred
September 1st, 2006 at 2:02 pm
[…] As many of you know, I’ve been in flux with my e-mail management system, and I think I’ve found a very workable solution for me. Though I discussed it on the most recent Mac Geek Gab podcast, enough of you have e-mailed me about this that I thought I’d type about it here, too. […]
September 1st, 2006 at 7:02 pm
[…] As many of you know, I’ve been in flux with my e-mail management system, and I think I’ve found a very workable solution for me. Though I discussed it on the most recent Mac Geek Gab podcast, enough of you have e-mailed me about this that I thought I’d type about it here, too. […]
September 10th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I have a need to export from os x mail so that I can later import. I need this because I’m getting ready to upgrade the IMAP mail server from CommuniGate Pro to OS X Server 10.4 using it’s built in mail server cyrus. It seems the only way I’ve found to do it is to get the mail folders from ~/Library/Mail/ and copy them somewhere else. I keep my mail program set to cache locally everything including attachments and have checked “automatically synchronize changed mailboxes”.
Then I had to change the folders from INBOX.imapmbox to INBOX.mbox. Then you can either put them back in the Library/Mail folder so that mail will recognize them (if you do that you will need to do a REBUILD command for it to recognize the messages) or just use the import function built into mail. If the mail folders are .imapmbox instead of just .mbox the import function will not recognize them nor will mail if you just put them back in the Library/Mail.
You can actually do all this while mail is still running and you don’t need to move them out of the Library/Mail folder either. Anyone else tried it this way? Seems to work. Then once I set up the new mail server I will just drag them from the various folders in Mail.app to where they need to go.
September 10th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I have a need to export from os x mail so that I can later import. I need this because I’m getting ready to upgrade the IMAP mail server from CommuniGate Pro to OS X Server 10.4 using it’s built in mail server cyrus. It seems the only way I’ve found to do it is to get the mail folders from ~/Library/Mail/ and copy them somewhere else. I keep my mail program set to cache locally everything including attachments and have checked “automatically synchronize changed mailboxes”.Then I had to change the folders from INBOX.imapmbox to INBOX.mbox. Then you can either put them back in the Library/Mail folder so that mail will recognize them (if you do that you will need to do a REBUILD command for it to recognize the messages) or just use the import function built into mail. If the mail folders are .imapmbox instead of just .mbox the import function will not recognize them nor will mail if you just put them back in the Library/Mail.
You can actually do all this while mail is still running and you don’t need to move them out of the Library/Mail folder either. Anyone else tried it this way? Seems to work. Then once I set up the new mail server I will just drag them from the various folders in Mail.app to where they need to go.