Get Canary Mail

Having an email client installed on your Mac can make a huge difference for your productivity. After all, your web browser is a portal to distraction, and any time you boot up Chrome or Safari to check on your inbox you’re in danger of losing at least 10–15 minutes to reading the news, browsing Facebook, or going down a “wiki-spiral.”

Shift alleviates this problem by opening up several accounts in one handy desktop client. If you're strictly a Gmail user, you know that juggling multiple accounts is a colossal pain. Newcomer Shift (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) takes away that pain, letting you shift (aha!) between accounts with ease. Finally, a Gmail Mac app that’s fast, reliable and a mirror image of Gmail on the web (plus a few new and amazing built-in features.) Those of you who have tried to use a desktop app but have found yourself back to using Gmail in your browser, you’ll appreciate the brilliant yet simplistic thinking that went into the creation of this app. Included in the Mac operating system. Supports smart folders and robust filters.

That said, not every email client is built the same. While macOS comes with the Apple Mail app by default, it might not necessarily be the best fit for your needs.

Get a bundle of best email clients

With Setapp on your Mac, you get access to the list of best email tools. Experiment with all of them flexibly — until you find the one.

Best Email Apps For Mac 2020

So what’s the best email app for Mac then? Depends on what you do. You might be a power user, comfortable with running macros to make the most out of your email experience, or you might just want something that works out of the box without having to fuss with settings. Security could be your top priority if you work with sensitive materials, or you might just need to easily manage multiple accounts.

Whatever the case, there are a few things to keep in mind when evaluating all email clients: How fast is the setup process? How easy is it to use? Is it secure? What are the sorting options for your inbox? Is it nice to look at?

Let’s sift through some top email apps using this questioning framework.

Apple Mail: Best email client for Mac by default

What makes Apple products great is also what limits them: because Apple needs to make apps that are so easy to use that anyone can use them, much of what they produce is quite basic in functionality. Which is fine — just make sure you know what you’re getting with the Apple Mail app.

You definitely get clean, user-friendly design that’s in line with all the other Apple software. In addition, you get outstanding integration with macOS and iOS, including the use of the Notification Center and the ability to send emails via the Share function in other apps.

Although adding multiple email providers, including iCloud and Gmail, is easy — there have been some bug reports around using Microsoft accounts, such as Hotmail or Live. Maybe the old Apple and Microsoft feud is not over yet?

In step with the times, Apple Mail app makes it effortless to add emoji to your emails from the shortcut bar right in the composing email window.

Honestly, for most people, the Apple Mail app will absolutely be enough. However, if you’re the kind of person who has a lot going on in their inbox, there are not too many ways to filter through all the messages quickly and pin down important conversations, or simply delete unwanted mail.

What’s great:

• Clean design

• Easy-to-use Mac mail

• Fantastic Mac and iOS integration

Not so great:

• A history of bugs with Microsoft accounts

• Lacking high-powered organizational tools

Mozilla Thunderbird: Best free email client for Mac power users

Perhaps most widely known for their web browser, Firefox, Mozilla’s other major product is their email client, Thunderbird. Hailed as the best free email app on the market at various points throughout its long history, where does Thunderbird stand in 2020?

Unfortunately, Thunderbird’s design shows its age. Blocky and utilitarian, it’s quite a bit uglier than most modern email clients. But look below the surface and you’ll discover some very handy features.

For one, you have the option of tagging emails as they come in. Just add tags like Personal, Work, and ToDo and suddenly conversations become much easier to find later on. Even better, create your own tags to make the classification system as specific as you need it to be.

Thunderbird features an integrated calendar and chat client, both of which are indispensable for work, and boasts great privacy features — like not automatically displaying images (hence stopping pixel trackers) when you open emails (can be changed in Preferences).

Overall, Thunderbird has some powerful value propositions, but is also a bit ugly and unintuitive. So, if the looks don’t bother you, give it a try. Otherwise, you’re better off using another option.

What’s great:

• Tagging is powerful and helps you organize your emails quickly

• Precise search

Not so great:

• Not the prettiest interface

• Unintuitive user experience. It takes time to figure out Thunderbird’s best features.

Kiwi for Gmail: Best Gmail app for Mac

If you don’t use Gmail, you can skip this one: Kiwi isn’t for you.

But for all other Gmail for Mac users, Kiwi for Gmail is an excellent Mac mail option. A desktop app with the look and feel of your browser email inbox, Kiwi features the ability to combine multiple accounts and filter your inbox with Focus to organize correspondence by date, importance, attachments, and more.

In many ways, Kiwi is Gmail’s missing ingredient, making the best free email provider online also the premier Gmail app for Mac. What’s even more exciting is that Kiwi lets you run G Suite apps like Google Docs and Sheets outside of your browser. Being able to leave Chrome or Safari behind and get some focused work done alone makes Kiwi worth the install.

What’s great:

• Kiwi makes Gmail better
• Combine multiple Gmail accounts
• Focused work outside the browser with Google Docs

Not so great:

• Doesn’t support non-Gmail accounts

Spark: Best Mac email client for a clean inbox

A relatively new email client for Mac, Spark is based on an intriguing premise: What if your inbox was able to sort itself out based on your priorities but without your input?

Spark’s Smart Inbox algorithms are able to instantly identify whether an email is personal, work-related, or just a newsletter you signed up for years ago because it gave you a coupon but have since completely forgotten about. This kind of artificial intelligence works so well that Apple gave Spark an Editor’s Choice Award a few years ago.

In its quest for widespread adoption, Spark doubles down on usability, offering quick, one-click replies with generated text based on how you typically respond to emails and powerful automatic functions to clean up your inbox in seconds. Besides, the app is beautifully designed and very easy to use.

Of course, for Spark to have all of these powerful features, complete access to the content of your emails is required — which might raise some privacy-minded eyebrows. However, a lot of people would be happy to offer that in return for ease of use. So, if this notion doesn’t bother you, Spark might well be the best free email app for Mac.

What’s great:

• Clean design
• Smart Inbox organizes your unread emails

• Could be the most professional email client for Mac

• The only non-Apple email client with the Apple seal of approval

• “Send later” feature lets you schedule emails

• Frequent updates

Not so great:

• Requires more of your data than other email clients

Canary Mail: Best security in an email client for Mac

New to the Mac email client game, Canary Mail’s outstanding list of features still makes it a worthy contender.

Google Gmail Client For Mac

Canary Mail prioritizes security and privacy, providing every email you send with end-to-end encryption, so that if your data is ever intercepted it can’t be read. Even better, you don’t have to change any settings to do this — everything is set up right out of the box.

Add to that a fantastic design and some excellent filtering options, such as natural language search, smart tags, algorithmic bulk cleaner, and intelligent typography enhancements, and Canary Mail might well be the best email app for Mac, period.

What’s great:

• Great design
• Smart filters
• Intelligent typography
• Automatic end-to-end encryption
• Available to all email providers
• Algorithmic bulk cleaner

Unibox: Most innovative email client for Mac

The most exciting thing about Unibox is how it fundamentally changes the way you see your inbox. Instead of organizing everything by date received or subject, Unibox structures every conversation around contacts. That way your inbox resembles your text messages or messaging app, making everything intuitive and easy to navigate.

The developers of Unibox worked hard on making their email client for Mac the easiest to use on the market — and it shows. The design is stunning and you can easily respond to any email in the same window, get previews of attachments right there, and just scroll to remind yourself of all the conversations you’ve had with that person.

What’s great:

• Email like messages
• Intuitive and easy-to-use design
• Works with all major email providers

Best of all, Canary Mail and Unibox are both available for a free seven-day trial through Setapp, a subscription platform with over 150 top Mac apps chosen to make your day more productive and fun. Now can’t you wait to go back to emails already?

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Sign Up

Download Gmail App Mac