Is there not one decent email client for Mac?

Question

When I started looking for an alternative to Mail I had no idea it would become a quest. So my criteria have become...

1. One-off purchase (no monthly/annual billing)
2. Pleasant UI
3. Doesn't force me to use an intermediate proxy server
4. Doesn't mine my emails or usage for data
5. Has a solid search
6. Doesn't sporadically lose my recent emails or reset read flags, etc
7. Compatible with Protonmail (should be...just SMTP)
8. I guess should have an iphone version too but I'm willing to be flexible on that
9. Bonus: copy/pastes nicely from places like Notes

Failed contenders:

Spark: Free so I presume mines my data. intermediate server? monthly fee above 5GB

Edison: Mines you for data

Newton: 50/yr and I presume an intermediate server?

Outlook: Ugly

Canary: Reviewer says it suffers the same issues as Mail and has an equally lousy search

Airmail: Is a fairly cheap subscription and one-off for business purchases. People are complaining about the search though

Anyone have an other suggestions? Is there anything genuinely better than Mail? Are my standards too high??

Answer 1

Answer: Postbox

It misses #8 (no mobile version) and #9 is so-so (loses some formatting but I'm thinking it's Notes that's the problem)...but it is very stylish, snappy, and seems to have a lot of nice UX innovations (e.g. quick replies below every email, sort emails into folders with pre-defined keystrokes, themes...)

Answer 2

No, email is a remnant of a more civilized time when text was text and email didn’t have to include such things as a JavaScript engine and image rendering and a security apparatus.

• elm / pine / lynx used to be enough for email and web browsing but now you’ve got requirements that are at odds with plain text display. (And we’re all in the same boat as you - your ask is reasonable on the surface but unlikely to be met in a substantial way.)

On a practical level, I have had better success with choosing a mail client to match the mail provider and choosing a mail provider that makes Apple’s first party client work better by better managing the content that gets to my device in the first place.

• Work is Microsoft, so outlook it is. (warts and opinions on beauty are assuaged by a paycheck.)
• Fastmail has provided sanity to me for mail I manage. It works well with the native client and it’s own app / web app are well designed to my eye. I can afford it, and their business model adds value to me. Not everyone wants to fund a service that makes their mail work with native clients, though.
• Hey + Basecamp seemed promising but I can’t seem to navigate the pain that burning bridges to the past would entail to make a run at using Hey for my email.

Just like security software, email changes constantly and how you fund the salaries of people skilled enough to care about optimizing your time with decent software may be at odds with paying them once for software you expect to work in a month or need support in 6 months.

Just like dozens of companies before it, I wish Postbox (and all newcomers to the space) well, but lifetime support on a fixed price purchase is hard to see as anything but a Ponzi scheme. Whether a company is VC funded or bootstrapping it, developing a popular mail client that do a better job than Apple’ first party client is a money-losing operation for the foreseeable future. Until enough people want to pay substantial money regularly, I don’t see a business model for the innovation you seek in this space.

As a postscript, if you don’t buy into mail and standards as the cause of this mess - have a read on how we can’t even agree what a valid email address might be. With that one header field still up in the air for implementation in a standard manner, a proper email client surely can’t be made today to a common standard of use.

• https://www.netmeister.org/blog/email.html

I look forward to other people’s solutions to a gnarly problem and some requirements I can’t see being met in the next 4 years or so in a manner that was possible in past decades.