Q: Apple mail does not sync with gMail

I will work with Airmail for a while (seeing as I bought it - $1.99).  Mail stalls on me from time to time, and I have to restart it to get things moving again. 

I am not keen on Thunderbird based on my Windows version experience where it became very problematic - might be unfair to compare with the Apple version.  We will see how things go with Airmail.

Add Mail Pilot to the list, it is a good Gmail client.

The reviews appear mixed on Mail Pilot, but I am not a power user either, so I might give it a try too.

It has potential, try it out.

Another update:  I was having trouble importing mbox files into AirMail and was pointed to a new release, a Beta Version 3.2.1 (Jan 22, 2014 at 8:47 AM).   This version could import properly but has been unstable, crashing about twice a day, even when sitting idle, from my perspective.

At the same time, for reasons unknown to me, the Mail program (that I reinitiatied as suggested in an earlier post here by Mark David Smith) has begun working properly again. That is, it actually is staying synced with gMail and shows new messages as they arrive.  I watch this by running Mail and AirMail simultaneously and watching both Inboxes.

I'll provide updates if a pattern emerges.

PS - in Mail I always use the Window/Activity tab to get a look at what's going on behind the scene (screen?) between Mail and the Gmail server.

Not sure if anyone else has posted this or not, but it appears that Apple is admitting it is aware of the issue.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1703273

There might be hope just yet for us Mail.app users.

Tried PostBox, but I noticed it to be slow at times and ran up the CPU usage when trying to download mail. Also it started having the same problem as Mail.app and was not updating. So, I'm not 100% sure it is an Apple problem as much as it is a Google problem. I'd like to see Google come out with a mail app, the way they have one for iOS.

Have not tried Air Mail yet, still on the fence, whether I'm going to try it or not, still holding out hope a fix is coming for Mail.app.

Sorry to report that in fact  Mail is not fixed. It behaved well for 24 hours and then went back to its old ways, failing to keep the Inbox synced with gMail.

In case you didn't see it, there is a new release of AirMail out. Is more stable on my machine (iMac).

I have given up on Mail.  Here are the programs I've tried as an alternative, with comments.  All work fine with gmail.

Airmail (App Store): It uses the same mimalist design that Sparrow did.  If you liked Sparrow, you'll like Airmail and will have an easy learning curve.  It will only sort mail by date (sent or received),  but it has a good search function and a nifty feature which will show you all emails from one sender.  It supports multiple accounts and multiple aliases.  For me, it's been my program of choice.  One hint: I find using the "classic" look better than the "modern," because in "modern" the little icons that allow me to limit the inbox to new, starred, attachments, etc. are grey on black and harder to see.

Inky (their website): Inky sorts mail in the cloud according to rules, with categories like "social," "purchases," "subscriptions," "personal" etc.  The program will learn how you want those rules applied as you use it.  It is more power-user oriented: it'll sort mail by date, sender, subject, etc.  While I llike Inky's approach and found its mail sorting useful, it has some serious problems.  It supports multiple accounts but does not support aliases.  Its cloud causes lags when sorting, deleting or receiving email, and even when composing email.  Its GUI looks like a artsy version of the classic email program, with options to make it look like Mail or Postbox/Thunderbird.  I'd say they have a way to go, but if they can work the kinks out it'll be a good program.

Unibox (App Store): Unibox will sort email only by sender.  It supports aliases and multiple accounts.  It has a very simple, slick interface that works flawlessly.  I found it challenging because I have three gmail accounts and am on a few group email lists: individual responses to a group email get sorted by the sender, not by the email thread.  The default view is a unified inbox, and moving to each account's individual inbox involves going into the gmail folder tree.  If you have a small number of emails or get emails from individuals only, this might work for you.

Postbox (their website): To me, Postbox is the classic power-user email client.  It'll sort the email however you want, it supports multiple accounts and aliases, it will let you under the hood to tweak just about anything.  It is based on Thunderbird's engine, which means it hogs CPU resources.  My wife loves it because of its flexibility.  So far, she's reporting no gmail syncing issues.

Mail Pilot (App Store, I believe): I tried Mail Pilot's beta.  If you want a program that looks and feels like Maverick Mail and gives you a deadline approach to email sorting, Mail Pilot may be a good choice.

For me, Airmail comes the closest to the ideal email client, but you may feel differently.  You could try several, depending on how much you want to spend to experiment.  Airmail is inexpensive, Inky is free.  Unibox and Postbox are $10 each, I believe. 

Thanks for the rundown on these, Andrew. I, too, gave up on Mail awhile back and am currently using Thunderbird. Overall, I'm getting on pretty well with it, but it has some habits I don't like. One is that it disables all remote images by default; you can load in the images on a message-by-message basis, but that gets old after awhile. Also, the search gives me useless results—I don't understand how it works.

I've tried Inky, Airmail, and Postbox. I had about the same impression of Inky you did. I tried Postbox some time in the past, and it did not appeal to me; maybe I need to look at it again.

The alternate I liked best was Airmail, but the format is what dissuaded me from using it. With those three columns, it takes up too much screen space, and I don't see any way of modifying the format. I like a concise one-line listing of the last few mails (from, subject, time) above the current message rather than a side-by-side setup (the old Mail way).

There isn't really anything I like as well as Mail, if they'd just fix it.

Maybe I'll give Mail Pilot a try.

You might want to look at Post of again, it's the only email client other than Inky or Thunderbird that has the "old Mail" look and feel.  The new version uses Thunderbird as its basis, so you'll have the same engine with a different, andI believe more user-friendly, GUI.  I don't remember whether it'll allow you to load images by default, but I'll check the next time I can get at my wife's laptop :-)

Thanks for the tip! Let me know about the images.

I have been using both Airmail and Mail Pilot - different look, but both seem stable.  I didn't like Mail Plane - it looks (by design) like the web version, and not something I liked - others might.  It has a 14 day trial if you want to give it a go.

So far, I am leaning to Airmail.  There are more options for how to view messages, although the descriptors are not helpful - you have to try each one (I am using Starry Night/classic/classic).  I would like to have the preview on the bottom instead of the side, other than that it is satisfying my needs.

I just checked: on my wife's computer, Postbox shows the images imbedded in the emails.  I'm not sure whether this is something one can toggle on and off; couldn't find anything in their online help about it.

Mail Pilot worked well even in beta -- stable platform, very responsive.  Its mail organization scheme will probably work well for many people.

GMReed wrote:

 

Not sure if anyone else has posted this or not, but it appears that Apple is admitting it is aware of the issue.

 

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1703273

 

There might be hope just yet for us Mail.app users.

 

Tried PostBox, but I noticed it to be slow at times and ran up the CPU usage when trying to download mail. Also it started having the same problem as Mail.app and was not updating. So, I'm not 100% sure it is an Apple problem as much as it is a Google problem. I'd like to see Google come out with a mail app, the way they have one for iOS.

 

Have not tried Air Mail yet, still on the fence, whether I'm going to try it or not, still holding out hope a fix is coming for Mail.app.

Good to hear. Hopefully a fix will come in form of an OSX update. Seems there has been enough press and feedback about this to make them get their developers onto it.

Thanks

Pete