

Ask HN: What email client do you use on OSX? - kitchen

I just got a new laptop and have decided I'm in the market for a new email client for OSX.  I've used thunderbird (2.x, because 3 just can't handle my email at all, it completely crashes), I've used Mail.app, and I've used PostBox.  Thunderbird is the only one which really comes close to what I'm looking for, since it has "proper" threading, none of this "thread by subject" nonsense.  There are other things which irk me about Mail.app, but that's the primary issue.  What client are you using, and why?
======
sp4rki
If you're using Gmail or Google Apps for your email needs, I'd reckon you try
Sparrow (<http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/>). It's truly the client I've been
waiting for years! It's still in beta and lacks some final polish on some
areas, but it's freaking awesome nonetheless

~~~
kitchen
gmail also threads by subject, and I need proper display of threaded message
trees too, not forum-style flat threads. That's the other problem with
Mail.app :)

~~~
sp4rki
I didn't know thunderbird displayed threaded messages without the subjects
matching. I actually haven't heard of any client doing that. Wouldn't subject
base threading be more dependable? How do you organize threaded messages with
different subjects?

~~~
kitchen
thunderbird does do subject-based threading by default. Fortunately there's a
way to disable this by enabling strict-threading.

Threading works by using the In-Reply-To: and References: headers in emails.
This way you have a direct correlation between an email and what it was
replying to. It allows you to trivially build a tree structure for a thread,
which is what a thread is, not a flat conversation.

I get lots of emails from our notification systems that have similar or often
the same subject. Having it thread by subject alone is extremely irritating
here because it combines completely unrelated things together.

~~~
sp4rki
Ahh I understand. I generally don't use threading (I rather threat emails as a
standalone items), but I can see why you'd find subject threading annoying. I
tend to filter emails and reroute different types of emails that don't belong
in my inbox to other systems, so I don't see a need to be as stringent on the
requirements for threading. That being said, I don't know if any clients that
would fulfill your expectations. I guess you're stuck with Thunderbird!

