Brandon Buttars

Gmail

So I don’t really like using programs like Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail to manage my mail.  I’m also a huge GMail fan.  I use nothing but Gmail now.  I hate setting up clients and I always use multiple computers to check my email.  Gmail offers tons of space for email so space has never been an issue for me. I thought I would do some searching for some different Gmail specific clients for my Mac that make using Gmail just a little bit easier.

I’m evaluating 3 different GMail clients I found when doing some Googling, so I’m hoping to get some comments with people’s feedback and opinions on the different clients.  I still haven’t decided what I like and prefer best so I’ll leave that up to you.

Fluid App

Fluid App

Fluid App isn’t really specifically for GMail, but what you can do is create a specific “Application” for GMail.  What that means is that you can launch Gmail like it’s a separate app in a separate window using Safari.  You can actually do this with any website using Fluid App.  I use this for a lot of different sites to keep them separate.  I definitely recommend checking out how Fluid App works and see if it can benefit your workflow in any way, specifically GMail.

http://fluidapp.com/

GeeMail

GeeMail

GeeMail is the most unique out of all of them.  It uses Adobe Air.  What that means is that it is available on all platforms.  You just need to install Adobe Air.  There are some advantages to this and some disadvantages.  One thing I’ve noticed about a lot of Adobe Air apps specifically on Macs is that they don’t respond well to dragging and dropping to different spaces, but that’s me being picky.  The styling and look and feel is great in GeeMail.  I have not tested it using Google Apps domains.  I know the previous app and the following app will work with Google Apps.  I think it’s a great option and may end up with my vote.

http://www.sourcebits.com/geemail/

MailPlane

MailPlane

MailPlane is the most like what I was looking for.  It is it’s own separate app and doesn’t use Adobe Air.  The look and feel is exactly as GMail looks and feels.  There is some different control on modifying text size and some great drag and drop functionality.  The attachments and media functionality is awesome.  I think my favorite thing though has to be the multiple GMail accounts.  If you are running some different GMail accounts you have to check all the accounts by logging out and relogging back in.  MailPlane allows you to select from different accounts and check them all separately without any need to logout and login.  The only bad thing is that MailPlane costs $24.95.  That’s just me being a FREE freak.  It’s worth the purchase for sure.  It’s a great app so far.  There is a 30 day Demo that you can download, that’s what I’m actually using at the moment.

http://mailplaneapp.com/

Your Two Cents

Let me know what you find using these different apps.  Let the readers see what app you recommend.  Do you know of any others that are not on my list?  Let me know.  I can revise this post if you find something worth listing.  Thanks for reading and for your participation.

Tags: Apps, Gmail, Mac

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 12:30 am and is filed under Google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.