I finally got fed up with syncing errors, freezes, and no Google Calendar support in Outlook 2016 today, which caused me to launch a quest for a replacement. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Features I really wanted:

  • Quick and reliable sync
  • Easy archiving
  • Easily send to contact groups
  • Quick lookup of contact history
  • Ability to use snippets or templates

I downloaded eM Client, and Mailspring, and Mailbird.

eM Client

I loved almost everything about eM Client. It has some really neat features, including excellent Google Calendar support, templates, quick and easy creation of contact groups, task management, and a rich context panel for contacts. Additionally, the design looks so Windows. It fits in the great with the OS and was easy to use. It’s really an excellent app. At $50 for single-device license, the price seemed a little steep, but worth it…until I realized that there’s no single-key archive feature.

I’m managing 4 email accounts, each with their own archive folder, so this is essential to processing email efficiently and quickly. Despite the many things going for it, no archive button or shortcut (except for Gmail accounts) is a deal breaker for me. I had to move on.

Mailspring

Mailspring offers a lot, including insights into your email like how many messages you receive, which messages have been read your most effective subject lines, and more. It also give you the ability to snooze messages for later (not super useful for me, personally) and translate messages after you’ve written them. Cool, but not something I’d use every day, or even more than a couple of time a year at most. The interface felt a little busy to me with a cluttered left sidebar, and there wasn’t any group or calendar support. Since the cool analytics and rich contact profiles cost $8/mo, I decided to pass on Mailspring.

Mailbird

While not exactly as aesthetically Windows, Mailbird’s interface is certainly super clean, thought I did have to make some adjustments in the settings for the fonts to render smoothly on my system. In the end, this is the one that ticked most of my boxes. Hassle-free sync? Check. Simple and easy archive that works across accounts? Check. Groups and contact history? Check and check. Google Cal integration? Yep. No templates, but I’ll figure out a work around. $32 on sale for a lifetime license seemed fair, so I guess I’m a Mailbird user now.

This took me the better part of the day–I really hope this works out!