5 Best Email Apps for Mac in 2023

The native Mail app on macOS systems is an excellent mail app. With the addition of features like email scheduling, undo send delay and email snoozing, it has come closer to some of the more powerful email clients. But no app can be perfect, and the Mail app has its drawbacks. If you deal with tons of emails every day, and the Apple Mail app no longer feels viable, here are the best email apps for Mac to use in 2023.

Top email apps for Mac in 2023

Before we begin our list, I just wanted to add a quick comment on the features that we looked for when searching for the best email clients for Mac. Email clients are one of the few categories of apps where we felt that the overall design was as important as features itself, and hence it played a big role in our selection criteria. No matter, how powerful an email client is, if it’s not able to present the information in a pleasing and easy to discern way, users will find it hard to use.

Another important feature for a third-party email client is its support for multiple accounts types including Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, Exchange, IMAP, and more. The email client should also be fast at syncing emails. The last thing you want is delayed emails. Apart from these basic features, the email client should bring advanced powerful features such as integration with third-party services, auto-categorization of emails, a customizable interface, and so on.

Based on these basic criteria, we started our search for the best third-party email clients for Mac and here are the best 5 that we found.

1. Spark

Spark has always been one of the best email apps for Mac. With its version 3.0, Spark Mail has been redesigned from the ground up and focuses on helping users reach Inbox Zero. It features a smart inbox that separates priority emails from non-priority emails, allowing you to easily tackle the emails that matter.

Spark mail app bundles all newsletters and promotional emails in a separate folder, so you can quickly sort them. There’s a built-in Gatekeeper that allows you to triage emails from new senders and block spam emails with ease.

We also love the smart search feature in Spark, which is ultra-fast, and finds the email we are looking for in seconds. Other features of the app include easy keyboard navigation, a universal action button, group threads, threads muting, and more.

Pros:

• Gatekeeper for accepting and blocking incoming emails
• Non-priority email bundle
• Easy keyboard actions
• Smart search feature for quick email finding

Cons:

• Free version skimp on many features

Get Spark Mail: Free, $4.99/month

2. Mimestream

If you use only Gmail as your personal and work email provider, there’s no need to look any further than Mimestream. It gives you the core Gmail experience inside a beautiful and native Mac app, something which has never been done before.

Unlike other email apps, Mimestream uses Gmail API for a lightning-fast experience. Using Mimestream, you can see all your Gmail categories and labels, create new email filters right from the app, respond to calendar invites, and so much more.

You can log into multiple accounts, keep your personal and work accounts separate, get a unified inbox, set focus filters, working hours, and accent colors. In short, you get all the Gmail web features in the native Mac app. Managing emails on Mac doesn’t get better than this.

Pros:

• Native Gmail client for Mac
• Works using Gmail API and is super-fast
• Access all Gmail web features

Cons:

• Doesn’t support any other email provider

Get Mimestream: Free trial, $49.99/year

3. Microsoft Outlook

Believe it or not, Apple’s biggest desktop OS competitor, Microsoft, makes one of the best free email apps for Mac. The app is highly customizable, allowing users to customize their email app experience. The app integrates your email, calendar events, and contacts in one place, giving you easy access to all the information.

It also supports all email account types, including Microsoft 365, Outlook.co, Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, IMAP, and POP accounts. The best thing about this app is how it displays emails and gives users control over it.

You also get shortcuts to easily triage emails, a customizable toolbar kit, swipe gestures support, email pinning, hover actions, and more. Most of the features that are paid in other email clients are available for free in Outlook for Mac.

If you are looking for the best free email client for Mac, this is the one to get.

Pros:

• Premium features available for free
• Highly customizable interface
• Fast launch time
• Customizable toolbar

Cons:

• A bit too complex for non-pro users

Get Outlook for Mac: Free

4. Thunderbird

Thunderbird by Mozilla is one of the most powerful email clients for Mac. However, its old-school design has always put off new users. If you haven’t used the app in a long time, you should test it again. Over the past two years, it has released several updates that have added new features and refreshed its user interface.

The app is easy to set up and use, and many of the features which were previously only available via add-ons, are now native to the app. You can easily create contacts with its one-click address book, view emails in easy tab views, quickly filter your emails and perform better search.

Other features include theming features, smart folders, add-ons support, end-to-end encryption (opt-in), phishing protection, and more. If you want an open-source email client with powerful features and customization, you should give it a try.

Pros:

• Packed with features
• Customizable to the core
• End-to-end encryption

Cons:

• Has a learning curve

Get Thunderbird: Free

5. Canary Mail

Canary Mail is one of the most secure and beautiful email clients on Mac and I loved using it during my testing period. Most of us don’t realize this but email, by design, is not the most secure platform to converse with each other, and if security is a big concern for you, you should try Canary Mail.

Canary mail solves the privacy problems by bringing end-to-end encryption which ensures that only you and the person you're communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even your provider.

The best part about Canary Mail’s encryption is that it can be activated with just one click. If you want even more security, Canary Mail also allows you to use manual keys which a sender can share with a recipient privately. This method is a bit more technical, however, it’s also the most secure.

Canary Mail has also an integrated AI that learns your email writing behavior and can write emails, surface important emails, automatically silence spam emails, and more.

When it comes to other features, Canary Mail doesn’t disappoint. It brings an arsenal of power user features including focused inbox which gives you access to important emails first, a powerful natural language search, smart filters, bulk cleaner, one-click unsubscribe, support for email templates, snooze, integrations with third-party apps such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Keybase, and more.

Pros:

• End-to-end encryption for safer emails
• Integrated AI features
• Fast launch time
• Excellent email triaging features

Cons:

• AI still has a long way to go

Get Canary Mail: Free, $20/year / Free on SetApp

Best email apps for Mac: final thoughts

If you are not using the right email client, emails can get out of your hands. The best email clients help you get through your emails so that you can spend the rest of your time being productive and creating something that you love. I have tried to include the best email clients for everyone here.

Whether you want a free, secure, powerful, or team focused email clients, one of the above 5 email clients will satisfy your needs. If you want to suggest an email client which you find more capable, the comments section is all yours.