- What Is The Best Email Program For Windows 10
- What Is The Best Mail Program For A Mac
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- The Best Email Program
We spent 120 hours testing 16 free email services, narrowing our list to the eight services we believe are the best options. These services have sufficient inbox storage and tools to make it easy to send, receive and store messages.
Gmail is our top pick because it’s the easiest to use and comes with the most services, including access to Google Calendar, an attachment preview, automatic spam filters and direct import of social media contacts into its address book. But there are a number of great options – you'll find our pick of the best free email services below.
Do you need a VPN to protect your email?
Meet the 7 Best Desktop Email Clients for Mac. These are our favorite desktop email clients for Mac, in no particular order. Inky ()Inky talks about itself as being an alternative to Outlook.
Your email account contains a lot of personal information, from details about your work to where you live, who your friends and family are, where you shop and more. If it's hacked, it can quickly lead to serious problems like identity theft, which could have huge financial implications.
The easiest and most secure way to keep your email safe is with a virtual private network service (VPN). These encrypt your emails and help you stay anonymous online – and they're becoming increasingly popular. They’re a particularly good idea if you’re using public Wi-Fi to send emails (at a hotel or cafe, for example) where anybody could read what you're writing if it isn't encrypted.
We think the best VPN service is ExpressVPN. It's fast, offers superb security, and it's very easy to use. But if you're not sure which one is right for you, take a look at our best VPN service guide, where you'll find plenty of advice.
ExpressVPN: Save 49% | $6.67/month (was $12.95/month)
ExpressVPN is the best VPN service there is. It'll keep your email secure, whether you're using a computer, cell phone or tablet – and with this exclusive offer you can get it almost half price, at just $6.67/month. That's fantastic value. (Plus there’s a 30-day money back guarantee if you don't like it.)
ExpressVPN is the best VPN service there is. It'll keep your email secure, whether you're using a computer, cell phone or tablet – and with this exclusive offer you can get it almost half price, at just $6.67/month. That's fantastic value. (Plus there’s a 30-day money back guarantee if you don't like it.)
Best Overall
Gmail
Google Gmail
No inbox ads
Includes a language translator
Attaches one file at a time with the mobile app
Gmail has all the tools and features you need for an email account, including 15GB of inbox storage space, a 100-per-day limit on sent messages, and no inbox ads to interfere with navigating the program. Along with an email address, Gmail also gives you automatic access to many of Google’s other services, such as Drive, Calendar, Maps and Google Plus. You can also use Google Translate within Gmail to translate messages in other languages.
You can attach files up to 25MB and upload more than one at a time. Once they are attached, documents and images are displayed as thumbnails, so it’s easy to verify you’ve attached the correct files. When you receive attachments in an incoming message, these, too, are displayed as thumbnails so you can preview and sure they are safe to download to your computer.
Gmail keeps your inbox safe by automatically identifying and sending spam messages to a spam folder. It also has virus scanning and phishing blocks, so you know the messages you’re getting don’t have hidden threats attached to them.
Gmail keeps your inbox safe by automatically identifying and sending spam messages to a spam folder. It also has virus scanning and phishing blocks, so you know the messages you’re getting don’t have hidden threats attached to them.
Best for Spam Blocking
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Business mail$1.19
Automatic spam filters
Allows up to 500 sent messages daily
Tricky to navigate
Yahoo Mail takes extra steps to keep your account secure by automatically enabling spam filters and directing messages into the spam folder. It also recognizes some junk mail and will place these items in the trash bin rather than your primary inbox. Another positive feature our testers liked is the sender block, which lets you add an email address to a black list. Rather than redirecting emails from these senders into the spam or trash folders as other email services do, Yahoo Mail blocks these messages entirely.
Yahoo Mail does have a fair number of ads that border your inbox, and some sponsored ads are inserted into the message lists so they look like legitimate emails. These aren’t too difficult to ignore, but they do cause some initial confusion and may make it harder to navigate your inbox.
Yahoo Mail gives you 1 terabyte of inbox storage (enough to hold 20 million email messages) before you must delete some to receive more messages. You also have a daily sent-message limit of 500 emails – five times more than most free email services allow, but less than Gmail. The Yahoo Mail app is also easy to use, with the same features available as the online account.
Yahoo Mail gives you 1 terabyte of inbox storage (enough to hold 20 million email messages) before you must delete some to receive more messages. You also have a daily sent-message limit of 500 emails – five times more than most free email services allow, but less than Gmail. The Yahoo Mail app is also easy to use, with the same features available as the online account.
Best for Email Encryption
ProtonMail
Proton Mail Plus$4
Proton Mail Professional$6.25
Proton Mail Visionary$24
Encrypts outgoing messages
25MB maximum attachment size
If you reset your password, you’ll lose access to previous messages
ProtonMail is a basic email service that is easy to set up because it doesn’t ask for any personal information. You just pick a user name and password, and you’re set. Be aware that some features – such as mail collection and the ability to sync across multiple devices – are only available with its paid email service. But the free version does have email encryption, which is important if you send messages with sensitive information you want to protect. ProtonMail automatically unencrypts the message when it reaches the recipient’s inbox and is opened.
To further protect your messages, ProtonMail has a secure password recovery process. Although you can reset your password if you forget your old one, ProtonMail won’t allow access to the messages you received in your inbox or saved in folders before you reset your password. This means you will lose all emails, both sent and received.
ProtonMail lets you attach multiple files at once to outgoing messages, up to the maximum attachment size of 25MB. Once they’re attached, you can’t preview the files without downloading and opening them again. You also have only 500MB of inbox storage, which is enough to hold about 1,200 messages.
ProtonMail lets you attach multiple files at once to outgoing messages, up to the maximum attachment size of 25MB. Once they’re attached, you can’t preview the files without downloading and opening them again. You also have only 500MB of inbox storage, which is enough to hold about 1,200 messages.
Best Email for Mac
iCloud Mail
Requires a lot of steps to set up
iCloud Mail is the official email service from Apple and is designed to be accessed easily from any Mac computer or mobile device, though you can send and read messages from Windows computers, too.
We learned that it takes a lot of steps to set up and verify an iCloud account and it isn’t easy. But the email program itself is impressive as it automatically saves contact information to your contact folder as messages are opened or sent. You can create alias email accounts and view them all in a single inbox and write automated reply messages for when you can’t return messages right away. We were really impressed with how fast our images and documents attached to outgoing messages using iCloud Mail, much faster than most services we tested. But you can’t preview these files once they’ve been attached.
Best for Home Businesses
Zoho Mail
Zoho Standard$1
Zoho Standard$2
Zoho Pro$5
Collects messages from other email accounts
Zoho Mail is part of a group of free services from Zoho that are designed for small businesses, especially if you have a home-based business or are a sole proprietor.
Programs include a calendar, contact manager, expense tracker and project reports that all sync together so you can see and manage your entire business from your email inbox. When you send or receive any messages from clients, Zoho Mail automatically makes a note of it in the CRM. And it will remind you of meetings or follow-up messages you need to send after checking the Zoho Calendar. One good feature is you can redirect email from other email services into your inbox so you don’t have to check messages in each individual account. And because Zoho has unlimited inbox storage, you won’t have to worry about running out of space. One feature the service doesn’t include is the ability to import contacts from social media sites, so you’ll have to manually enter each one. Or you can import them into either the Zoho ContactManager or Zoho CRM that will sync with your inbox and give you access to this information.
Why Trust Us?
While Top Ten Reviews has been evaluating free email services for 12 years, our testers have been familiar with email programs for much longer. To update our recommendations, we spent 120 hours using and testing 16 free email services.
One tester used an 18-year-old free email account (originally a Hotmail account, now an Outlook account), along with other free accounts, to help us compare the features and services of email providers.
We narrowed the 16 free email services to eight that we believe are the best options. We eliminated services that allow you to send free email messages but won’t let you receive messages without purchasing the service. We also discounted services that currently have free email accounts available but are either no longer offering support or have plans to discontinue them. We didn’t feel comfortable recommending a service that may not be around long term.
How We Tested
To test free email services, we performed common tasks with each service and took note of the ease or difficulty. For example, we noted how many steps it took to set up a new account, the amount of personal information required and whether we needed to provide a cellphone number to verify and officially activate the account.
We followed a similar process to test the tools for attaching files and images to outgoing emails. We recorded the number of steps it took to attach a file, whether we could attach multiple files at once, and how long the program took to upload attachments to our message.
Since each of the free email services we tested has a mobile app, we tested how easy it was to set up and access email accounts this way, too. Again, we tracked the steps and made note of any challenges in attaching images and files to messages via the app. We also determined whether any functions from the desktop version were missing in the app.
Can I Have 2 Gmail Accounts?
Yes you can! Many people have multiple Gmail accounts, each with its own email address. Each free Gmail account comes with 15GB of inbox storage space, enough to hold around 300,000 messages before you have to start deleting some to make room for incoming email. You can always choose to convert to a paid email account and get unlimited storage.
Gmail lets you log into multiple email accounts at once and simply toggle between them without having to log out and re-enter your credentials each time. We found this to be a very helpful perk especially if you have a personal Gmail account and another dedicated to your work or home business. This multi-account feature works on mobile, too, so you’re always connected and can quickly access important email while on the go. It’s hard to attach files to outgoing messages using the Gmail app, though, since it only allows you to upload one file at a time.
How Much Can I Expect to Pay for a Premium Email Account?
Email services typically charge between $2 and $10 per month for their paid services, depending on how much mail you need to send and receive. The biggest differences between free and paid email services is the size of the files you’re allowed to attach to outgoing mail, how many emails you can send per day, how much backup and inbox space you’re given, and the level of customer support you can access. Most free email services give you enough inbox and online backup space combined to hold hundreds of thousands of emails, but they typically limit the number of email messages you can send in a day to about 100. This is plenty for most people using an email account for personal use. But if you have a home business or know a lot of people you need to email every day, then it may be worth purchasing an email account with unlimited outbound messaging.
What to Look For When Choosing a Free Email Service
Inbox and Folders
Nearly all free email services have inbox ads, so there’s that most services include. Since they’re all but unavoidable, look for services that make them less obtrusive. Some place ads to the side, so they don’t create too much distraction. However, some services place ads all around the inbox, making it difficult to navigate the program. Some free email services even allow pop-up ads that cover your inbox and require you to click out of them to access your messages.
Nearly all free email services have inbox ads, so there’s that most services include. Since they’re all but unavoidable, look for services that make them less obtrusive. Some place ads to the side, so they don’t create too much distraction. However, some services place ads all around the inbox, making it difficult to navigate the program. Some free email services even allow pop-up ads that cover your inbox and require you to click out of them to access your messages.
Pay attention to the amount of inbox storage available, because once you reach the cap, you’ll have to start deleting messages in order to receive more. Many free email services offer a terabyte or even unlimited storage, which is helpful if you tend to receive messages with large attachments, like image and video files. However, even a few gigabytes of storage gives you enough space to hold between 100,000 and 300,000 messages.
Free email services do cap the number of email messages you can send out per day. This is to cut down on spam messages sent with their services. The cap is generally around 100 messages per day, which is sufficient for keeping in touch with family or other personal email uses. But if you need an email service for business purposes, it may be better to purchase an email service that permits unlimited messages each day.
Composition Tools
It’s easy to write and send email messages with any service once you figure out where the New Message and Send buttons are. It’s more important to examine the attachment features, including the maximum file size you can send and whether you can preview files once they are attached.
It’s easy to write and send email messages with any service once you figure out where the New Message and Send buttons are. It’s more important to examine the attachment features, including the maximum file size you can send and whether you can preview files once they are attached.
During testing, we looked at the maximum size allowed for attached files. Most of the accounts we tested can handle between 20MB and 25MB, which is about six professional images or 10 snapshots taken with a point-and-shoot camera. It was also important for us to see a thumbnail of the file once we uploaded it, so that we could confirm we had attached the correct one.
Securing Your Email
According to Mitch Stephens, a security consultant for Emagined Security, email attacks are the most common internet threat. “An attacker can send a link that looks similar to another link you are familiar with,” Stephens told us, and when you open it, you’ll see a site that looks legitimate and asks for your login information. Once you enter it, the attacker then has your credentials to log into the real site and gather even more personal information. These are known as phishing schemes, or phishing attacks.
According to Mitch Stephens, a security consultant for Emagined Security, email attacks are the most common internet threat. “An attacker can send a link that looks similar to another link you are familiar with,” Stephens told us, and when you open it, you’ll see a site that looks legitimate and asks for your login information. Once you enter it, the attacker then has your credentials to log into the real site and gather even more personal information. These are known as phishing schemes, or phishing attacks.
“The best way to protect yourself from phishing attacks is by only opening email from trusted or known sources,” said Stephens.
You can also install internet security programs to your computer that include antiphishing tools to help block these schemes from getting into your inbox to begin with. We’ve tested many internet security programs and recommend Bitdefender Internet Security and McAfee LiveSafe, which both come with antiphishing tools.
Email Safety Practices: How to Spot a Scam Email
If you have a landline, cell phone or email, you’ve undoubtedly received shady phone calls or messages. Scammers use shock and fear tactics to try to get you to quickly send money or give up personal information. In one of the most common scams, someone contacts you pretending to be from the IRS. In response, the IRS has released an article identifying the five tell-tale signs of an IRS scam. You should never give your personal information over the phone or through email.
If you receive an email or call from someone claiming your computer is out of date, be very wary. If they further ask you for your personal information, Wi-Fi information or IP address, you’ll know for certain it’s a scam. They’re simply trying to steal your identity or hack your computer. If you’re uncertain, contact the actual company they claim to represent to see if there is anything wrong with your accounts.
Further Ways to Spot a Scam Email:
- If they try to pressure you into giving personal or credit card info, it’s a scam.
- Look at the sender’s email address. If the name is a near misspelling of an established company, it’s a scam. (i.e. “Chase Bnk” instead of “Chase Bank”)
- If there are a lot of grammatical errors and fractured sentences, the email most likely wasn’t sent from an official company.
- Prize winner emails are always scams unless you specifically remember signing up for something. Even then, it could still be a scam.
- If they sidestep your questions and pummel you with threats and fears, it’s a scam.
To better protect yourself, consider purchasing eScan, an anti-virus software that recognizes spam messages that are specifically tailored to you.
More Internet Guides:
Best OverallGmail
Gmail is the easiest email service to use and the only one that doesn’t include inbox ads. It has all the features the best service should, such as mail collection, auto reply and spam filters.
Jul 18, 2017 Free WAV MP3 Converter is a software with a pretty suggestive title. It can encode WAV files to the MP3 format and viceversa. It can encode WAV files to the MP3. Customer Review about The Best WAV to MP3 converter for Mac “There are tons of such audio converter software all over the internet.However, we’ve chosen All2MP3 for Mac as the best one. All2MP3 for Mac is an extremely simple and handy Mac software for converting audio files.
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail lets you add email addresses to a block list so that messages from these senders never make it into any folder in your account, including the trash and spam folders.
Best for Email Encryption ProtonMail
ProtonMail encrypts all outgoing messages so they can’t be read by anyone except the receiver once it reaches their inbox.
Product | Price | Overall Rating | Inbox & Folder Settings | Composition Tools | Security Tools & Filters | Conveniences | Help & Support | Ease of Use | Daily Message Limit | Mail Collector | Mobile Service | IMAP Support | Inbox Storage | Message Translator | Import Social Media Contacts | Aliases | Spam Filters | Suspicious Account Activity Alert | Secure Sign-In | Phishing Blocks | Virus Scanning | View Attachments | Average Upload Time | Multiple Image Upload | Auto Reply | Conversation View | Max Attachment Size | Pop-Out Window | Standout Feature | Task Calendar | Custom Themes | Video Chat | Chat/Instant Messaging | FAQ | Email Support | Forums |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gmail | View Deal | 5/5 | 10 | 9.8 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 100% | 100 | ✓ | 80% | ✓ | 15GB | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Automatic | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16.5 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 25MB | ✓ | Message Translator | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Yahoo Mail | View Deal | 5/5 | 10 | 9.8 | 10 | 8.8 | 10 | 85% | 500 | ✓ | 95% | ✓ | 1TB | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Automatic | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 4 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 25MB | ✓ | Block Sender | ✓ | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Outlook | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 9.8 | 10 | 7.8 | 10 | 10 | 80% | 100 | ✓ | 100% | ✓ | 1TB | * | ✓ | ✓ | Manual | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 4 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 50MB | ✓ | 50MB Attachment Limit | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
AOL Mail | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 7.8 | 10 | 9.8 | 8.8 | 10 | 90% | 200 | ✓ | 75% | ✓ | Unlimited | - | - | - | Manual | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | .5 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 25MB | ✓ | Fast Load Time | ✓ | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
GMX | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 9 | 10 | 7.8 | 10 | 9.5 | 90% | Undisclosed | ✓ | 90% | ✓ | Unlimited | - | ✓ | ✓ | Manual | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 4 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 50MB | ✓ | Unlimited Inbox Storage | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Zoho Mail | View Deal | 4.5/5 | 8.8 | 9.8 | 7.8 | 10 | 10 | 95% | 250 | ✓ | 90% | ✓ | Unlimited | - | - | ✓ | Manual | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | .5 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 20MB | ✓ | Mail Collecting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
iCloud | View Deal | 4/5 | 8.5 | 9.8 | 5.8 | 6.3 | 5.8 | 90% | 1000 | ✓ | 75% | ✓ | 5 GB | - | - | ✓ | Manual | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | 2 sec | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 20MB | ✓ | Mac Compatible | ✓ | - | - | - | ✓ | - | - |
ProtonMail | View Deal | 3.5/5 | 7.8 | 7 | 5.8 | 5 | 6.8 | 90% | 150 | $ | 70% | $ | 500MB | - | - | $ | Manual | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | 2.5 sec | ✓ | - | ✓ | 25MB | ✓ | Message Encryption | - | ✓ | - | - | ✓ | ✓ | - |
Related Product Reviews
Like it or not, email is a part of our lives. What started as an exciting declaration of “You’ve got mail!” has become a nonstop nuisance of beeps, buzzes and dings. All day long we’re inundated with a barrage of messages, and it’s all we can do to keep up. Important emails can get lost under the weight of so many extraneous ones, as our inboxes bulge at the virtual seams.
Apple’s own Mail app has gone from just respectable to pretty great, at least since iOS 6. For many users, there’s no need to go searching for another email app. Its standout feature is still simplicity, but it also benefits from superb Maps and Calendar integration, VIP filtering, and support for large attachments. And if there’s a third-party email client that can match Mail’s annotation capabilities, I haven’t found it.
But while Mail may be one of the few stock iOS apps users don’t immediately banish to a deep, dark folder, many habitual emailers will still seek out a third-party alternative. And that’s where my quest to find the best iOS email app began.
A year ago, Orchestra Inc’s Mailbox was the clear leader, but even if it hadn’t shut down last month, retaining its top spot would have been difficult. Today’s great email clients go beyond simply separating the messages that need your immediate attention from the ones that don’t. Before you can attack your inbox, you need a client that makes you want to spend time with it, and developers have elevated their mobile email clients beyond what desktop apps can offer, with rich, gesture-heavy interfaces perfect for Multi-Touch screens.
Winner: Spark
iPhone users of a certain generation can remember the day Sparrow landed in the App Store. Following in the footsteps of its stellar desktop app, Sparrow was sadly shut down before it had a chance to truly spread its wings. But you need look no further than Spark (free in the App Store) to see what it could have become.
It’s not that Spark is derivative of Sparrow, more that it’s just as ambitious. Developed by Readdle, Spark understands productivity in a way few other email apps do, giving a sense of clarity to your inbox even before you start jettisoning emails to the future or the trash. It starts with the smart inbox, an option in the sidebar that automatically filters your unread emails into a separate space. Similarly, newsletters and promotions are separated from personal messages so you can instantly see what’s important.
Spark’s smart inbox isn’t just about organization. By utilizing a card system, you can act on bunches of emails at once, deleting, snoozing, or pinning blocks of messages with a single swipe. You can navigate between individual messages by swiping left or right, a small time-saver that makes a big difference when churning through a crowded inbox. Spark even lets you dial down notifications to just the emails it thinks are important, kind of like how Mail separates VIPs from the rest of pack, only you don’t have to manually flag the worthy contacts.
But Spark’s smarts don’t stop there. The app connects to all of the major cloud services (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Evernote, etc.), so you can attach and save files with ease, while slick Pocket compatibility lets you save links for later reading. A Fantastical-like natural search engine even amplifies your searches, helping you find messages and attachments more accurately, and you can save frequent searches. Mac program for windows. The composing process is just as pleasant, with clear buttons to add attachments and photos, and after you send a message, an undo button gives you five seconds to change your mind and prevent it from being delivered.
Spark isn’t lacking in the looks department, either. A slide-out sidebar set against a sky-colored gradient keeps your accounts, folders, and cards organized, and you can access your smart inbox and attachments here as well. Above your inbox, Spark’s family of tiny widgets can give you quick access to your appointments on the built-in calendar, or provide a shortcut to one of your favorite folders.
Spark’s interface is extremely customizable, from the widgets to the cards to the swipes. Things can be tweaked, shifted, or removed altogether, making Spark one of the fastest and most adaptable clients I’ve used. It can operate under the common “Inbox Zero” rules of snoozing and archiving, but what makes Spark superior is how it doesn’t force you into any one method. It simply gives you the control you need to properly manage your messages.
Runner-Up: AirMail
Most modern email apps allow a certain level of customization, letting you adjust the behavior of gestures and swipes, set alert sounds for each mail account, even tweak accent colors and avatars. But even if you were to combine every option in every email client mentioned here into some kind of super settings, it likely still wouldn’t be able to measure up to the amazing personalization of Airmail ($5 in the App Store).
On the surface, Airmail is little more than a good-looking mobile client that relies on common organization methods to manage your inbox. Buttons at the bottom of the screen provide one-touch filtering, letting you dial down your messages to just the ones containing attachments or only those that are part of a conversation thread. But nothing about them is particularly innovative. In fact, it wasn’t until I looked for a way to hide those buttons when I discovered Airmail’s true power.
What Is The Best Email Program For Windows 10
Tapping on the settings button in Airmail’s sidebar is like opening a whole new app. Where other apps more or less force you to learn their way of doing things, Airmail’s default interface is merely a suggestion. You can customize everything from the appearance to the swipes, snoozes, and services, and it’ll probably take days, if not weeks, before you settle on the perfect combination.
There are so many actions and options to choose from, it looks more like an automation app than an email client. Many of the apps here use iCloud sync to keep versions in sync, but what Airmail offers is significantly more powerful than an on-off switch. Not only can you choose specific accounts to sync, you can get downright forensic with what gets sent to the cloud. Every single setting has its own toggle, so if you want to sync your right-swipe setting but not your left one, Airmail can accommodate that.
What Is The Best Mail Program For A Mac
Speaking of swipes, there’s no shortage of ways to customize them, with more than a dozen individual actions, from archiving a message to shipping it off to another app. The same goes for interactive notifications, which feature an array of options that go far beyond the usual “mark as read” and “send to trash” choices.
Mozilla Thunderbird
For power users, Airmail connects to some 30 apps and services, letting you hook up with your Dropbox, Google, and Box, while also saving links to Pocket or sending snippets of text to Evernote and Editorial. For serial organizers, it offers tremendous control over folder mapping, and you can assign labels for just about everything. Additionally, it lets you set limits on automatic downloading for attachments, change the counter shown on the badge, and set aliases. And if you want to just turn off the filters, you can do that, too.
Airmail might not have a have-to-try feature that will lure people to download it, but its distinction isn’t in what it does, it’s in what it allows you to do. As an email client, it won’t introduce anything that changes your routine, but it will give you the tools you need to set up your dream inbox, no matter how many messages you want to keep in it.
Best for minimalists: CloudMagic
Mailbox’s popularity wasn’t just about clean inboxes. Along with its scheduling prowess came a beautiful design that was minimal yet functional. If you’ve been searching for something similar, CloudMagic (free in the App Store) is every bit as light and airy as its name suggests.
CloudMagic understands that minimalism is about more than sparsity, and its interface doesn’t make you hunt to find any of its features. The elegant typography and layout give the app a natural, logical feel that works well at a glance. For example, when you’re in the unified inbox, strips of color delineate your accounts, a subtle way to separate messages without adding distraction.
Even with limited customization and the vaguest sense of Inbox Zero, CloudMagic manages to provide order to your email. It dispenses of things like snoozing and scheduling in favor of smart integration with the other productivity apps and services you already use. With just a tap or two, you can set a due date in Todoist or add to a Trello list without having to bounce back and forth between the two apps.
But the real magic comes from its smart interface. By putting a premium on simplicity, CloudMagic helps you navigate your inbox without crowding the screen with unnecessary buttons—only what’s essential.
Best for professionals: Outlook
Microsoft’s Outlook desktop app has always been the first name in enterprise email. Even more than professional features like calendar and Office integration, seamless syncing, and top-notch organization, Outlook has always brought the privacy and security that businesses crave.
And the mobile Outlook app (free in the App Store) continues in that vein. While some users questioned its commitment to security when it merged Accompli and Sunrise into Outlook mobile, Microsoft hasn’t fallen asleep at the wheel. A series of steady upgrades have brought important features like multi-factor authentication and OAuth for Office 365 accounts, as well as mobile device and application management capabilities. And the most recent update added Touch ID support for an extra level of on-device privacy.
The Best Email Program
And Outlook on iOS isn’t lacking in professional features either. A clean, focused inbox puts important messages front and center, while a dedicated tab lets you easily browse attachments as well as files stored in cloud drives. A full calendar lets you see your schedule, add events and RSVP to invites without even opening the message, while a handy in-app address book filters messages, events, and files by sender.
Best for Gmail: Inbox
Let’s face it, the majority of people aren’t actively working to achieve Inbox Zero. Most of us never see the bottom of our inboxes, drowning in the mostly unread promos, newsletters, and announcements that flood our accounts each day. While other clients here attempt to solve this by shielding them from view, Google has taken a more organizational approach to the problem with Inbox (free in the App Store).
Instead of having you sift through a massive container of emails, Inbox sorts your messages into bundles. Things like promos, purchases, and trips are all automatically sorted as they arrive, and even personal messages are arranged by time. You can also create your own groups based on a variety of criteria, and since Inbox doesn’t hide these messages from view, you’ll be more likely to see and act on them.
Inbox also supports snoozing and scheduling, as well as a smart toggle that collects any messages you’ve pinned, but it’s most effective when you let it do the heavy lifting for you. After all, since Google is to blame for much of the targeted advertising we receive anyway, it’s only natural that Google would find the best way to deal with it.
Best for Getting Things Done: Dispatch
Even if you dutifully empty your inbox every day, eventually you’re going to have to act on all those snoozed and scheduled messages. Many of the apps here will let you schedule events and reminders, even set to-dos, but if you have serious work to do in your inbox, Dispatch ($7 in the App Store) is the only one you can count on to make sure every last thing gets done.
Dispatch is about actions. The usual ones are here via swipes and buttons, but it goes much further than simple replies. The app acts like more of a hub than an email client, connecting to dozens of popular apps ready to do your bidding. Every message has the potential to be transformed into something more specific, whether that’s a task for Clear, a note in Drafts, or a reminder for Fantastical. The precise wording can be edited within the app and shipped off in seconds, letting you quickly get to work on the next message.
And if all you need to do is reply, Dispatch even does than with efficiency, storing snippets of text that can be accessed and pasted into messages to cut down on repetition. Dispatch might not get you to Inbox Zero quicker than the other clients here, but it’ll be much more satisfying than merely filing away your messages until a later date.
Others of note
While the email apps here run the gamut of what can be done with an inbox, there are many more excellent options available in the App Store.