Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/11/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>>> Does such a program exist? >>> >>> If so, what program best fills the bill? There are two radically different ways that a mail program can operate. In the first way, it keeps all of the mail locally on your computer, and interacts with the server only for the purpose of getting new mail and sending outgoing mail. In the second way, it keeps all of the mail on the server, and interacts with the server for everything that it does. If you will be reading your mail from more than one location, or from both regular mail and webmail, then you usually benefit from having the mail live on the server. (Plus, servers customarily have more reliable backups). If searching your mail is a primary concern, or if you want to be able to review old mail when you are not online, then you usually benefit from having the mail live on your computer. The usual nicknames for these two modes of operation are POP and IMAP. If your mail client is configured to use POP, it will keep the mail locally. If it is configured to use IMAP (or Microsoft's MAPI), it will keep the mail on the server. Any given mail program is architected to work best with one of these methods and to work adequately with the other. Apple's Mail program seems to have been designed to work best with IMAP -- the "leave the mail on the server" mode. I'm guessing the way you asked your question that you are a POP (keep mail locally) user. I have personal experience with 5 mail programs on the Mac: Apple's Mail.app Eudora Mulberry Thunderbird Entourage (this is a version of Outlook, but for the Mac) You're already using Mail.app. Eudora is old and unmaintained and there will never be a major new release of it again. Mulberry is what I use, but it is not for everyone, and it is pretty much useless in POP mode. Entourage (from Microsoft) is the most common choice of businesses that use Mac OS. Thunderbird is the most common choice of computer geeks, but it, too, is now unmaintained and will eventually fade away as Eudora has.