Mail clients with smarter inboxes, Gmail focus or open-source freedom.
Smart inbox for many accounts, with team features
An email client with a Smart Inbox that groups messages, smart notifications, unlimited accounts and a built-in calendar. Paid plans add AI and team features.
Our take The best all-round upgrade from Apple Mail for most people, and the free plan covers unlimited accounts and the Smart Inbox. AI and team features need a paid plan.
Free; Plus $99/year on the Mac App Store as of Oct 2026by Readdle Technologies Limited
Native Mac email client built for Gmail
A native macOS email client that connects directly to Gmail through the Gmail API, with support for multiple accounts and aliases. Requires macOS 12 or newer.
Our take The best choice if you use Gmail or Google Workspace and want a fast native Mac app that talks to Gmail directly. It does not support other providers.
$4.99/month or $49.99/year as of Oct 2026
Free, open-source email with calendar and contacts
A free, open-source email app from the Mozilla family with a unified inbox, calendars, contacts, tags and extensions. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.
Our take The pick if you want a free, open-source client with no account or vendor servers in between. It is very customizable but does not look or feel like a native Mac app.
FreeMPL-2.0 licence
Email with AI help and built-in PGP encryption
An email app for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows and Android that supports Google, Outlook, Exchange, iCloud, Yahoo, Proton Mail and more. It offers AI drafting and summaries plus PGP end-to-end encryption.
Our take Worth a look if you need PGP encryption or want AI features without Spark. The free plan is limited to 2 devices, and PGP is in the top paid tier.
Free; Growth $36/year, Pro+ $100/year as of Oct 2026by Cartasec Pte. Ltd.
Fast, customizable mail client for Apple devices
An email client for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro that supports Gmail, iCloud, Exchange, Office 365, IMAP and POP3 accounts, with many customization options.
Our take For people who want one native client for many account types across Apple devices, including Vision Pro. It is subscription-based for the full feature set.
Pro $49.99/year on the Mac App Store as of Oct 2026by Bloop S.R.L
Keyboard-driven IMAP client with Markdown composing
An IMAP email client for macOS with keyboard control, Markdown composition, powerful searches and encryption support.
Our take A favorite of power users who want plain-text, Markdown and complex smart mailboxes. Development is slow: version 2.0 has been in beta since December 2024 and the last blog update was July 2025.
$10 every 3 months; free for personal use as of Oct 2026
No app in this category matches that filter.
| App | Price | Model | Open source | App Store |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spark |
Free tier | Free tier | – | Yes |
| Mimestream |
$4.99/mo | Subscription | – | – |
| Thunderbird |
Free | Free | MPL-2.0 | – |
| Canary Mail |
Free tier | Free tier | – | Yes |
| Airmail |
$49.99/yr | Subscription | – | Yes |
| MailMate |
Free tier | Free tier | – | – |
Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI assistant that can open links. It reads the list, asks about your Mac and budget, and suggests a short list.
Help me choose the right email app for my Mac. Read https://dockpicks.com/email/ and its plain-text version, https://dockpicks.com/email.md. Ask me which Mac I have, what I use it for and my budget, then recommend a short list from that page with the free and paid trade-offs, and say if the tool built into macOS is enough.