Rating: 
I have to admit that I never paid much attention to the Mailsmith
email client in the past. I've been aware of it for years as an
extra-strength and very expensive application designed for Macintosh
users by BareBones Software - developers of the formidable BBEdit
professional-grade text editor and its excellent TextWrangler freeware
companion program.
I had no doubt that Mailsmith would be a good email client, but
selling for $100 - more than twice what other commercial software email
clients - such as classic Eudora - sold for, and $100 more than
Mozilla.org's Thunderbird, could it be that much better? I couldn't
imagine so.
However, BareBones Software recently announced it had transferred
ownership of Mailsmith to Stickshift Software LLC, which is releasing
Mailsmith 2.2 as freeware.
Stickshift Software is distributing the program and providing online
support.
The BBEdit of Email Clients
The philosophy behind Mailsmith isn't likely to change much, since
Stickshift Software's owner and principal, Rich Siegel, is founder and
CEO of BareBones Software. He says that henceforth Mailsmith will be
strictly a labor of love, noting that he's in the unique position of
being able to support the program for others who use and rely on it,
and that his new company's sole purpose is to provide a home for
Mailsmith, allowing him to continue to focus on his work at BareBones
Software, which remains his first and highest priority.
Anyway, now that it's free, I was intrigued enough to download a
copy of Mailsmith, and I have been trying it out.
Things didn't begin auspiciously. I tried importing my several
hundred megabytes of archived emails from Eudora, which seemed to go
okay, although it took a very long time. But when I tried to open the
archives, I was presented with messages containing indecipherable text.
Not sure what that's about - obviously not a success.
Trying again, I went with a clean install and no imported data, and
then I configured account info from scratch.
One of the things I liked about classic Eudora was its multi-window
user interface, and I discovered that Mailsmith has even more windows
than Eudora. Indeed, perhaps too much of a good thing, to a degree that
I find it a bit much.
Like BBEdit, Mailsmith is more than a bit geeky. If you like
monitoring and micromanaging every aspect of your email, this is the
POP3 client for you (Mailsmith doesn't support IMAP). I suppose I could
get used to it, but I've become a foot-dragging convert to the
Thunderbird/Eudora 8.x interface philosophy since switching to them
last winter.
Mailsmith is powerful and feature-loaded - unlimited filter terms
and actions, stationery, spell check as you type, a spell-checking
dialog window, a powerful search engine, and text editing tools.
Speaking of which, Mailsmith is a plain text program. It doesn't
support rich HTML formatted email - even incoming email is displayed as
plain text.
Mailsmith also doesn't support S/MIME encryption and signing,
but it does integrate with SpamSieve for Bayesian spam
filtering.
AppleScript Power
Not only is Mailsmith a scriptable mail client - giving you
scripting access to checking mail, sending messages, and moving
messages between mailboxes - it's also a fully scriptable text editor.
Most AppleScripts written for BBEdit work in Mailsmith.
Plus, because Mailsmith is recordable, you don't have to know how to
program in AppleScript to create scripts of your own. To start
recording a new script, just choose Start Recording from Mailsmith's
Script menu.
Messages are stored in a single database, which I don't like as well
as the multiple mbox archive format used by Thunderbird and Eudora. It
can (theoretically - see above) import message archives and contact
data from Mail, Eudora, Claris Emailer, Pegasus Mail, and other mbox
files.
Mailsmith integrates with PGP 8 to offer secure messaging, and it
supports TLS/SSL connections.
Direct integration with SpamSieve provides easy to use Bayesian spam
filtering in Mailsmith.
Mailsmith Feature Highlights
- Powerful filtering system to organize and process email
- Stationery and Glossary support
- Pervasive AppleScript support
- Integrated support for SpamSieve
- BBEdit-powered text editing and transformation
- Integrated support for PGP 8.0
- Text-only email
- Integrated support for the Apple Address Book
Fir a complete features list, go
here.
Mailsmith can perhaps best be described as BBEdit for email. If that
concept appeals, you'll probably like it a lot. Personally, I'll stick
with Thunderbird/Eudora 8 - for now at least.
Personally, I'll give it a rating of 2.5 out of 4.
Supported operating systems are Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" through OS
10.6 "Snow Leopard".
Further Reading
