How many times did you check your email today? If you’re like most Americans, you checked it on average 15 times.
In other words, you checked email every 37 minutes.
The average professional spends 27% of their workweek managing email. That’s just over a quarter of their working time wasted.
If you could cut that time by half you’d increase your productivity by almost 15%.
The right email client can help you save time, be more productive, which could translate to better job performance, raises, and promotions.
It seems crazy, but the right email software can change your life.
Email generally isn’t a productive use of your time at work. The less time you spend on it the more time you have to do tasks that move the needle.
I’ve put together a list of the best email clients for Mac and Windows.
Don’t miss my review of the best email api services.
What is an email client?
Email clients provide a visual interface for you to interact with, create, and send emails. They can enable you to be more efficient through shortcuts, hotkeys, and streamlined UIs.
They also enable you to connect multple email accounts, so you view multiple inboxes in one place instead of switching between accounts or tabs in your browser.
Don’t miss my guide on cc and bcc in email.
Best Email Clients
Best Email Clients For Mac
1. Superhuman
Superhuman is the fastest email experience ever made. Every interaction takes 100ms or less which is super fast.
I’ve done a full review of Superhuman after using it for over three years and it’s still my pick for best email client.
As of 2023 I still use Superhuman and it’s my #1 choice for email clients.
If you want a Superhuman invite send me an email: hey at nicklafferty dot com
Pricing
Superhuman costs $30/month.
Yes, you read that correctly. 30 bucks for an email client.
How could it possibly be worth that much?
Superhuman is part of a new category of software tools catered to the professional consumer, or prosumer.
These people are willing to shell out big bucks to make their professional lives easier and more efficient. Superhuman plugs right into that ecosystem by offering to help you sift through your email in record speed.
Superhuman is best suited for email power users. People who get 1000’s of email a day and send 100’s back.
And they have one of the biggest software waitlists ever. It’s over 350,000 people waiting to get access.
Features
- Integrates with common email providers like Gmail
- The best shortcuts of any app I’ve used
- A white-glove on-boarding experience. A real human walks you through your first 30 minutes using Superhuman on a video call.
- Customizable snippets to create templates for common responses.
2. Spark
I personally used Spark before I received my Superhuman invite. Spark is one of the best free email clients because of it’s feature set and flexibility.
The downside? Spark is only available for Macs right now.
Spark for Windows is coming soon but is not currently available. I’ll update this post when it launches.
Pricing
Spark has two pricing tiers, a Free tier and a Premium tier.
Premium starts at $7.99/month and includes the following features:
- Priority Support
- 10gb file storage (up from 5gb on the free plan)
- Unlimited collaborators (up from 2 on the free plan)
- Unlimited templates (up from 5 on the free plan)
The great thing about Spark is you don’t need to pay for it. The free features are perfectly fine for the average email user.
Features
Here are my favorite Spark features:
- Snooze emails for later
- A smart inbox powered by AI
- Google Docs like team collaboration features.
- Reply templates
- Dark mode
- Send later
- Integrations with Dropbox, Google Drive, Pocket, and more.
3. Airmail
My experience with email clients started with Airmail around 2014. Airmail won an Apple Design Award in 2017 and it shows, their app is gorgeous.
Airmail set the design standard for what the best email clients on Mac should look like.
I first used Airmail when their pricing model was a one-time payment. I think I paid like $20 or $30 and got access to the current version and the next one.
Eventually they switched to a subscription model.
Pricing
Airmail has a free tier, and their professional level costs $2.99/month or $9.99/year.
The pricing is reasonable, especially compared to Superhuman.
Features
Here’s a short list of Airmail’s features:
- Multi-accounts
- Unified inbox
- Send later
- Snooze
- Privacy mode
- Full iPhone and iPad support.
I eventually stopped using Airmail when my version was outdated, but it’s still a solid email client.
4. eM Client
This is the first email software on the list that is compatible with both Macs and PCs.
Pricing
eM Client has a free tier that is perfect for the casual email user.
It’s limited to only 2 email accounts and doesn’t have several of the advanced features I’ll list below.
They do offer a free 30 day trial of their Pro plan to give you time to test it out.
The main downside to the Free plan is it’s not allowed for commercial use, which includes for business use.
eM Client’s Pro pricing is a one-time payment of $50.
That payment gives you access to the current version. When the next version launches you’ll need to pay a little bit extra (currently $29) to upgrade.
You can also purchase a lifetime license for an additional $70.
Those prices are steep compared to the smaller monthly fees of Spark or Airmail, but the flip-side is you only have one payment.
Features
Here are the premium features only available on eM Client’s Pro plan:
- Commercial use
- Notes
- Snooze email
- Send later
- Message encryption
eM Client is a solid alternative to Spark and Airmail for users who dislike adding yet another monthly subscription to life.
5. Thunderbird
Thunderbird is old school, it launched in 2004. It’s the only fully-free and open source email client on this list.
It’s also built by Mozilla, the folks behind the popular Firefox browser.
Open source software is popular with developers, and for good reason. It promotes better software that is community supported.
I used Thunderbird almost 10 years ago, and the landscape of email clients has changed drastically since then.
Thunderbird is the most Outlook-like email client on this list. By that I mean its design and feature set most mirror Microsoft’s famous Outlook email software. There’s even a built in calendar, tasks, and chat.
Pricing
Thunderbird is free. Forever.
Features
The coolest feature of Thunderbird is its tabs, similar to most modern web browsers.
Here’s a short list of Thunderbird’s features:
- Privacy first. Do-not-track settings.
- Add-ons and extensions, similar to Firefox.
- OpenPGP encryption
- Open source, funded by donations.
- Tabbed email
6. Postbox
Private. Secure. Powerful.
That’s how Postbox describes itself when you first land on their website.
Postbox is compatible with both Macs and PCs, like eM Client and Thunderbird.
Here’s Postbox’s commitment to Privacy:
- We will not transmit your email data to our servers.
- We will not scan your emails, looking for data to sell.
- We will not target you with 3rd-party ads.
- We will not share your personal information with anyone, ever.
- We will not censor, filter, or log your content in any way.
I love that they come out and list that right on their homepage. Privacy is so important now with companies like Google and Facebook using and selling as much of your data as they can get their hands on.
Your email should be a private space that only you have access to.
Pricing
Postbox has one pricing tier.
You pay once and get lifetime access. Right now the price is 33% off: $39.
That’s a great deal for a private and secure email client.
Your Postbox license is good to use on as many computers as you own. It’s a personal license and supports as many inboxes as you have too.
Features
Postbox has some great features for it’s price point
- Works with all popular email providers
- Grouped accounts
- Folders
- Tabbed Email
- Fast & powerful search
- Templates & pre-canned responses
- Full HTML code editor
- Dark mode
- Full theme support
Postbox is an attractive option for anyone looking for a privacy-first email client that is supported on both Windows and Macs.
Best Email Clients for Windows 10
1. Mailbird
Mailbird is an email client for Windows. It does not currently support Macs but it’s on the roadmap. I’ll update this post when that version comes out.
It’s nice to see an email client support Windows right out the gate. Usually developers will start with Mac support and then move over to Windows.
Mailbird supports many themes and layouts that are optimized for Windows.
It also integrates with Google Calendar, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Twitter, Slack, and more
Pricing
Mailbird costs $39/year, or you can buy a lifetime license for $79.
I’m a fan of the one-time payment for email clients, and Mailbird has a good pricing structure.
There is no free version, but Mailbird has a 14 day money back guarantee. So you can try it out and get a full refund if you don’t like it.
Features
- Unified Inbox
- Customizable Layout
- Windows support
- App integrations
- Snooze
- Dark Theme
- LinkedIn lookup
2. EM Client
See my eM Client review above.
3. Thunderbird
See my Thunderbird review above.
4. Postbox
Honorable Mentions
Not every email client made my initial list. Here’s a few others that look really promising.
Mimestream
Mimestream is a native macOS email client for Gmail that one of my readers encouraged me to check out.
They’re currently in a free beta period but they eventually plan to switch to a paid model.
Most email clients use the IMAP protocol which was initially designed in 1986.
Mimestream is different because it uses the Gmail API which is faster, more robust, and overall a more modern solution to managing email.
However, that limits Mimestream to only work with Gmail inboxes. Thankfully there are over 1.5 billion Gmail users worldwide as of 2019.
Mimestream supports multiple accounts, labels, and native support for Gmail’s categories like Primary, Social, and Promotions.
Mimestream says they will never collect and sell your information.
Spike
Spike is a conversational and collaborative email client. It’s design is much more like a text conversation than your traditional email client. Spike takes an old school technology like email and brings it into the modern era with tasks and collaborative notes.
Using Spike truly feels much more conversational. The entire design and UI changes how you communicate with people and makes using common email cliches of “Hi , hope you are well!” feel awkward and unnecessary.
Spike has recently added new features, like the ability to send voice messages over email and fully integrated video calls. Spike is transforming into a collaborative communication platform that goes beyond just sending emails.
Spike is cross-platform and supports both Macs, PCs, iOS, and Android.
Pricing
Spike has a competitive free tier that includes up to 15k message history and 5gb of storage. Plenty for the average user to get a feel for using it.
Upgrading to $15/month gets you unlimited messaging history, 50gb of storage, access to priority support, and the ability to start a video call with up to 10 people. Perfect for the email power user.
The next tier is for Teams which requires a minimum of 2 seats which cost $10/month each. This tier gives you almost unlimited everything with video calls limited to 50 people. Message storage is also increased to 100GB.
Lastly their business tier is best suited for larger organizations trying to roll Spike out to entire business units. Pricing there starts at $7/month billed annually and includes a dedicated account manager.
Features
- Conversational email (more like a text than an email)
- Video Meetings
- Voice messages
- Collaborative notes & tasks
- Group chat
- Advanced search
- Calendar integration with Google, Outlook, and Apple Calendar
- Priority inbox
- Read receipts
- Unified Inbox
What Is An Email Client?
An email client is software that helps process, store, and manage your email. They’re typically run as standalone desktop or mobile apps. Web-based, or browser-based, email tools are called web mail clients.
The two most common browser-based web mail clients are Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
There are many types of email software, so what’s the best one? I’ll break down the best email clients for both Windows and Mac as some are only available on one platform.
Why Use An Email Client?
Email clients have several advantages over using a web-based mail client.
- Your data is stored locally on your computer. This enables you to access it offline, for instance on an airplane or bus.
- They’re more configurable. You have finer controls over settings, shortcuts, and other options.
- You can manage multiple inboxes. Most people have both a personal and a work email. Email clients let you manage them both in the same application.
- They connect to many of the common email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.
Wrapping Up
My favorite email client for mac is Superhuman.
My favorite email client for Windows 10 is eM Client.
If you can’t get access to Superhuman, then I’d recommend checking out eM Client for Windows.
Did I miss your favorite one? Send me an email and let me know.
