What mail and calendar clients shall I pick for my Mac migration?

frobisher

I'm a techie but new to mac. Please be nice:)

As per earlier posts I'm migrating from PC to Mac. I'm a heavy email user with multiple accounts, I also rely heavily on a calender within my gmail account. So what Mac compatible clients should I look at for email use? And how are they for handling contacts and easy access of old emails? Are there any calendars on Mac that sync seamlessly with the gmail calendar? As I rely on it so much it needs to be rock solid.

Dont be at yourself

I'm not sure if apple's own iCal software allows bidirectional syncing with google's calendar, but I know you can definitely subscribe to it via iCal anyway.

Apple's own Mail.app is as good a mail client as you can get, really. It allows for multiple accounts, filters, folders, pop, imap... and it works seemlessly with iCal too.

Teh Russ

There's a good guide to syncing iCal and Google Calendar here.

And yep, stick with Apple Mail for your email. Lightweight, flexible and with pretty much every feature you'll need. if you need to import an Outlook mail file, there are third-party solutions, or you could just set up a Gmail account, copy all the mail over to it on the PC using IMAP, then set it up on Apple Mail and copy it all back off.

thecommander

Teh Russ wrote: »

There's a good guide to syncing iCal and Google Calendar here.

And yep, stick with Apple Mail for your email. Lightweight, flexible and with pretty much every feature you'll need. if you need to import an Outlook mail file, there are third-party solutions, or you could just set up a Gmail account, copy all the mail over to it on the PC using IMAP, then set it up on Apple Mail and copy it all back off.

You don't need any 3rd party software to keep iCal & Google Cal in sync now. oogle have bulit in CALdav support
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#ical

I use it everyday, never have problems with it and it syncs both ways.

As for email go with Mail

frobisher

I've set up email in mail and have synced my iCal with my gmail through the Calabration download from Google. Brilliant, suddenly my laptop, my gmail calendar and my iPhone are synced. The nerd in me is having a boner!

NOw I have to get my old mails from Outlook Express and Outlook into Mail and have them integrate (sender, subject line, date etc) as well as possible. What's the best way?

440Hz

thecommander wrote: »

You don't need any 3rd party software to keep iCal & Google Cal in sync now. oogle have bulit in CALdav support
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#ical

I use it everyday, never have problems with it and it syncs both ways.

As for email go with Mail

You find it good? That's encouraging. I keep meaning to try that out but never got round to clicking! Perhaps I'll give it a whirl

luckat

440Hz wrote: »

You find it good? That's encouraging. I keep meaning to try that out but never got round to clicking! Perhaps I'll give it a whirl

How is Mail on things like multiple mailboxes and filters? How does it compare with Entourage, say? I've used Eudora for years, but if there was a big advantage in using one of the others I'd switch.

440Hz

luckat wrote: »

How is Mail on things like multiple mailboxes and filters? How does it compare with Entourage, say? I've used Eudora for years, but if there was a big advantage in using one of the others I'd switch.

Mail works well for filtering but personally I have found that it can struggle a little with multiple accounts, not so much with the latest release though. There were times in recent years where I had to disable additional accounts as Mail was getting a little confused! Now it's much better though. Nicely handling for sending from multiple accounts quickly etc etc

As for iCal versus Entourage... I think its personal preference. I think iCal is perhaps the 'home user' option. It works well but it's limited enough. Entourage is certainly a/the popular choice especially for people who use it for work related things. Personally, I do use iCal, mostly because I'm not not as comfortable with Entourage and it seems easier (i.e. lazy) to use what I know and can use quickly rather than adjust to something new!

I'm quite happy with the interaction between Mail and iCal as well, and to sync that with Google just makes life nice and easy, so from that point of view I think I'll stick with this setup.

luckat

Oh, I meant Entourage for mail!

iCal I scarcely use; I'd use it if you could make a list for each day and have alerts, but I don't like the way it streams things down the side.

I'm just trying a new thing with OmniFocus - a daily list that I can tick off and renew each day. No alerts, but it should work well enough.

For alerts - "Invoice that customer that pays monthly today for the last month's work for goodness sake or I'll be paid three months after doing the job, not two" - I use Google Calendar, which emails an alert to me, very handy.

Incidentally, is there any mail app that offers Boolean searches?

NullZer0

frobisher wrote: »

I'm a techie but new to mac. Please be nice:)

As per earlier posts I'm migrating from PC to Mac. I'm a heavy email user with multiple accounts, I also rely heavily on a calender within my gmail account. So what Mac compatible clients should I look at for email use? And how are they for handling contacts and easy access of old emails? Are there any calendars on Mac that sync seamlessly with the gmail calendar? As I rely on it so much it needs to be rock solid.

iCal and Mail ... nuff said
You can sync with Google Calendar with a little bit of configuration.

NullZer0

440Hz wrote: »

Mail works well for filtering but personally I have found that it can struggle a little with multiple accounts, not so much with the latest release though. There were times in recent years where I had to disable additional accounts as Mail was getting a little confused! Now it's much better though. Nicely handling for sending from multiple accounts quickly etc etc

As for iCal versus Entourage... I think its personal preference. I think iCal is perhaps the 'home user' option. It works well but it's limited enough. Entourage is certainly a/the popular choice especially for people who use it for work related things. Personally, I do use iCal, mostly because I'm not not as comfortable with Entourage and it seems easier (i.e. lazy) to use what I know and can use quickly rather than adjust to something new!

I'm quite happy with the interaction between Mail and iCal as well, and to sync that with Google just makes life nice and easy, so from that point of view I think I'll stick with this setup.

Im moving back... but mail has exchange support right? :eek:

Red Alert

iCal and Mail are very good, they're not like Outlook Express.

440Hz

iRock wrote: »

Im moving back... but mail has exchange support right? :eek:

Yup